MomCave LIVE

Nurture How To Raise Kids Who Love Food Their Bodies And Themselves | Heidi Schauster | Momcave LIVE

• Jennifer Weedon MomCave / Heidi Schauster

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Welcome to MomCave LIVE, the place where sanity takes a vacation, but our laughter refuses to check out! Today, we're diving headfirst into a topic that's as mysterious as finding matching socks in the laundry – kids' nutrition. Brace yourselves, because we've got the brilliant Heidi Schauster on board, ready to sprinkle some wisdom on the chaos that is our attempt at feeding the tiny humans in our lives.

Spoiler alert: processed foods, Doritos, and the occasional truffle salt might just be the unsung heroes of our culinary escapades. So grab your snacks, preferably not hidden under the couch cushions, and let the MomCave shenanigans begin!

Her Books: 
Nourish and Nurture: https://www.anourishingword.com/the-book


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Jen:  Welcome to MomCave LIVE where we may have lost our minds, but we haven't lost our sense of humor. I'm Jen and I have a really fun guest. That's not only fun, but informative for you today, and I hope you guys will take advantage of all of her expertise. This is Heidi Schauster. Welcome, Heidi.

Heidi Schauster: Thank you so much for having me, Jen. 

Jen:  You are very welcome. Um, Heidi sent me an email a while back. And it took us a while to connect, because Oh, my God, kids schedules school life, right. But what caught my eye on Heidi's email, Was it it said in the subject line. Kids need to eat processed foods. And I was both thrilled, mystified, and I don't know. So I wanted to talk like start there as a jumping off point. I always feel like my family doesn't eat healthy enough. But I love food so much and ...

Read More: https://www.momcavetv.com/nurture-how-to-raise-kids-who-love-food-their-bodies-and-themselves-heidi-shauster-momcave-live/

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Welcome to MomCave LIVE where we may have lost our minds, but we haven't lost our sense of humor. I'm Jen and I have a really fun guest. That's not only fun, but informative for you today, and I hope you guys will take advantage of all of her expertise. This is Heidi Schauster. Welcome, Heidi.

Heidi Schauster:

Thank you so much for having me, Jen.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

You are very welcome. Um, Heidi sent me an email a while back. And it took us a while to connect, because Oh, my God, kids schedules school life, right. But what caught my eye on Heidi's email, Was it it said in the subject line. Kids need to eat processed foods. And I was both thrilled, mystified, and I don't know. So I wanted to talk like start there as a jumping off point. I always feel like my family doesn't eat healthy enough. But I love food so much and everything that I love is not that healthy. So that's how it is in our house. And I always feel guilty about that. Maybe you have a reason that will help the rest of us out there not feel so guilty. What Why do kids need to eat processed foods Heidi?

Heidi Schauster:

Well, first of all, unless you're like going into your backyard, and growing all the grain and milking the cow, just about everything that we eat is processed.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Sure

Heidi Schauster:

So there's this this idea that, like we should avoid processed food, a lot of it is really born from like this sense that like there's a moral imperative around what we eat. And I think we need to be careful about that. We have to be careful about it with ourselves as adults, but also, particularly with kids, this idea that there are good foods, and there are bad foods, I think can be really dangerous for young people, because it sets up a system where they're really thinking about food in their mind, as opposed to feeling it in their bodies, and working and approaching eating with self regulation. Instead of like this, like more brain kind of way of thinking about food. So yeah, that's where I'm coming from.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Yes, you and my husband, we get along so well, because whenever somebody says anything about processed foods, he goes on this, like round, he's like, everything is processed, if you Yeah, if you pick this, it's processed, you put it in a box, it's processed. Of course, sometimes I think that's like our excuse for eating more processed foods in

Heidi Schauster:

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of like gardening farming, like local, you know, supporting the local economy, supporting local farmers taking care of our soils, I'm, you know, I'm certainly the first person to like, appreciate food in its like purest form, right. But that said, life happens, we still we do need to eat convenience is there for a reason, it's certainly much better, to put food on the table that's balanced, and has been processed in some particular way, whether somebody helped you out and chopped those vegetables or not, or you did it yourself, you're still serving, you know, good food to your family. So I just think this like demonizing of processed food is, can be insidious, and like dangerous, it really gives this message that. Again, some foods are good, some foods are bad, I'm really wanting kids to feel very neutral about food. And, you know, and in terms of like, how to do that it's to like, not give food, those kinds of labels,

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

okay,

Heidi Schauster:

around kids so that they can like make choices from a more internal place. Regulation as opposed to other people telling them what to eat or not eat, which they may or may not rebel against too,

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

right. That's what I was thinking as you were saying that it's a little reverse psychology thing with kids like if I if they know I really, really want them to eat broccoli, they don't want to eat broccoli, like they.

Heidi Schauster:

Absolutely, yeah. And um, and if you really want them to eat certain things, I mean, really don't want them to eat certain things. They may crave them as well, like, well that like, I feel like when I was my kids are now in college. Um so but when my daughters were growing up, their friends who were from sugar free households would always come over and like raid our cabinets because, you know, sugar was not off limits in my house, whereas my kids really didn't have a lot of charge around those kinds of foods at all. So I do think there's something to be said for neutralizing and, and making food. Just you know, again, you know, not like a moralistic kind of piece around it. Yeah.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

So So say we are able to successfully neutralize all feelings about food in the household. Well, do we get them to eat the good ones? Well, I mean, yeah you know what I mean,

Heidi Schauster:

Yeah well, yeah, no,

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

it was to be neutral. But you know what I mean,

Heidi Schauster:

I totally hear you. And I'm, you know, I'm gonna nutritionist. So I was sort of trained with nutrition science. And I understand kind of how the body works. One of the things though, like, when I went to nutrition school, that many decades ago, that I thought was so useful to me at the time, partly because I was recovering from my own eating disorder, was that, like, all the food that we eat breaks down into these basic building blocks that our body can use. And it doesn't actually matter, whether you get it from pasta, or bread, or fruit, or all of carbohydrate that we eat breaks down to glucose, and then our body uses it, our cells use it. So there was something kind of comforting and learning about the actual science, around nutrition and realizing that like, oh, you know, we actually don't have to be so particular about what we eat, like our body can take care of that. And yes, we do get more vitamins and beautiful phytochemicals that are good for our health, from things that are colorful, like vegetables, for example. But then we also need nutrients that are in all the foods that are options to us. So diversity is really best for the body. And we're learning now as we learn more about the microbiome and our gut health. Diversity is really important for our guts, too. So I think that like, you're right, it's hard to like, to not have moral language like I've good or bad around food, because that's sort of what how we've been trained. But I'm really I've been really working on untraining. To really not, you know, to really think about food much more neutrally, both so that we can prevent problems like disordered eating and binge eating. That, you know, kids can start to exhibit, teens can start to exhibit that's my field of study, but also so that we can enjoy food, like food is meant to be pleasurable. And like, broccoli is actually pretty yummy. If you like, put it with a nice sauce, especially, you know, that like, enhances the flavor. So I think that like if we can approach food with excitement, and enjoyment, and like, look how colorful it is. And look how interesting this diverse plate is, then I think that we're going to, we're going to encourage that diversity in our kids eating more to

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Yeah, so much is in the preparation. And my mom will be watching this and knows how much I love her before I say this, and she knows this. I hated vegetables pretty much until adulthood because in our house, mostly it was like you took a can of green beans and you put the you know, you heated them up. And maybe my grandmother used to add a beef bouillon cube to her green beans. And that was thought of as high cuisine in our house. So you know it when your vegetables are just like, blah, you're not going to love them. I got older and I started going to restaurants and things and you know, experiencing oh my god, like you could have amazing green beans or brussel sprouts or broccoli, depending on how they're prepared. And with my, especially my little one she is in love with truffle salt, we put truffle salt on our vegetables. And that's so that's a good one. Um, I love that you have your background and all of your accreditations and all of the research in the learning that you've done, but you've also had some personal experience in this whole field. So I was wondering if you could tell people like what are some of the signs you look for? To detect disordered eating early in children? What might you see that would make you have a cause for concern?

Heidi Schauster:

Okay, no, it's a great question. Um, Um, I would be concerned about a child who seems very obsessed with food. And I don't mean like that they enjoy food. Because food is meant to be a pleasure, but that they seem like very preoccupied with that they're talking about it all the time, you know, maybe even researching it all the time. Also, if a child or teen shows evidence of hiding food, perhaps there's some shame around their eating, which would be useful to know about. So if there's like, you know, wrappers hidden and things like that, like it's worth asking about that it might just be that they like to like, hang out in their, their bed cave and with their book and but what sometimes there's like shame in eating like whether maybe they've been teased or something about their body. And so when they want to eat something yummy, they feel compelled to do it in secret. So that could be a sign that maybe there's something going on in the relationship with food potentially, or that food is like being used as a soother significantly, like we all eat emotionally. Like if we eat birthday cake we eat emotionally. But um, but if it's seems like food is being used as a reward or a soother a lot, that may be a learned behavior, perhaps from other family members, maybe. Or peers. But something to sort of like, just, you know, watch.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Yeah,

Heidi Schauster:

Yeah. You know, show extra love and concern when you see someone's like relationship with food might be going a little off.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Yeah. And then if a parent is concerned, where do they go? Do they visit the pediatrician? Who do you go to? Where do you start?

Heidi Schauster:

That's a really good question. And it like, there's no like right answer to that one. Unfortunately, there's like, like, I think if you're concerned that your child is either, you know, not fueling themselves well with food, or their relationship with food could be troubled. Certainly, you could bring that up with a pediatrician, it's always good to get a sense if there's like, if they're dropping off of their normal growth pattern. That's, you know, a little bit of an alert. And, you know, there are therapists, psychotherapist, and you know, nutrition therapists like myself, who specialize in working with kids and with disordered eating, that can be consulted. Often, if somebody's like, under 12, like the child is under 12, the parents will just be come in for a consultation, because it's sometimes you don't want to give too much attention to the issue. But if it's Oh, if the child's over 12, then they might be worked with individually as well, since they're starting to make some of their own decisions about food. And their autonomy is shifting in their adolescence. So that's definitely people available, but I would like look for I'm gonna, I'm gonna add this insert this before you move on, which I would look for professionals who have a health at any size orientation, or a haze, H A E S orientation, which means that they are specifically oriented to not shaming individuals around their body because some, some young people are just designed to be larger bodies than others. And I think we have to be really careful about weight stigma and health care. So I'll just put that out there.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Great and so that kind of segues into my my last question for you, you were just talking about autonomy. And as the kids get a little older, how much autonomy should we give younger children in what they have to eat or allowed to eat? Do we, you know, how do we give them some autonomy, but make sure that they're healthy?

Heidi Schauster:

Yeah, super great question. It's such a hard one. And I have like, a lot of compassion around this topic, because I, you know, raised two young women now, as well. And I think I love Ellyn Satter's, Division of responsibility. He says that the role of the parents is to make a diverse amount of healthy food available, and the role of the child is to eat it. So it's like pretty straightforward that when we start crossing into the lane of the child and Start telling them what to eat or how much to eat or don't have that or do have that, then we're actually like crossing a boundary there, that ultimately, our goal is to make good food available to put it on the table, or if it's a young child, obviously, on their plate. As they get older, I'm a big fan of having kids sort of self select from what's on the table, like family style, as much as possible. So they can learn to self regulate, and kind of get connected to their appetite more. But, but in general, having things available is the parents role or the caregivers role. And eating is the kids role. And in the reality is in like developing countries, like developed countries, I mean, that like we don't, the kids don't starve. Like we like if a child doesn't eat well, at one meal, they're likely to make that up at the next meal or snack period. So we don't have to panic, it's better if we can be pretty chill at the table. And let them do some self selecting of how much of the things to eat. There. It's always great to like, make suggestions. Yeah. And say like, you know, it took me a long time to really like carrots to like, like, maybe, you know, maybe let's give them a try again, tonight. Your Battles don't get into a huge battle with kids about it. Sometimes they need to try things. I think my intern when we were doing research for my new book, we, like looked at all the research. And she found that like, it was somewhere between 13 and 30 times yeah, need to try a food. Like accept it. A lot of times are more cautious than others just naturally to so. So like, you know, just exposures really important.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

Yeah,

Heidi Schauster:

I think it's important.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

I get how it works for meals, because I'm, I'm a big like, well, this is what we're having for dinner. This. I don't like this. Well, this is what we're having for dinner like that I got. And like you said, I never worry if they don't eat then they'll eat more tomorrow. But it's the snacks that get me because if it when we're talking about what's available, like, I want to have Doritos available in the house, right? Because I want to have those later, when I'm watching TV. But if those are available in the house, my kids are never going to go and pick the banana to eat. So what do you do?

Heidi Schauster:

I'm a big fan of having the bananas and the Doritos and, and like letting them select. You know, they're what they're into, from time to time. And maybe sometimes the Doritos aren't available because they ran out and they try something different. And then they realize, Oh, I really liked this snack food better. But I'm a big fan of like, especially if it's something that you like to eat. Like it like at some point, someone will come downstairs and be like mom's eating the Doritos. Why does she say I can't eat? Like, if you're gonna have a food rule, you kind of have to have it. So the whole family follows. And there's nothing there's absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, Doritos aren't like, usually craved that much unless they're seen as being like a special thing that we only get once in a while. In general, like in general food, like loses its charge when it is more neutral. Yeah

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

That's that's a great way of thinking about it. I really appreciate that. Heidi's book is called

Nurture:

How to raise kids who love food, their bodies in themselves. And if you go over to the comments, you can see the link of where to find it. You can also find Heidi on your@nourishingwords is your handle on all the places? Yes. Well, thank you. Thanks for sharing your nourishing words with me. I'm going to think of you as I go and prepare something healthy for lunch. And I'll save my Doritos for tonight. Ross don't eat them. Yes, yes. Thank you so much. And if you all have any more questions for Heidi, you can feel free to put them in the comments. And this will be here for everybody to refer to good luck with the book. It's amazing. And thank you for talking with me.

Heidi Schauster:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Jennifer Weedon Palazzo:

You're so welcome. Thanks