That's Garbage
We managed to escape Hurricane Lee's path on the East Coast this weekend, but I haven't been able to escape the proverbial hurricane called back to school. I'm up to my eyeballs in parent meetings, room mom meetings, TPA meetings, coffees and back to school nights. While I love being back in the swing of things, schools are often a place where diet culture lurks.
Leaving one in person meeting this past week, I hopped on a zoom for my daughter's school. They happened to be soliciting help for their "snack shack" which is a little spot on campus where kids can buy all sorts of food after school.
The presenter said, "Now we really need your help and know that you can just pretend that everything being sold to your kids isn't all garbage". Her comment was met with a round of laughter that sounded like it was piped in for a game show. Hello, diet culture. It's these subtle, yet not so subtle, comments that perpetuate anti-fat bias.
The messaging that you give your kids around food is so important and schools are loaded with negative messaging around food. Consider the "healthy snack" message, lunch monitoring encouraging kids to choose different foods or eat foods in a certain order, posters with the food pyramid or plate perfect photos and teachers/peers who say things like, "You can't eat that, it's fake food!"
This is not a slam against teachers who are doing their best and are influenced with anti-fat bias, just like you and me, from the media, news, television, doctors and other friends and family.
What can you do to help your kids navigate diet culture at school?
It's important to talk with your kids about what healthy really means and that you can achieve health in countless ways that have nothing to do with food or your body size. I talk more about this in my book and have practical strategies that you can begin using in your home right away. You can also reach out to teachers and administration about things like "healthy food" curriculum, calorie counting assignments and any kind of weight in (which should never happen at school). Hit reply if you have a situation at your school and I'd be happy to help you craft a response or try these resources from Sunny Side Up Nutrition.
My book can help you combat diet culture at home and school. Raising Anti-Diet Kids: A Parent’s Actionable Guide To Ditch Diets and Cultivate Body Respect is available now. Get your copy today and let Amazon know how much you love it with a 5* star review.
