By Annette Sloan

As a health-conscious mom, you want the best for your kids. You work hard to make sure they eat well and get plenty of exercise, because you want them to live long, happy, healthy lives. This is certainly a laudable goal – but have you ever stopped to ask yourself if your approach might be doing more harm than good?

As a health coach who has been on her own journey with food, I’ve learned that sometimes our well-intentioned efforts to promote healthy eating can backfire on us. In this first post of a three-part series, I share an essential DON’T and DO for helping your kids to cultivate a healthy relationship with food.

DON’T: Label foods as good and bad. Kale. Cupcakes. Blueberries. Candy. Admit it – as you read these four words, you automatically labeled each of these foods as “good” or “bad” in your mind. Of course you did, because we all do. We’ve learned that healthy foods are good and unhealthy foods are bad – and most likely, we’re teaching our kids this same mentality. When I was a wellness teacher, I certainly did. Here’s the catch: when we label foods as good or bad, we’re associating our food choices with morality. As in, “I was good; I had a salad for lunch,” and “I was bad; I ate fries last night.” Yes, certain foods offer more nutritional value than others – but WE are not good or bad as a result of what we eat. Our self-worth has nothing to do with our food choices. Do you see how this is a dangerous belief to teach our children? Our kids need to learn that they are worthy no matter what. (For more on this, check out Brené Brown’s book Daring Greatly). Labeling foods as good or bad has another unintended consequence – it makes the “bad” foods much more appealing. We’ve all had the experience of wanting something just because it was off limits. By calling unhealthy foods “bad,” we give them more power. Food companies are already doing everything they can to make junk food highly desirable to kids. Let’s not make their job even easier.

DO: Emphasize how healthy food makes you feel great. Luckily, all you have to do to change your messaging around healthy eating is implement a simple shift in language. Instead of labeling foods as “good” or “bad,” talk with your kids about foods to eat more often and foods to eat less often. Explain that your family eats nourishing, whole foods most of the time because these foods help kids and adults to thrive. A healthy diet gives kids the energy to play and to do well in school. It puts them in a great mood so that they get along with their siblings and friends. It helps them to grow big and strong. Ultimately, a diet made up of mostly healthy foods allows their inner light to shine.
On the flip side, explain to your kids that there is nothing wrong with unhealthy foods. They taste great and give us pleasure. However, your family chooses to eat these foods less often because they don’t nourish us the way healthy foods do. By shifting our language to foods we eat more often and foods we less often, and removing morality from the picture, we put food in its proper place. It’s a source of nourishment and pleasure – nothing more, nothing less.

In Part II of this series, I will share another essential DO and DON’T for helping kids to cultivate a healthy relationship with food. Her business, (w)holehearted, specializes in compassionate health coaching for teen girls. Learn more (and download your free report, “The Savvy Parent: Five Essential Practices for Role-Modeling a Happy, Healthy Relationship with Food,”) at www.healthyteengirls.com.