The Better Behavior Show with Dr. Nicole Beurkens Episode 54: Addressing Weight and Body Image Struggles With Your Children
My guest this week is Eliza Kingsford, a licensed psychotherapist who helps clients and families struggling with food addiction, body image, and emotional eating. Eliza is the author of the best-selling book Brain-Powered Weight Loss and her work has been featured on Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, NBC Health, CNN Health, Health Magazine, MindBodyGreen and many more. Eliza has run two different companies focused on finding solutions for adolescents struggling with overweight and obesity, and she has trained hundreds of clinicians to work with food and body image issues. She is turning the diet industry on its head by combining the science of nutrition with the psychology of eating to create lasting results for her clients.
Episode Highlights
How Do I Handle This?
- We often start with treating the symptom and default our focus on “losing the weight”. Working to treat the cause by looking at behaviors and choices around foods that led to weight gain is much more effective
- This also removes the desire of constantly measuring your success to the number on the scale
- Tips:
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- Do not separate siblings foods, instead work together as a family unit to eat healthier and make better decisions for to support your families health overall
- Do not emphasize that a specific child must eat a certain way or isolate them as having a problem
- “Just because you can doesn't mean you should”
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- Just because certain kinds of processed foods does not affect your other children's weight does not give good reason to still have these kinds of foods in your household
- Set your household in a way to support your whole family’s health and agree upon family values as a whole
The Weight Conversation
- Parents inadvertently choose words that sometimes set up a good/bad dichotomy with food
- Taking out the language like “you can have” or “you can’t have” - “No, you cannot have seconds.” “You need to stop eating.” “Do you really need that cookie?”
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- Try “What does your body say? Does your body tell you you’re full? Does your body tell you you’re hungry?”
- Work on the behavior around food in your entire family system
Where to learn more about Eliza Kingsford...
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