If it’s not already obvious, I think parents matter A LOT when it comes to kids’ relationship with food. And the evidence bears this out. While doing research for my book (coming out in 2027), I came across so many interesting studies about how parents shape the way kids relate to food.1
Not surprisingly, parents who are actively dieting and talking about calories and weight are more likely to have kids who share those preoccupations. While some of those children feel anxious around food and start restricting or feeling guilty about eating, others become fixated on having as much of the forbidden fruit as possible, whenever they can.
At the same time, parents can do everything “right” per se and have a child develop an eating disorder anyway. (It’s still well worth it to learn about diet culture so you can spot warning signs earlier, not accidentally encourage disordered behaviors, and create a recovery-supporting home environment).
The pressure to try to optimize kids’ nutrition often does way more harm than good. The standard advice for preventing or reversing “picky eating,” for instance, tends to make everyone miserable and doesn’t result in kids building a healthy relationship with food for the long haul. Is anyone surprised that adults are less likely to eat the foods they were forced to have as children?
Parents who try to make smaller kids consume more food often meet increased resistance to eating while parents who try to urge bigger kids to eat less may find them bingeing, sneaking food, or seeming to lack an “off switch.”
Attempts to “correct” a child’s eating often backfires.
A lot of mealtime misery stems from well-meaning efforts to control things about a child’s eating that we really have no business interfering with, such as their preferences and appetite.2 And at the same time, it’s easy to overlook the impact of things we do have a say over, such as how we talk about food around children and the way we role model healthy eating.
So when you think about the factors that can affect your child’s relationship with food, which ones do you think you can influence?
Their temperament
Their sensory needs
Medical conditions and medications
Their genetic vulnerability to eating disorders
Past experiences with food
Where they are in development
Their body image
Exposure to food marketing
The kind of nutrition education they receive at school
Whether they have access to enough food
How safe, accepted, and relaxed they feel at mealtimes
The way their role models eat and how they talk about food
How much they internalize messages from diet culture
It’s not an exhaustive list, of course. A child’s relationship with food is so personal and nuanced. There are cultural and environmental influences unique to every family. And exposure to the same risk factors—such as food insecurity, traumatic events, or questionable curriculum—won’t affect every kid the same way.
But I hope seeing a range of contributing factors helps you do two things:
Take the pressure off yourself to try to “fix” things in your child that aren’t broken.
and
Feel motivated to keep swimming upstream in diet culture.
How does that feel?
Are there things about your child’s eating—or the food environment in your home—you’re hoping to steer in a certain direction?
What questions do you have about how to support a healthy relationship with food?
I should note that most studies I’ve read focus on mothers, but of course we know fathers have a huge impact on how kids relate to food and their bodies.
If your child has an eating disorder or other medical condition, they may need a lot more parental support with food.
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