Food Psych #172: The Wellness Diet and Feeding Kids with Virginia Sole-Smith

Journalist and author Virginia Sole-Smith joins us to discuss why The Wellness Diet is really diet culture in disguise, how journalists like her and Christy played unwitting roles in creating this new manifestation of diet culture, how her daughter’s experience with significant medical issues affected her relationship with food, how to help kids navigate diet-culture messaging in different stages of life, how to teach children about nutrition and health in a non-diet way, and so much more! Plus, Christy shares an excerpt from her "HAES vs. weight management" debate at FNCE (the national dietitians’ conference).

Virginia Sole-Smith is the author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America. She's also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Slate, and Elle, as well as a contributing editor with Parents Magazine. She lives with her husband and two daughters in the Hudson Valley. Find her online at VirginiaSoleSmith.com.

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We Discuss:

Growing up as a picky eater, and what motivated her to try more foods
How her relationship with food and with her body shifted in college
The subtle ways fatphobia showed up in Virginia’s childhood
Third-wave feminism, and trying to marry feminist values with societal expectations of femininity
Virginia’s career in the magazine industry, and what sparked her interest in reporting on health and nutrition
Being a part of the cultural shift toward The Wellness Diet, and not realizing at the time that it is still a form of diet culture
How the so-called “obesity epidemic” was invented in the late ’90s
Privilege, and its role in spreading diet messaging in our society
How being a mother helped Virginia to see that The Wellness Diet and the alternative food movement are really diet culture in disguise
The trauma of having a young child with major health concerns
Virginia’s daughter Violet’s journey with a congenital heart condition and its required medical interventions, including being fed with a feeding tube and being on a medically required diet
The available research on treating feeding disorders in children: the behavioral approach versus the child-led approach
How current feeding therapies mirror diet culture
Our society’s reliance on external experts to tell us what and how to eat
Using Ellyn Satter’s Division of Responsibilities (DOR) model to help rebuild Violet’s relationship with food and her feeding cues
Diet-culture messaging in schools and elsewhere outside the home
Violet’s current relationship with food, and how she is sharing that with her younger sister
How parenting advice often reinforces diet culture
Sharing the anti-diet message with other parents
Accepting kids’ eating habits and helping them attune to their own cues in a helpful way
The demonization of sugar amongst parents and kids
Helping kids navigate diet culture at different stages in life
How to talk to children about food and health in a non-diet way
Having compassion for people who are still stuck in diet culture