Do you agree that we live in a world that equates body size with a person’s value? What is our society teaching our kids about fat, body size, and a person’s worth? If you experienced body-size shaming as you grew up, don’t you want to do a better job with your children? Parenting around these topics is not easy, and my guest today wrote a book to help us understand more. I’m excited for this conversation with Virginia Sole-Smith, author of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture and host of the Burnt Toast podcast. Join us to learn more!
Show Highlights:
- Why parents struggle with fears and concerns around their kids’ body sizes
- Why the goal is to have kids who don’t feel anxious about their relationship with food
- Why we need to think about health as MUCH more than a number on the scale
- Why, to embrace body diversity, we need to challenge what we’ve been trained to think about health, beauty, and morality
- How weight distribution matches up with “thin privilege” and anti-fat bias
- How focusing too closely on our personal weight struggles causes us to reinforce and perpetuate fat bias in the world
- How our children receive messaging around body types and sizes from healthcare providers, sports coaches, etc.
- How to have healthy conversations with kids about bodies, fat, diets, etc.
- Why parents need to give counter programming to the default settings our kids receive from society about topics such as body shaming and racism
- Why Virginia included in her book a chapter called “Straight White Dads on Diets”
Resources:
Connect with Virginia Sole-Smith: Website, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Burnt Toast podcast, and Fat Talk book
Connect with KC: TikTok, Instagram, and Website
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
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