Nurturing your Kids' Healthy Relationship with Food 

Written By Juliana Crimi

Written by Sabrina Lundsgaard Summer Food Literacy Program Facilitator

Food is part of our everyday life: we eat it to survive, we enjoy it with our families and friends; it’s central to many of our social events, traditions and holidays. 

Since it’s such a large part of all of our lives, every single person has a relationship with food that is influenced by their personal experiences. While every person’s relationship with food is unique, we want to encourage children to have a healthy and balanced relationship with food. Having a negative relationship with food can lead to disordered eating behaviours, negative self-esteem, unrealistic pressure around body weight, and “sneaking” or “hiding” food items from their parents. 

What does having a healthy and balanced relationship with food look like?

  • Growing comfortably in their own body and not attaching self-worth to weight or body image. 

  • Having the capacity to listen to your bodies’ hunger and fullness cues. 

  • Not feeling shame or guilt around what they eat. 

Helping your child develop a healthy relationship with food is a rewarding experience. Still, it can be challenging. 

Reflect on your own thoughts about what you eat and what you look like. This is important because children copy the behaviours of adults they trust. If you speak negatively about your appearance or eating habits, these messages can be internalized by kids. 

To help you reflect on how your experiences with food may impact the example you are setting, read up on these questions that Canada’s Food Guide have suggested. 

Top Tips for Parents

Here are some different tips for you to help your kid develop a healthy and balanced relationship with food:

1. Not attaching morality to food.

We often hear people labelling food as “good” or “bad”, which implies that food has a moral value. This is harmful because it can lead to feelings of guilt and shame when you eat food that you like but isn’t considered “good”.

While there are foods that are more or less nutritious than others, the nutritional content of a food should not dictate how you feel about yourself. 

It’s okay and normal to eat food for reasons other than its nutritional content, for example, we eat cake on birthdays as a celebration! 

Instead of labelling food as “good” or “bad”, you can explain to your children that some foods are “always” or “everyday” foods, while treats are “sometimes” foods. We can explain how nutritious “always” foods help them build strong bodies and give them energy

We can explain that “sometimes foods” can be enjoyable and bring us happiness, but consuming too much of them can prevent us from feeling our best and leave us feeling tired. 

2. Encouraging children to listen to their bodies.

Children are fantastic intuitive eaters, and it’s our responsibility to respect their hunger and fullness cues. Many of us were told to “finish” or “clean our plates.”

While it’s important not to waste food, asking children to finish all their food when they are telling us they are full is essentially asking them to ignore their body cues. This habit can lead to a pattern of overeating that they may carry into adulthood. 

Instead, work with your child to understand how much they want to eat at a mealtime. You can teach them to take smaller portions and come back for seconds if they are still hungry. 

3. Avoid using food as a reward. 

By offering treats as a reward or withholding them as a punishment, we are teaching kids to associate less nutritious foods with good behaviour. It can also be confusing for kids when we advise them to eat whole, healthy foods and avoid treats, yet offer those very treats as rewards for good behaviour. 
Try offering something other than food as a reward to reinforce good behaviour, especially if it’s a reward that’s meaningful to your child. Perhaps it’s playing their favourite game with you or getting extra reading time before bed. 

When we do offer treats, we can offer them in a more neutral setting. Serving desserts or treats with a regular meal can help take the treat off of the emotional pedestal your child may have placed it on. You can still help your children understand that treats are a “sometimes” food that they can occasionally enjoy, but eating too much will stop them from feeling their best. 

Try language like…

  • “That’s all the cake we are having with dinner, but we can have some with tomorrow’s dinner.”

  • “We are going to enjoy some other food at lunch right now, food that will give us energy and make our bodies strong! But we can all have a little ice cream after lunch!”

    4. Promoting body neutrality 

When we express or hear views about our bodies that are negative, it can lead to low self-esteem and an unhealthy relationship with food. It’s important to remember that body size and the numbers you see on the scale do not determine anyone’s worth, nor is it a good measure of physical health. 

Try to avoid commenting on weight and body image, of your own or others. When discussing bodies with children, there are many other amazing aspects to focus on and encourage. Focus on non-weight-related characteristics, and instead encourage them to notice what their bodies are capable of, like…

  • How powerful their legs are because they ran around so much!

  • How strong their arms are when they give you a big hug! 

  • How graceful or energetic they are when they dance! 

5. Involve the kids in cooking

Cooking together offers opportunities to talk about the benefits of the food that you eat. This can help you avoid labelling food as good or bad, as you can talk about the ingredients you are using and what their purpose is. 

When kids are involved in the food shopping and cooking process, it can encourage their curiosity and acceptance of different foods and make them more willing to try new foods! 

The Bottom Line

Our relationship with food is constantly evolving as we learn and grow, but by helping your kids develop a healthy relationship with food from a young age, you are setting them up for long-term success. 

References:

Juliana Crimi
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