Podcast Episode 414: Raising Confident Kids Starts with You: The Truth About Body Positivity for Moms Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

JoAnn Crohn (00:00)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host JoAnn Crohn, joined here with the lovely Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:08)

Hello, hello everybody, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn (00:10)

We get to talk about something that I love talking about, Bri. It’s all about our own body positivity, how we as moms feel about our bodies and how that reflects down to our kids. It is such a topic that I’m passionate about because my mom and my grandma, we’re both in the whole weight watchers, weight loss phase, and that is all I saw growing up. I mean, what’s your experience with that, Brie?

Brie Tucker (00:35)

my gosh, yeah. My mom still to this day is constantly talking about her weight. I mean, I’ve seen her go a whole day with eating nothing but a yogurt. mean, ⁓ and you know what’s even worse? Like growing up the way we did in the 90s, even now, me knowing all the things I know about body positivity, when I do see my mom complaining about her weight and eating just a yogurt, I’m like, wow, I wish I had that kind of discipline. And that is so-

JoAnn Crohn (01:02)

And that’s so messed up. It’s so messed up. And then you’re like, my gosh, that’s so messed up. But you don’t know how to deal with it because these thoughts just pop up rent free in your head. today, helping us untangle all these thoughts is a frequent guest to the No Guilt Mom podcast. is Whitney Casares. She is a board certified pediatrician, author and founder of Modern Mommy Doc and the Modern Mamas Club app.

She’s also a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics and a sought-after speaker whose work has been featured in outlets like Fortune, Forbes, and Today Parenting. Whitney lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two daughters, and she has also written a new book for kids called My One of a Kind Body. And with that, let’s get on with the show.

Welcome Whitney back to the No Good Mom podcast. We’re so excited to have you here and to talk all about body positivity and health and everything because oh my gosh, do we need to talk about it.

Brie Tucker (02:02)

Yeah, do we have a list of questions for you on this one?

Whitney Casares (02:04)

Yeah, we gotta talk about it because we all like to pretend like this was something from just our parents’ generation, but we are still dealing with it and we have different versions of it that we’re dealing with ourselves and our kids are dealing with it in a totally new way because of social media.

Brie Tucker (02:22)

I know, I thought magazines were bad, right?

JoAnn Crohn (02:25)

I’m interested how kids are dealing with it because I could tell as a mom going on social media and seeing like all of these women who are now like entering perimenopause and they’re all like, look how strong we are and perimenopause and we don’t have to count calories and we’re gaining muscle and walking with our weighted vests and don’t have to like it is the exact same stuff.

that was sold to us when we were 17 years old and looking at like those skinny people in magazines and then trying to put that on in our own lives. So Whitney, I’m wondering like, how is it different for our kids? What are they seeing?

Whitney Casares (03:04)

Yeah. So you’re right. We are seeing a lot of the Fitsbo content. same gift or like non-gift, different packaging, right? Our parents, it was the SlimFast, it was the Weight Watchers. For us, it’s like yoga, weighted vests, all of that.

Our kids are seeing a lot of it through celebrities and influencers that they see online. So for example, my kids love CatSci, the K-pop group. And so they want to dress exactly like CatSci. They want to look exactly like CatSci. Well, CatSci is a bunch of really thin girls, like really thin, you know, they might not be exactly the same as my kiddos. And so the more that they look at those images, then they’re going to see more stuff on their content, on their feeds.

Also, a lot of our kids are looking at mental health stuff online. So on TikTok, there are a lot of people who are not credentialed. It’s a whole other issue. But a lot of people who are on TikTok or on Instagram or on YouTube that are telling kids like, this is you have anxiety or you have OCD or have autism, whatever. And they’re also talking with them about beauty regimens, they’re also talking with them about exercise. They’re also kind of presenting this image of what you look like if you’re perfect. So it’s very different for us than our parents. The other thing that’s happening is advertisers are going after our kids and marketing to them the same exact step that they’re marketing to us. So this whole Sephora kids thing, I actually, have a totally different take on it than other people do. I feel like I used to go for Wet n Wild at the drugstore today.

Brie Tucker (04:44)

my gosh, wet and wild, sea breeze. Like, come on, bring me back to the 80s, girl. Bring me back.

Whitney Casares (04:49)

And so that was a dollar for us to get it was really cheap But now these companies are marketing the same exact products they would market to us So our kids are looking at the $27 $28 Eyeliner and expecting that that’s what we’ll have So that’s a whole other pressure that they have about how to look good is that they have to have the really? Expensive version of the makeup as opposed to us. We were totally fine with the cheaped out version. It didn’t matter

Brie Tucker (05:17)

Like the best thing ever for me was when my parents would buy me like those huge makeup kits that were like that like smelled like crayons because it was really cheap. But I still loved it. had I mean, JoAnn knows how colorful I am. It had a million different colors of eyeshadow. I was so excited, JoAnn, and like six different lipsticks. not something they could do now. No.

JoAnn Crohn (05:39)

That is interesting though how it compares to what we were marketed to, like the whole inexpensive versus expensive stuff, which is a lot of pressure on kids and it’s a lot of pressure on parents as well. When the kids are coming to you and be like, yes, I need to go spend $150 at Sephora because guess what, mom? Your hair care that you’re buying from the drugstore, that’s not good for you. I need this $40 shampoo. That is so much pressure.

Whitney Casares (06:06)

Yeah, exactly. And it again kind of comes back to this whole wellness movement of like, this is the more vegan version. This is the version that doesn’t have the sulfates in it. This is the thing that’s good for me. So how could you buy this thing for me that’s total trash at the drugstore at Target? I need this thing that’s going to be the best. And also the fact that Ulta Beauty is now at Target, that also changes things because right next to the cheaper stuff is the stuff that’s gonna be more for adults and for, yeah. And so the kids are looking at that too. I used to go to Macy’s. Like if you wanted something expensive, you had to go to the department.

Brie Tucker (06:42)

since we’re all in this makeup kick for right now. Expensive for me, like high tier guys. Like did anybody else or stalk whenever Clinique was going to have another one their sales?

JoAnn Crohn (06:52)

I always had the cleaning bonus. Cleaning bonus week.

Brie Tucker (06:54)

Well,

I like one thing I like so I could, and I would stalk between all the different department stores so that I could go get all of the bonuses. Yeah.

Whitney Casares (07:01)

The heck yes yeah that yellow lotion ⁓ my god

JoAnn Crohn (07:05)

Yes. Are most of them already white? Well, with the body positivity stuff though, something that I have noticed in this generation is even though we do have those influencers who are preaching more of a wellness trend, there’s also the influencers who are preaching more of a body positivity thing. I know my daughter in particular, she’s 16 and she is very like aware of the influencers that she’s following to make sure that they do have all different bodies represented. And they’re looking at this whole person kind of mental health area, but more like exercise for endorphins, that sort of thing. So I see this other side that’s that we didn’t necessarily have. Do you see that too, Whitney?

Whitney Casares (07:44)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think our kids are a lot more advanced than we were about understanding what fat shaming looks like, about understanding diversity and inclusion for sure. My daughter went to a camp two years ago, so I mean, gosh, she must have been in the fifth grade.

And she said that the person who was in charge, the camp counselor, was talking about certain foods as being unhealthy or that they had more calories, had more fat in them. And she literally called out the person and said, like, I’m sorry, but that’s diet culture. We don’t do that in my house. Like, you’re not allowed to do that. So heck yeah. I love that. 100%. Like, I feel very proud of our kids. I think that is the.. bonus of social media and of them seeing some of these things is that they are earlier on getting these messages. And I think it also points, I don’t want to take too much credit, but I think it does point to us as parents, as moms, that most of us are trying to be really intentional about not putting the same messages in our kids that we got. One area that I think makes it kind of tricky is sometimes a lot of the body positivity influencers, it’s like.. You have to be so body positive all the time that there’s no room for real feelings. So, you know, like all bodies are great buddies all the time, love your body constantly. And I get a little bit worried about that for ourselves and for our kids because I know sometimes I’m a human and I look at my body and even if I know intellectually that cellulite is a normal thing, I see it and I’m like, know, like there’s a couple like, you know, hairs on my chin from period metapositive.

Like, what is going on? Are my kids, you know, like they have acne and like they don’t love that. And so I think that there’s room to go beyond strict body positivity to make it not toxic for our kids and move more toward body confidence and body literacy and body like self-compassion where when you have these very normal thoughts around, I don’t feel great about my body at this exact moment. you have room to be able to say, okay, that makes sense because I’m a human. don’t always feel great about their bodies. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. What am gonna  do about it? How am I gonna respond to that and help myself feel better?

JoAnn Crohn (10:05)

That brings up an interesting question, because what does body positivity actually look like then? It’s not the rah rah rah, everything is great kind of thing. When you are giving yourself that self-compassion, what’s an appropriate step for the what am I going to do about it? Still in tune with not going into diet culture, but not being too body positive, where do we go?

Whitney Casares (10:27)

Yeah. So let’s break it down with an example. So I would say, let’s go for like the cellulite example for ourselves, right? I think for moms, one way to approach this would be, okay, I look at myself, I’m wearing jean shorts and I see cellulite and I go, ⁓ gosh, I hate cellulite. I feel so fat today, right? You recognize this is a feeling that I have about myself. I feel gross in my body today. Then you validate that feeling.

That makes a lot of sense that I feel that way. I’ve been told my whole life that cellulite is gross and that if my body’s not totally skinny, then I don’t measure up. Okay. Then you have some common humanity around that. I bet I could fill a coliseum full of other moms, other people my age that feel that exact same way. Now I’ve taken a pause to figure out like, whoa, how do I feel? Where’d that message come from? That makes sense. It’s not my fault. Yeah. Now I have a choice to make.

So I could say, you know what? I’m so overwhelmed by so many other things in life right now. I don’t even have time to be like the proud mom who’s gonna go out and wear my like jean shorts anyway. I’m just gonna put on sweats today. Like it’s fine. Like everybody has a bad day and I wanna put on sweats.

Brie Tucker (11:38)

Yeah, it’s giving yourself self-compassion.

Whitney Casares (11:40)

Yes, you’re giving yourself some compassion. Or if you’ve slept well and you have not punctured your hand like JoAnn did this morning.

JoAnn Crohn (11:48)

Yeah, I’m not running at all. All cylinders this morning. Yeah.

Whitney Casares (11:52)

You’re like, okay, no, no, no, I feel mad about this. I’m wearing the shorts anyway. That’s another choice you could make. And I think both of those are okay choices. Yeah. As long as you’re kind of tuning in to this is the message I’m feeling, I’m being conscientious. I’m being intentional about my choice.

JoAnn Crohn (12:09)

Yeah. So like doing that and doing that in front of kids is actually very impactful because when they see you make those decisions, they then know that they have the opportunity to make those decisions as well. coming back from the break, I want to get into, in your book, you say that BMI is so flawed. We’re going to talk about that right after this. Whitney, right before the break, we were talking about BMI and how it’s flawed. And I’m so excited to hear this because I I have such bad memories of BMI going back to eighth grade health class where we were told to calculate our BMI. And I remember going up to my teacher, Mrs. Handler, and we had to make a plan then for what we were going to do with our BMI. I was a little like, yeah, it was awful. I was a little like heavier.

Brie Tucker (12:54)

No eighth graders should be doing that, man.

JoAnn Crohn (12:57)

No eighth grader should be doing that! No!

Brie Tucker (12:59)

Shame on that curriculum.

JoAnn Crohn (13:01)

This was 90s. was the 90s.

Brie Tucker (13:03)

Not to shame the teacher, I’ll say shame on the curriculum.

JoAnn Crohn (13:06)

No, but I remember my teacher being like, don’t you want to lower that? And I’m like, I was just so mad and I hated it. So tell us how is BMI flawed?

Whitney Casares (13:15)

Okay, so BMI is this calculation, first of all, for those who have been living under a rock, BMI is this calculation of your weight versus your height, and then it’s your age, and then based off gender. So it has all these different factors into it. And so it does have a few different components, but it doesn’t account for things like muscle mass. It doesn’t account for puberty. It doesn’t account for ethnicity. So it has a lot of things that it is not accounting for.

It was really designed to be looking at white men, ⁓ not a variety of people. Wow.

Brie Tucker (13:52)

I’m in shock! It’s like I’ve never heard that before!

JoAnn Crohn (13:55)

Didn’t help for what it meant. ⁓

Whitney Casares (13:56)

⁓

Exactly. And I consider BMI a vital sign. So in medicine, we use vital signs all the time. So one vital sign people will be familiar with is your heart rate, right? Your heart rate, that is a vital sign. But I would never make a diagnosis about someone or make a decision about a clinical treatment plan based only on someone’s heart rate. I would always use that in coordination with other things.

BMI has to be looked at in terms of what someone’s activity level, what is their nutritional status? Are they having any mood issues? What’s the blood pressure? Like abdominal fat, all of these other issues. And people are actually making a huge move to look at other measurements like central abdominal fat actually as what is the actual measurement that we should be using, especially for kids, but also for perimenopausal women and menopausal women.

But in the meantime, it’s kind of like the thing that’s used in medicine. And the problem is we know that, especially when healthcare providers focus on BMI and weight in the office for our kids, but then also when they do that for us as adults, that it actually makes things worse for us. It doesn’t make it usually so that we then lose a bunch of weight. It usually makes it so that we feel so ashamed that we then over weight and we tend to gain more weight.

Brie Tucker (15:23)

You just described my exact response. And I was also going to throw in there, JoAnn, like I never had a teacher have us do the BMI, but every time I’ve had to do anything to figure out my body mass index, it’s always been heavy. It’s always been big. Even when I was like four, six, it still would say I was really like too much on it. And I think that as someone who is a curvy girl and has always been a curvy girl, like it just makes you feel like crap about, like you said about yourself. You’re just like I’m never going to be what I’m supposed to be. So you either have to have a heck of a lot of confidence and live with that, or you say things that make you feel bad and you say them around your kids and they make your kids. I feel awful whenever I say something negative about myself around my kids and they defend me. Yeah. Cause then you’re like, Oh.

Whitney Casares (16:15)

Yeah, when you say no one talks about my mom that way because I’ve taught my kids to say that so now they will sometimes if I say something or if I do something and I’m like, ⁓ shoot. The thing that I want to like say about BMI, there’s been a couple articles and books even. So Virginia Soul Smith in her book Fat Top, she talks all about diet culture and BMI and how flawed it is. And she even wrote a bunch of articles that are like pediatricians are fat shaming kids in the office. And so this is what we need to do. And she’s a hundred percent right. But I want to be clear. I feel like a little bit like I got to defend my fellow pediatricians. No pediatrician wants to body shame a kid. Like, no one is trying to do that. At the same time, I remember two years into my clinical practice, there was this girl, her name is Layla. I remember the name changed for the hip up purposes. This girl’s 10 years old. And I was like, she’s overweight.

here’s your calorie spreadsheet for how you can lose it. You fell into this BMI category, showed it to her. She burst into tears. Her mom pulled me outside of the hallway and was like, why would you do that? She already doesn’t fit in with her friends and said, when you are a mom, you will understand. And that is the lowest memory, lowest point of my medical career. I feel so ashamed that I treated a person that way.

And also I learned so much from that interaction to be like, shoot, you’re right. Like that doesn’t motivate anybody. so even if we were trained that way as pediatricians and we don’t want to be body shaming, we have to change the way we’re doing things. We have to not talk about this stuff in front of our kids.

JoAnn Crohn (18:00)

Yeah, it’s so interesting because you brought up that book by Virginia Sultesmith, Fat Talk. And in the book also, she discusses how a lot of the negative effects that overweight people experience do more to the fat shaming and the social isolation than the actual like being overweight or heavy itself. What as a pediatrician do you say to that?

Whitney Casares (18:22)

So that is why now I really shifted the focus and we should all be as pediatricians to what’s your friend group like? How are things going in your mental health? What are you doing to, you know, be in community with other people? Like, and if someone says, ⁓ because my knees hurt because of the weight that I’m carrying, I feel like I can’t run, then I’m happy to work with someone to be like, okay, cool, let’s create a plan that allows you to either figure out a different movement plan that lets you to be with other kids who also can’t run, or let’s make it so you can run. Let’s help you to be able to develop that skill over time. know, like what do we need to do to strengthen your knees? What do we need to do to build muscle mass around that? So that way you can be in a great place. So yes, it’s a lot about the social isolation. The other thing though is educating the non overweight kids on this is not a reason to be excluding kids from your social group. Yeah. Right. Like I think we can’t forget that part too. This is not on the bigger kids to solve. It’s actually on the smaller kids to solve and the parents to solve.

JoAnn Crohn (19:30)

And that requires a really, really big mind shift to do. Yes. I’ve been through periods where like, I’m 20 pounds lighter, I’m 20 pounds heavier, like, yeah, and I could tell you that how people react to you and perceive you, like, feels different when you are a certain weight versus another weight. And it’s kind of like how our society looks at that, like you get, for instance,

When I’m at a smaller size, I get compliments on it. I get compliments on it from my mom. I get compliments on it from friends. It’s like, my gosh, you look so good. There’s this whole ozumpec thing going on with so many people losing weight. They’re all getting compliments. They all get that positive feedback. It’s extremely difficult to not fall into any sort of shame for yourself when you see that you are not getting those compliments.

Brie Tucker (20:24)

With that being said though, right? Like a piece of that is, and I’ll say, I’m definitely one whenever anybody, if I know that they’re on a journey of losing weight, I try to make sure that I give them the positive feedback, the compliments as they’re moving along. Because in my head, I’m like, okay, it’s, it’s a twofold. One, it’s what I was taught by my parents when I was younger to just be polite, like politely, you’re going to tell someone they look good. If they’re in a new dress, if they’re losing weight, you’re going to be like, wow, you look so fit, whatever.

So there’s the niceness factor that I feel like I’m being polite. Then there’s the other factor of, know that we need positive feedback to continue working through challenging things in our lives. So then I think I’m helping them with that. And I feel like, now I’m curious how you both feel about this. I feel like I can’t not say something because they’re expecting it. And if I don’t say it, then they feel like they’re not getting the validation. And then that’s a rude or mean thing for me to do.

Whitney Casares (21:23)

Yeah. Okay. So I think this is a great point. Okay. So I’m gonna two points. One, I am with you, on losing and gaining weight like my whole entire life. This goes back to, yes, all of us, probably every single woman, right? There was a point like five years ago that I lost a bunch of weight and my husband started being like, oh my gosh, girl, you look so good. Like, ooh, what are we gonna do tonight? Yeah, you look so good. He was so into me and we were doing couples therapy at the time and I remember saying to the couple therapist in front of him, well, I love a compliment, but actually what it does is make me so needing to be in control of this and keep myself thin because I have now internalized this idea, which I think I’m right, that you actually find me more valuable and attractive. Yes. You like me more smaller. I’m fitting the ideal of what you think is sexy, of what you think is like a good wife, of what you think is the right body type. So now if I gain this again, which I probably am not going to have full control over not gaining it, and I did gain it, now I’m going to feel crappy once I gain this. And I did. And like, yeah, of course he didn’t say anything, but he stopped saying, you look so great. look so amazing.

Yeah, I mean, I gained weight and then he stopped saying you look so amazing. You look so great. And it wasn’t because he doesn’t like me as a person. I just mean his ideal just like everybody else’s is thin and small. And so I think that’s the problem with the compliments is that it actually puts you in a in even more of a prison, even though that’s not our intention. And this brings up for grandparents and stuff like my mom does this to JoAnn would I lose weight?

And Brie, when I lose weight, when I’m in a good spot, my mom is like, my gosh, you look amazing. When the kids look thinner, she says they look amazing. And I don’t want to turn away her compliment because I feel good too. Like I’m losing, but I know that if I don’t kind of retrain her a little bit to go like, ⁓ please don’t focus on it because it makes me focus on it that much more.

JoAnn Crohn (23:37)

No, yeah, I get those comments from my mom too. I mean, we just had a discussion of it two weekends ago about we were talking about all of our weights because she’s of course worried my dad’s losing weight. And like it’s just such a weight focus and it drives me crazy. right after this we are going to get into now what do do about it?

So Winnie, we’ve talked about body positivity. We’ve talked about how giving compliments for weight loss is not the best thing either for the person. It kind of keeps them in a little trap. Now we need to move forward because we are raising a new generation who we don’t want to have the same weight hangups that we do. What is one thing that we can do as moms to really help our kids feel good about their bodies?

Whitney Casares (24:28)

Yeah. I am a big fan of honesty and authenticity with our kids around this topic. So there are a lot of people that really have this idea, again, with the body positivity thing of like shield your kids from anything around body negativity. I say, absolutely not. Point it out when they see it. When grandma says something about your body in front of them, you say, grandma is stuck in diet culture. We don’t hate her for it.

but man, we’re not gonna be that way for it. The same way you would point out racism to your kids, the same way you would point out bullying to your kids, where you’re not trying to shield them from the entire thing and pretend like it doesn’t exist, but instead you’re trying to educate them. Look, when I was growing up, we had the, know, special case cereal. Grandma used to do like grapefruit diets every single day in front of me. This is, you know, I was watching a 90s dumb blonde movies, dumb blonde, not my words, my kids’ words.

with my kiddo and she was like why is everybody so skinny why do they all look exactly the same like ⁓

Whitney Casares (25:35)

even now, you know, I see a lot of the ozempic ads that come on TV. Our kids see those on social media for sure. I’m not shying away from discussions around that with my kids because I feel like they need to know this is the next thing that’s coming that they’re going to need to address. And one thing I want to say as like a GLP one thing, because I know that people are feeling very strongly about this, like either you’re like,

Pro GLP-1 or you’re anti and they’re the worst thing in the whole world. Listen, just like every single medication out there, it is not all bad or all good. If you are taking a GLP-1 as a parent, you are not bad for doing that. If you want to lose weight, that’s fine. If you want to not have bad knee pain, that’s fine. If you have food noise, that’s okay if you’re taking a GLP-1.

It’s all about checking in with yourself and giving yourself compassion around it. So if you’re doing it to lose weight, but then you’re saying to yourself, listen, I feel a little bit like, F-ed, my metabolism is bad because of the dieting I did, ⁓ because of all of the exercise stuff that I did, but I’m going to choose if I take this medication to still project body confidence to my kids, even if I don’t lose weight.

I’m going to talk with my kids if they ask me about it, not in a weight loss way, like, oh yeah, I’m so excited about myself. I dropped 10 pounds. I’m going to be like, yeah, the food noise is less. then I’m going to be teaching my own kids that I hope you never have to use these medications because you have a healthier relationship with your body than I have ever had. I want people to have some nuance around these drugs. I know that’s hard.

Brie Tucker (27:22)

Everything needs some nuance. There’s so, right? So few things in life are black and white, all good, all bad. There’s always nuance, so.

Whitney Casares (27:31)

Exactly.

JoAnn Crohn (27:33)

It really does need nuance. And I look at the GLP-1 discussions and I know actually people very close to me are on GLP-1s and they’re loving it and they’re doing great. And I don’t like to talk about them. Like I won’t say their names because of all of the backlash that GLP-1s get. But I also like want to counter it with the opposite behavior that’s not good in a mental way because

I’ve seen the diet culture behavior where we were traveling and one of the moms was telling her daughter, ⁓ you can only go and get ice cream once a day from this stand over here. And if you had pizza for one meal, you cannot have pizza for the next meal. It’s just making all of these arbitrary rules around food. And that’s not healthy for people either. So people are like, you just have to try harder. You can’t be on a GLP-1. What?

You can’t. There’s a lot here, Whitney.

Whitney Casares (28:32)

Yes, I agree with you. And actually, I mean, that’s what I was going to bring up about the fat talk book and kind of that philosophy. So I loved every single thing she had to say around diet culture, around what we came from, around fat bias, around how to talk to our kids, all that stuff. And then when it came to what our kids should eat, it was like, it’s a free for all. And my little pediatrician heart just hit like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Whitney Casares (28:57)

Here’s my stance. And I think that a lot of your listeners will find this more middle of the road and doable. In my house, I at younger ages chose what my kids would have on their plates, including a large variety of foods, including some foods that were packaged, including lots of treats and stuff. But then my kids could choose how much of it they wanted to eat or if they’re going to eat it at all. And then I don’t have conversations with my kids around.

that’s a good food, that’s a bad food, you had too much of this, you don’t have enough of that. I really try to make the conversations for my kids and for my patients like, functionally for your body, what do you feel like is going to help your body to function the best? So, okay, awesome. You’ve had a lot of pizza today, that’s great. We love pizza. That’s gonna be great because it has all that quick energy.

Is there anything we need in our body because we’re going to go to soccer practice that’s going to be more of that energy that’s going to stick around a little longer? Do we need some more fat in our body? Do we need some more protein in our body? What’s the thing maybe we haven’t had on our plate over the last couple of days that your body is asking for? Yeah.

Brie Tucker (30:08)

And I like that because I feel like we weren’t given that language or that education when we were younger. We had to learn that schiznit on our own. Right. And then we were also taught, right, that it’s like, you know, it’s shameful if you’re struggling with your weight. So I don’t know about anybody else, but I wouldn’t go talk to a doctor about that then because I’d be like, well, I’m shamed now to say anything. I got to read all this stuff, figure it out on my own, figure out how to read the labels on my own. And so like we try to offer more help. There’s one thing JoAnn.

Brie Tucker (30:35)

you said to me one time and it has always stuck with me, trying to be healthy for the lifestyle you want to live.

JoAnn Crohn (30:42)

Yeah, train for the life you want.

Brie Tucker (30:44)

Yeah, yeah, trade your life you want. That’s what it is. Sorry.

JoAnn Crohn (30:48)

I love how you phrase it Whitney because what I usually ask my kids, what always goes down wrong with my 16 year old daughter and she says I’m stuck in diet culture and I’m not with this, but it’s all like, how does that food like make you feel? Is it making you feel more tired? Is it making you feel like achy? Like how’s it making you feel? Right. And how to balance with that. For instance, she was hungry all the time and we talked about it she was like eating all of the simple carbohydrates. And I’m like, you know,

It may just be good to throw like a handful of almonds in because they have the healthy fats and they’re going to keep you full. And she’s like, oh yeah, that’s really great. But also it’s like my brain is like, don’t talk about food. Don’t talk about food. Don’t talk. Don’t put up food. Don’t do food. So it’s like this turmoil all the time. Whitney.

Whitney Casares (31:38)

all the time, but I think that’s what I mean. I think it’s okay to talk about food as long as it doesn’t have this whole pressure associated with it. Like, no, you may not have any more pizza. Like, no, no more ice cream. Instead, like, well, think about it. You’ve had a lot of this type of food and our bodies tend to like a lot of variety. Is there anything else that sounds like it might actually help you think a little better for your test tomorrow? Like, what are the foods that we know are helpful?

Okay, this is gonna sound a little crass, but I actually think about it like our pets. Like I would never give my dog only duck treats all day long. That’s crazy. Like I would give my dog like the dog food and then I might give them sometimes like the chew ballistic things and then I give them like a duck treat. Like you would never just give your dog all turkey all day long. Like you have to think about what is variety. And I think that’s fair for us to think about that with our kids.

And I think that our kids are smarter than us just saying, eat whatever you want, it doesn’t matter at all. Yeah. Honestly, you could also have an analogy of movement. If my kid does soccer and only soccer, and they only do running drills where they do, what are those called? Suicides, which is a terrible name, but like, you know, they’re running back and forth and that’s the only physical activity they did. That would be really bad for them. They need stretching. They need strength training.

So it’s the same thing with food. If we just think about it as variety and like our muscles and our bodies and our brains need different things to be successful, I think it takes the pressure off.

JoAnn Crohn (33:16)

Also, like one last thing about food is there’s no bad food for like you’re talking about the sports and the athletes. So I coach mountain biking. And one of the things we’re always coaching the kids to do is like you need to eat something before you come. And usually like with endurance events, you have to get a simple carve in your body.

Whitney Casares (33:37)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (33:37)

Pop tarts are actually a great mountain biking food. If you have a pop tart right before you mountain bike, you’re gonna have that energy to go for it. And it digests well, it doesn’t sit in your stomach. It’s a really good thing. We’ve run into the issue where like some parents are like, I am not buying my children pop tarts. But there’s no food. There’s no bad food. It’s just like how your body takes it in and what it’s used for and how to go for it from there.

Whitney Casares (34:03)

Exactly. I mean, I think because I think this gets tricky too. There’s been a lot of stuff called ultra processed foods and all that. Some foods are good for us because they’re fun. Yeah. It’s okay. Like the good in the food could just be because it’s fun, because it tastes good, because it has a good mouth feel. Yeah. I do want parents and kids again to educate themselves on there are certain foods that are produced by marketers because they’re going to have like a certain salty point or a certain taste point, sweet point that kind of don’t play fair. So in terms of being nutrient dense, these foods will always be super fun, but they will hardly ever be nutrient dense. And so if you’re just aware of that, you can choose. This is a moment where I want to have fun and I just want to eat a sprinkle. Girl, go for it.

I also want my kids to be savvy enough to know when they’re being marketed to and when they’re almost being like tricked by a food company to eat more of that food so that company makes more money.

JoAnn Crohn (35:07)

They do. Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. It’s a great awareness to have. So tell us Whitney, tell us about your upcoming book.

Whitney Casares (35:14)

Yeah, okay, so the book is coming out today, the day that this podcast is coming out, it’s called My One of a Kind Body. It is being featured on NPR, so you can check that out. It’s being featured in Parents, which is awesome. And I think the reason is because it’s the first book of its kind that really comes from a pediatrician and has this concept of all bodies are good bodies and all bodies deserve to be taken care of well.

So those ideas are not mutually exclusive. We can do both things. We have come from diet culture, but we’re in a new place as parents. And so I want to help parents walk alongside. If you order the book by going through my website. So if you go to modernmommy.com, then I also created some videos for families. So that way, even though this book is for kids, there are some places where you can go and get some more of this parent-centered education so you feel like you know how to kind of walk your kid through the book and give them some extra tips along the way.

Brie Tucker (36:13)

Love that. And we’ll have a link below in the show notes for that. So that is perfect. I think that when that happens a lot, when we have books for our kids, we don’t always know what we’re supposed to do with it. Or am I supposed to just hand it to my kid and go, here you go.

Whitney Casares (36:26)

Right. This is a great book to like leave on your kid’s bed, put it in your kid’s stocking, put it in the bathroom. The bathroom is a great place for kids to read these books. But also if your kids, course, bring up that they have been bullied, if they bring up that they have a body confidence issue, like that’s another place also to introduce this

Brie Tucker (36:47)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (36:48)

So it’s called My One of a Kind Body. Go and pick it up for your kids. And Whitney, tell us something that you are looking forward in your life that you’re excited about.

Whitney Casares (36:57)

Ooh, I’m excited. I am planning a trip. I’m going to Corfu.

But next year, this opportunity just came alive. So I decided, I talked with my husband about it yesterday. It’s a whole movement and leadership summit that is seven days long that I’m going to with this local person who’s here who I know really well. So it will be awesome. So that’s what I’m excited about this year. I’m like going to be saving and planning for it and buying outfits for it all year long.

JoAnn Crohn (37:25)

That sounds amazing. That sounds amazing.

Brie Tucker (37:27)

pictures are going up on your Insta right? I want to see this whole thing.

Whitney Casares (37:31)

I can share links for that too. Come on, JoAnn and Brie, join me.

JoAnn Crohn (37:35)

⁓

Thank you so much for coming on and I love always talking about body positivity and it’s such a delight to talk to you and everyone listening right now go and get Whitney’s book. It is called my one of a kind body out today. Remember the best mom is a happy mom. Take care of you. We’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (37:57)

Thanks for stopping by.

JoAnn Crohn (38:00)

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