Dear [Teacher],
I want to start by saying that we are very happy with [the preschool] and that [our child] loves going to school. We appreciate the care you and the other teachers are providing to our baby. The way that you are helping her grow, learn, and adapt is wonderful, and we are grateful for you.
There is something that came to my attention recently that I’d like to address. I read in your message yesterday that you have been teaching the kids about “healthy eating,” and I noticed in the photos you posted that this includes dividing foods into separate categories, I assume “healthy” and “unhealthy,” or something to that effect.
I am a therapist who specializes in eating disorders, trauma, and oppression, and I have many years of training and experience in treating people using the Body TrustⓇ, Health at Every SizeⓇ, and Intuitive Eating frameworks. I am also a person who has done a lot of her own healing work from the trauma of disordered eating and fatphobia. I identify as a fat woman who used to be a fat child, and I use the word “fat” as a neutral descriptor.
So, I get it. In our fatphobic, diet culture world, we have been taught that fat is the worst thing you can be, that certain foods are bad for us, that sugar is addictive, that pursuing health- more accurately, a very specific idea of health- is imperative, and that it is our own personal responsibility to behave in ways that protect us from “obesity” and “obesity-related” risks. As someone with the experience I shared above, I am here to tell you that all of this is false and harmful.
Kids are naturally born intuitive eaters. They are perfectly attuned to their bodies’ cues and eat in response to them. As kids reach toddlerhood, often their eating habits become erratic. Some days, it seems like my daughter barely eats anything, and other days she seems to eat more than a grown adult. Some days she eats a wide variety of foods, other days she wants only fruit or only French fries. Despite this apparent chaos, our kids’ bodies know what they are doing. While meals might seem hit-or-miss during one day, it is best to look at our kids’ eating over a period of days, as things will usually average out.
Kids typically remain intuitive eaters until the adults in their lives start interfering with their food. Whether it be pressuring kids to “take one more bite” even if they are no longer hungry, requiring them to eat their dinner before dessert, limiting their access to sweets and other highly palatable foods because they are “unhealthy,” or expressing worry because they are eating “too much,” well-meaning parents and other adults teach kids that they cannot trust their bodies or built-in intuition, and that they should ignore their bodies’ natural signals in favor of external guidance and rules.
Many adults worry about kids gravitating towards foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt because they themselves have a complicated relationship with these foods. Kids (and adults) who restrict are the ones who binge on those foods when they get the chance, sneak and hide them, and become hyperfixated on them. (It is important to note here that restricting foods is a direct cause of binge eating, and that weight cycling- not “higher” weight- is linked to serious health risks.) In reality, if we relax around these foods and include them regularly along with more “nutrient-dense” foods, we can neutralize them and remove the “shine” these foods take on when we restrict them. And if we teach kids that food has no moral value (i.e., “good” or “bad,” “healthy” or “unhealthy”), they will be able to make choices about what, when, and how much to eat based on their internal hunger and fullness cues.
In addition to being natural-born intuitive eaters, young kids have very binary thinking. So when we present them with the idea that there are “good” or “bad” foods, or tell them to “eat healthy,” they take this information quite literally and are unable to see the nuance. This leads many children to feel guilt or shame for enjoying “bad” foods because they feel like they are bad for eating them. This sets our kids up to have very charged emotional experiences around these foods, which usually continues into adulthood.
Negative messages around sugar and fat, and the use of the term “junk food,” contributes to the underlying fear of food, dietary fat, and weight gain, which precedes body image concerns and eating problems. Body dissatisfaction is the biggest indicator of future eating disorders, and children as young as 6 years old have reported dieting. Intentional weight loss of any type is correlated with higher adult weight and life-threatening eating disorders.
Many educators may agree that children should not “diet.” Yet unscientific concepts around food and health are still being taught in schools. For example, when more critical, empirically sound lenses are applied to research around sugar being addictive and certain foods being linked to “obesity,” the “evidence” is questionable at best, and intentionally deceptive at worst. If we teach kids that all foods fit, and that the most important thing is getting a good variety of all sorts of foods, we can help foster positive relationships with food and their bodies.
I’ve included some considerations and tips below to help inform your approach around food:
- Avoid categorizing foods as “good/bad,” “healthy/unhealthy,” or “anytime/sometimes.” Food is just food and does not have moral value. Food is only “bad” when it is rotten or spoiled, and only kids with allergies or considerations based on religion or lifestyle (e.g., vegetarianism) need to be more considerate of which foods are off-limits.
- Parents get to decide how they manage food for their children, however every family’s choices are their own and should not be imposed upon other children and families, whether directly or through school personnel. Avoid upholding food rules and policies that undermine a parent’s ability to feed their kids. Fed is best.
- Sugary desserts and snacks should be seen as one of many foods a person enjoys throughout their lifetime. Demonizing sugar elevates its status. You may personally avoid sugar in your diet, but there is no reason schools should prohibit this from children’s lunches and snacks. Also, kids with certain food allergies should be accommodated, but there is no such thing as a sugar allergy.
- Kids that are restricting and restraining food should not be praised for it. Do not have different food rules for thin kids than you do for fat kids.
- Caregivers at school should refrain from pressuring kids to eat certain parts of their lunch before letting them eat other parts. For example, if a child wants to eat their cookies first, let them.
- Caregivers at school should refrain from confiscating food from kids’ lunchboxes unless these foods are an allergy or choking risk. If parents packed the lunch, please respect that they know how to feed their children.
- Caregivers at school should be mindful about sharing their own food anxiety with the kids. Kids should not be hearing about your latest diet or how you don’t allow yourself to eat certain foods. Children are like sponges and absorb all of this information.
- Caregivers at school are entitled to have their own personal food philosophies. It is not the scope of practice for teachers to be assessing the nutrition of the foods that students eat.
- Review your curricula for anti-fat bias and do not tolerate it. Don’t make health promotion about weight or “obesity”; anti-obesity programs have shown no success in improving health. We can talk about health without pathologizing bodies. And ask people not to use the “o” words (“obesity” and “overweight”). These are stigmatizing terms based on an inaccurate measure of health.
- Look for healthism: Ideas that support the pursuit of health as something that increases a person’s overall value and goodness. Root your teachings and communications in the idea that no one has to pursue health to be worthy of love, respect, or belonging. And make sure your conversations about health acknowledge that the social determinants of health have a far greater impact on a person’s health and well being than their personal lifestyle choices.
- Community-wide agreements about how you talk about bodies, weight, abilities, and food is an extension of consent education. Talk about respecting people’s boundaries.
- Interrupt fatphobia in classrooms, on the playground, and in staff meetings and break rooms.
Again, thank you for everything you do for our daughter. I know your job is hard and that the things I listed here might feel daunting. You may even be implementing some of these values already, which is great! We are so grateful for the important work you are doing. And your commitment to weight inclusion matters. The kids at your school are young, but body hatred and disordered eating starts early. Let’s help our children develop a healthy relationship with food and their bodies by setting a good example and not letting diet culture into the classroom. If I can help, please reach out.
[Note: This letter was inspired by and borrowed from Soolman Nutrition's An Open Letter to Daycares, Preschools, Nursery Schools and Elementary Schools, Center for Body Trust's Letter to Teachers and School Administrators, and More-Love.org's Teachers: please stop teaching dieting to children.]
