I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry when I saw the enormous crate of bananas on our front porch. 

This was not an April Fool’s Day joke. 

Let me back up…. 

Having 6 kids means we go through A LOT of food. I despise putting away the Costco size food packages, but we need the volume so it becomes a necessary evil. 

Going to Costco ranks up there with the DMV so I always order through instacart. 

In my ordering haste, I hit “add to cart” on the bananas as if I was shopping our local store through instacart. My usual order of  10 bananas did not equal 10 individual bananas, it meant 10 BUNCHES of nine bananas or NINETY BANANAS. 

Yep, I opened the door to find 90 freaking bananas staring me in the face. Maybe the delivery guy thought we had a monkey? Maybe a beach banana party? Maybe a banana bread making business? Either way, I was stuck with my banana crate. 

My kids really thought this was hilarious and one of...

“Mom, do you know what BFF stands for?”  my son questioned.

”Yeah, of course! It’s best friends forever” I replied in hopes that he might want to ask me to be his new bestie.

“It stands for big, fat friend” he said through giggle fits of laughter. 

”Wait, what?” I questioned. 

“It’s from the penguin movie!” he exclaimed. 

Right, ok. Time to run interference. 

Let me back up.

Nobody does slapstick comedy like Jim Carrey. His spastic style coupled with his stand up comedic roots make for some of the most hilarious movie scenes of our time. 

My son’s class watched Carrey star in the movie, Mr Popper’s Penguins before their class went to see the play*. 

In one scene, one of Carrey’s “kids” is talking about BFF’s and Carrey chimes in saying that it stands for big fat friend. Cue the 6 year old crew in hysterics. 

When I asked why this...

I used to torture my sister on a cold February day with candy that I had saved from Halloween. She tore through her candy, but not me. 

I saved and savored every piece and you can bet I saved the Snickers for last. 

Somewhere in those middle school years, I started avoiding candy, and started torturing myself around food. 

I started to fear holidays that had all the extras. 

Extra food, extra sweets, extra drinks, extra everything. 

Some of you might be dreading Halloween tomorrow with so many temptations and worries about being “bad”. 

I'm not worried anymore though, I'm excited. 

If you're still caught up in diet culture's way around sugar, you might be tempted to say to your kids:

“Keep that stuff away from me.”

“Tonight we’ll be bad, but tomorrow we’ll eat healthy.”

“We’re being so naughty.”

All of these thoughts come compliments of diet culture. Here's what you...

I grew up around constant Dad jokes. 

A really bad answering machine message: 
"You've reached our summer home, some are home, some are not!"

A groaner every time:
"It's time for a honeymoon salad, lettuce alone."

The money joke:
"What do you get when you have 100 cows and deer? 100 sows and bucks!"

Maybe you, too, suffered from this fairly common childhood condition. 

To this day, our house relies and survives on jokes and humor but we never, ever, rely on those jokes being about body size or food consumption. 

I was recently texting with a friend who is increasingly concerned about her daughter's preoccupation with food and body. After we talked, she said, "Well I guess that means I can't joke about being one flu away from my goal weight." 

She's right. Using jokes to poke fun at people who already feel an enormous amount of shame around their body size or to suggest that permanently changing body size is not only possible, but expected, isn't...

A friend of mine just celebrated the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur.  A lengthy fast (usually 24 hours) followed by a big meal. She commented that she loved the holiday, but hated all those foods that made her "puffy". 

Breaking news, the holidays are here, and you just might get a little puffy and it's no big deal. 

And, it's good to remind yourself that one meal or snack or holiday isn't going to drastically or permanently change your size. 

Eat the bagels, the candy, the pie, the casserole that Aunt Linda has made since you were seven years old and the cookies from your Grandma. There's a reason it's affectionately called comfort food. Having foods to feel good or give you a sense of nostalgia is completely normal. 

Your body is smart and knows that not every day is a holiday. It will tell you when you need a little more or a little less food. It's a remarkably fine tuned engine that doesn't need help from the loud voices of diet culture, your...

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...

I sat in the hot sticky sun next to a mom trying to cajole her squirmy toddler into a swim lesson. Her little swimmer was having none of it despite everyone watching the lessons wanting to jump in the cool water to beat the heat. She happened to be eating a ceasar salad and her daughter asked for a bite.

“You can have a bite, but you’re not gonna like it” replied her mom. 

I overheard another parent on the pool deck telling their child that they weren’t full and should try eating a few more bites.

I hate to admit it, but I used to say all these things and more.  

Friends of mine asked me why I wrote my book this weekend, and one of the many reasons I answered was to help parents like the ones I overheard at the pool. While their comments seem innocent, they’re actually undermining their child’s ability to trust their body and make choices around how much and what kind of foods they eat. It’s so important to give kids...