how do you raise kids to have a healthy relationship with food? with Jay Baum

by | Dec 21, 2020

Registered Dietitian Nutritionists Dalina Soto and Melissa Landry interview Jay Baum to discuss raising Intuitive Eaters!

In today’s episode we answer YOUR listener questions…

  • How can you encourage kids to try a variety of foods without pressuring them or creating “good” and “bad” food dynamics? 
  • How do you keep sweets neutral so kids don’t obsess over them?
  • How can you get family on board and protect kids from outside diet culture influences when you are working hard to create peace around food at home?  Especially family stepped in diet culture who comment things like: “of course he loves to eat! look at his size”
  • When parents are managing work AND school from home – how do you keep food practical so kids eat enough?

Episode Resources:

This episode was sponsored by No More Guilt with Melissa Landry

Interview Transcript:

Dalina Soto:

Hola, hola chulas!!

Melissa Landry:

Hi there, today we have Jay Bam who is here from Canada, coming through the airwaves to talk to us about how to raise intuitive eaters. We are thrilled to have you, Jay. This is a topic our audience thinks about a lot, their healing their relationship with food. They want kiddos to grow up without their problems. Tell us a little bit about you and your practice before we jump in on their questions today.

Jay Baum:

All right. I am super excited to be here chatting with both of you. I’m based in Toronto. I have a private practice called Pommetta Nutrition and we focus on infant child and perhaps most importantly, that family nutrition piece. So for me, I guess maybe a bit of the background of how I came to do what I do. I went to school to be a dietician as a quote unquote mature student at the age of 25.

Jay Baum:

I had already had a career as a chef. So I went to school loving food and just absolutely loving all the pieces, the culture, the traditions, and all of this. And then imagine my surprise when I was full and completely separate nutrition and food. I was very confused about this at first. And so that’s one of the things that I think I really bring into when I work with families, that idea about figuring out the family food culture and figuring out what it is that you want your kids to know about food and body and to move forward on. And then the other thing that I noticed is that there’s actually, I think, two huge gaps in how we teach kids to eat in the dietetics world. So one is that we focus so much on just the real nitty gritty nutrition pieces. And I noticed in pediatrics, we would often manage acute nutrition problems, really important deficiencies growth, faltering, medical conditions that need to feeds.

Jay Baum:

But then when that’s fixed, quote, unquote, fixed, we send the families on their way and say, “Hey, your kid can eat normally now.” But there’s all of the stuff [inaudible 00:02:18] for months. Stuff that has happened for both the parents and the kids, but they have no support. And then on the flip side, we have parents think anything can… Adults that you guys work with a lot who have this knowledge that they didn’t have the best relationship with food. They want something different for their kids. And they don’t quite know how to implement that. Or they’re so fearful about doing the wrong thing, that it almost impacts their food. So this is where I come in. I want to make feeding fun. I want families to love to eat together. I want kids and parents to feel good about their food relationship.

Melissa Landry:

Ah, that’s so beautiful.

Dalina Soto:

You spoke to my soul. You spoke to my soul because I just posted a few days ago about how I’m just so afraid that we’re going to lose all our cultural foods to diets because we’re changing them. We’re not passing them on to our children, the way that our grandmothers and our ancestors created them or even cooked them because we want to make them healthier or to fit this healthism mold. Right? That our society has upheld now for so long. And we’re just going to lose ourselves and then nobody really enjoys eating anymore. I mean, we do, but, and the women that work with us are. Hopefully at the end of working with us, get there, but I think it’s just so important. I see the joy in my kids when they eat and I want them to have that forever.

Melissa Landry:

And we think about cultivating intuitive eating. It’s not a thinking process. Right? It’s a bit of a sensing and a feeling process. The act of cooking and spending time cooking with others. There’s unspoken, tacit, implicit things that happen when you cook. Right? To the degree that my grandmother can hold the oil upside down over the sauce and just know by wait, when it’s time to stop. I love that you integrate the cooking pieces. I think that’s such an interesting… I really thought about that as a lens to cultivate intuition and cultivate the sensing part of the skills it takes to become an intuitive eater. So how powerful are you super woman teaching this from that lens? I love it. I absolutely love that.

Melissa Landry:

So a lot of the questions that we got were time kind of from two angles. One was about the practicalities of feeding kids. Right? Especially right now, our moms and dads are working from home, maybe teaching their kids at school. There’s that time of the day where the shit hits the fan so to speak where everything happens at once, and then we got to cook food and nobody wants to eat. And so there was definitely some practical questions, but there was also questions about how when you’re healing, how do you manage that guilt and fear? Which I think you’re touching on that, that so many parents face. So I’d to start with that last part and then maybe land down to the practicalities today. How’s that sound to you?

Jay Baum:

Sounds good.

Melissa Landry:

All right. So our first question here is how can encourage kids to try a variety of foods without pressuring them or creating this good or bad dynamic. And this particularly came up around sweets. Moms and dads, not wanting their kids to obsess over them. They feel they obsess. So what’s your take on developing neutrality around food?

Jay Baum:

Yeah. So I think with any family I work with, and even with my own kids, the big piece that I’m always working on is language, language, language, and it’s a process. And so I’ve been doing this now for 10 years. I have kids of my own and I still catch myself saying things that in the moment I’m like, why on earth did they say that?

Dalina Soto:

Spoke out of my soul.

Jay Baum:

Yeah, it is right. We hear it over and over-

Dalina Soto:

We say it without even knowing.

Jay Baum:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so one of the things that I always tell parents is that we are going to make mistakes and we, aren’t going to mess up around language around food, but that’s normal and that’s okay. And to give yourself some grace around it. And so then with that piece, I always suggest correcting that in the moment. So I have a really good example of this for instance.

Jay Baum:

So I have a mom the other day who told me… So in our call, she was really upset because her daughter had asked if they could buy ice cream. And she had kind of said, as a reflex, no, we can’t buy ice cream because I can’t have ice cream in the house. If I have ice cream in the house, I’m going to eat all of it. And she said this out loud to her eight year old kid. And then she felt really terrible and guilty afterwards. And so the discussion was, well, what could we do different? Or how could we repair this comment? Right? What it really comes down to is that think about, well, okay. I would, after the fact, if you realize this, have a conversation about maybe why you said this to why you would want to say something different?

Jay Baum:

And so we had a discussion like a bit of a role-play like, what would you have said differently? If you could go back to this moment, or what would you say differently if this happened next time? And so basically what it came down to is she said, “I would…” And we always speak with truth. She would say, “I love ice cream.” She does, she loves ice cream. That is true. I’m glad that you ice cream too. Right? So some simple things that. Saying, it is true we don’t keep ice cream in the house very often. Maybe we need to change that. And then you can even be going further and bringing that intuitive eating piece around. So it doesn’t have to be talking about diet or any big thing, but it could be sometimes mom eats ice cream to the point where it makes her feel icky.

Jay Baum:

Sometimes I eat too much ice cream. And so sometimes I get a little bit worried about having it around, but maybe I can work on that. Maybe innate that speaks to the restriction piece. Maybe I eat so much when I get it, because we don’t have it often enough. Maybe we should have ice cream more. So just some of this language, you can talk these things through, out loud in front of your kid and correct yourself. So that’s usually the first thing I say, because when… And when you work with the adults, they probably have some really vivid memories of thinking that their parents or their grandparents said about their own bodies, about food. And so sometimes correcting it in the moment can be so powerful because the kid is then going to remember, “Oh, mum really likes ice cream like me, and we’re going to buy ice cream next time we go grocery shopping.” And just kind of flipping that switch. That’s usually what I kind of work with parents around doing. And I mean, I do that myself. And so it’s just really being kind to ourselves.

Melissa Landry:

This is game changing. I don’t want to move too fast over this because my mind is like, so excited by everything you just said. First, I’m really just struck with this ability we all might consider is normalizing learning new things. That we are not perfect ever and even if you learn things and feel true for you and you become masterful at it, you will always make mistakes. Take that pressure off. You will. It is. I don’t think I’ve yet heard someone say it quite that, Jay, where you are going to make a mistake. You’re going to say something from your old mindset. You may say something you didn’t even know as a belief, kids have this amazing way when they’re in front of us, we have to explain the world to them and then we’re going, “Why do I think of it that way?”

Melissa Landry:

They’re going to actually help you probably excavate and cultivate some of these new beliefs you’re looking for. So that was just gorgeous. The curiosity that you modeled there was really powerful. Do you find that parents have a hard time approaching that curiosity with their kids? Or is it enough just to intend on it?

Jay Baum:

I think for a lot of parents there’s this pressure… I mean, many of us have that sort of perfectionist thing in us anyways, but I think that when we become parents, for many people that comes out even stronger, we want to have all the answers, we want to do everything right. I think that the other thing about kids that is wonderful and terrible at the same time is they ask you things at the worst time. When you’re so distracted and you have a million things going on and you’re stressed or worried about something, trying to pay for something at the grocery store, whatever, and you just blurt something out. And the good thing is as well, okay, now I know that stuff there. I can deal with it, but then the other pieces, it just gives you that ability. And so what I say for parents, when I work with them, I never coming from a place of judgment. It’s always curiosity. And so when you’re working with your kids on developing a positive relationship with food, it’s the same thing. Asking the why question in just a very curious way and exploring it.

Melissa Landry:

Yeah, and know that you’re probably teaching them a lot by being the kind of parent who can say, you know what? I don’t have it. All right. I’m curious, let’s learn this together. You’re creating your family culture with your child. You’re not solely responsible for it. Think of all that kids offer families with their little personalities and their interests that are nothing you and exactly you at the same time. I’m sure. So I love letting them kind of step up in that way with you and learn and develop that family culture. When I got this question, my thought of the fear about good and bad foods in my first job, I worked in pediatrics and I remember a lot of the parents really almost coming to professionals, help me teach this kid to eat the good foods that are in my mind. So-

Dalina Soto:

Tell my kid to eat XYZ. That’s what I get a lot.

Melissa Landry:

I think a lot of our audience is probably newly aware to be normalizing former forbidden foods like ice cream and your example. That was a great one. I know that they also probably carry fears and concerns about weight gain in their child that drive the motivation for quote, good foods or formerly labeled good foods. What do you say to that fear like my child won’t eat enough. There’s not enough nutrition. What if they gain weight and this neutrality around the good foods too?

Jay Baum:

So sometimes it’s kind of unpacking our own fears. What is it that we’re really worried about? Is it for weight, I get a lot of parents that are worried about weight and when we unpack it, it often comes down to not so much a health piece, but more worried about what’s going to happen outside of the home. What are people going to say to my child? So sometimes it’s unpacking that a little bit more. If it’s the nutrition piece and we’re generally finding that the kid isn’t eating a balanced diet, it’s really kind of going back to some of the basics because we know research shows that pressuring kids to eat certain foods never actually leads to them eating more of those foods longterm. So it’s really exploring ways that we can support our children to feel comfortable and confident to try a variety of foods.

Jay Baum:

And then the other thing I find that’s really helpful, even starting as young as about three or so is asking kids how certain foods make them feel. So as adults, we’ve all had that experience where maybe we went on vacation and we ate a ton of rich food that we would not normally eat. And then we feel awful afterwards and we’re like, “Oh, okay. I really need to have some vegetables or some salad or something later.” Right? Kids get that too. My son he’s exploring this year. He just turned eight. He’s exploring packing his own lunches. I’ve given him some general guidelines, but I’d given him a lot of leeway with it. And so most of his lunches are literally looking all white carbs. And he did that for an entire week. He had one day, I think he packed two bagels and then he was really excited about it.

Jay Baum:

And then he came home and he was like, “I didn’t really eat much my lunch today.” And they said, “Oh, you weren’t that hungry?” He’s like, “I was hungry but nothing really seemed anything that I felt eating today.” And so that gives you an opportunity to explore that. And so then after a week of packing kind of unbalanced lunches, the most parents would kind of look can be like, “Oh gosh, what’s happening here.” If you give your kids a little bit of trust and a little bit of leeway and you know that you’re there to support them. They kind of write themselves on their own usually. And you’re there then to help them explore that piece as well.

Dalina Soto:

Love that. Love that.

Melissa Landry:

I can feel the blood pressure of our audience rising as you described this. They’re like, “How did she?” I mean, truly, I just am going to make a plug for services like Jay’s here because I think that the coaching element is so helpful through that. This is in part behavioral, which means that inputs and rewards and time are part of this. And so a lot of the things I would see in my former job where the parents would kind of shut down before the process could see itself through. And so if you’re having a hard time with that and you’re going like, “That sounds great, Jay, but my kids on day six of that, and I’m getting a little panicked.” It is probably time to invest in somebody who can help tailor this and make sure you get the outcome you’re looking for when you’re extending and you’re letting yourself kind of go through that. So just a plug for what you do. It’s so important.

Melissa Landry:

One of our other questions now ask about the things we can’t control, which are outside influences, what other people do and say. I had a couple of comments, like we’re working hard to create peace around food at the home. And maybe grandparents are disruptors, especially comments, quote, of course, he loves to eat, look at his size or connecting a child love of food or quantity of food with their appearance and shape. This is such a tough one. Especially if you, as an adult are still healing from some of that within your family, what are some tips and pointers you give to families around that?

Jay Baum:

So stuff like this, I find to be the hardest part of my job. I get comments every day from clients I work with about things that people have said about their bodies, their kids’ bodies, other people’s bodies that are just kind of rooted in that diet culture, full of shame, full of guilt. Right? And one thing that I have really noticed is that sometimes for parents, it is easier to address these comments when they’re directed at your child than it is when they’re directed to ourselves.

Jay Baum:

So an example would be a grandparent. I often work with families where grandparents may say things about bodies that the parents have problems with. When they’re said to their children, they may be things that they’re being said to them. And so the one thing I tell parents is that body autonomy applies to comments about body, as well as comments about food and what kids are eating.

Jay Baum:

And so I just really try and give them permission to recognize that because our culture has kind of erase that. It’s basically said, it’s okay to comment on other people’s body if you’re doing it because you’re worried about their health. Right? So there is this narrative out there and I call bullshit. Right? So I have that conversation with parents. And so a comment the one you just mentioned, what I always tell parents is that the first place I start is in the home. And so I start normalizing that piece about, we don’t talk about other people’s bodies. It’s not appropriate to talk about other people’s bodies. I also start normalizing that concept, that all bodies are good bodies. I also normalize the piece fat is not a bad word. Bodies come in, all different shapes. Kind of really working on that in the home. You can start that from a really young age.

Jay Baum:

And then once you feel pretty secure about that in the home, you take it wider and you do what feels comfortable because you it might not feel safe to do that all the time. So if something that happens outside of the home and you do not feel safe stopping it at that point in time, and that can be emotionally safe as well. It would be having a discussion with your child outside of the situation at home. Another step would actually be removing you and your child from that situation. You can change the subject. You can decide to go do something else. If you’re in a room in the house with extended family and friends, you can say, let’s go for a walk or let’s go do this. And then ultimately I would say, as you build confidence, it would be addressing it in the moment.

Jay Baum:

So the real idea, so comments about food. I always say, there’s that kind of clean your plate comment that comes up a lot. And so you can say to your kid you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. And then you would tell, whoever’s kind of putting that pressure on your kid that I trust Susie to eat as much or as little as she needs to eat. And if she doesn’t want to clean her plate, she doesn’t have to clean her plate. And so just normalizing that and showing your kid that the rules around… And I’m using rules here in a different way than food rules, it’s sort of household guidelines apply when you’re outside the house or coaching your kids when they start going to play dates and stuff that you can tell them.

Jay Baum:

Yeah. My mum says I don’t have to eat everything on my plate. My dad says I don’t have to eat all my vegetables to get dessert. And so just coaching them to also feel confident that they can say that. And then you can back them up by having that conversation afterwards, in terms of comments about bodies. That’s the harder one sometimes. Right?

Jay Baum:

So I would say that you can do something as simple as just in the moment saying, we don’t comment to another about people’s bodies and we would appreciate it if you don’t comment on ours. Just that kind of just shuts down the conversation, it makes it really clear. You can also just use language bodies come in different shapes and sizes. My kid is growing the way he was meant to grow. Just neutralizing it. And I think we are so scared of doing that, but it can be really powerful, just really small, simple phrases like that. Yeah.

Dalina Soto:

How powerful.

Melissa Landry:

These are really powerful. I’m just curious for you with your kids, has that happened to you before where someone said a comment that made you uncomfortable? How do you deal with it?

Dalina Soto:

I mean, yes. And I think that, you know what Jay said about advocating for your children is just so important because imagine just how our children can grow up to advocate for themselves, hearing you as a parent advocate for them. I mean, my parents are always saying things and I’m always having to nip it in the butt. But I remember at the beginning of quarantine when we hadn’t seen my parents for almost two months. My kids are always eating or that’s the joke in my mom’s family, that my kids are always eating, but we called, we Face timed with my dad and he saw Nilah eating and he was like, “Oh my God, Nayla, you’re going to get fat.” And I was like, “Absolutely not. You’re not commenting on my child’s eating. You’re not commenting on my child’s weight. You’re not doing that again.”

Dalina Soto:

And I think that, that was just the mama bear coming out of me. I was a tad bit rude. But ever since then, I had a conversation with both my parents and they’ve been pretty good about it. But if you’re not… Like, Jay said, if you can’t advocate in that moment, just taking the time to even just talk to your child and addressing it I think that’s also a good step and it makes me feel validated that Jay is saying this because now I feel like, man, I’m actually doing a good job.

Melissa Landry:

Always Dalina. Dalina does not give herself enough credit in this life. I’m always impressed with how you do these things.

Dalina Soto:

Get ready to fight them.

Melissa Landry:

For your friends and for your work it’s a thread I noticed. Yeah, no, ultimately it’s almost you’d get comfortable being a little uncomfortable around some of that. That doesn’t mean you have to jump into a space that feels scary or panicked or beyond your comfort zone way outside. But Brene Brown says this all the time, living a value-driven life does mean that sometimes, sometimes vulnerability and honesty does push you to do these things. And so I love the way, Jay, that you kind of broke it down this all. You can start in the home. That’s the highest degree of control and safety. If outside the home, can you be thinking about removing from threatening experiences? Let’s go take a walk, let’s leave the room.

Melissa Landry:

And then the next step is to start, catch those comments in the moment as Dalina model for us. Amazing. All right, we’re going to do one quick, last question for you. Do you have any energy left Jay?

Dalina Soto:

I clearly do.

Melissa Landry:

Brilliant. Mind of yours are squeezing every nugget we can. Okay. So this was that practicality. I mentioned at the top of call. I love this question. Mom says, figuring out dinner time with work from home school and home, how do you keep things practical? So kids actually eat enough. They’re not meal skipping. They’re not picky at that time. What are your tips for that dinner meal and making it feel as pleasant as possible?

Jay Baum:

Dinner is often my hardest meal of the day. It certainly is in my household. So sometimes there’s a lot of pressure out there to make the family dinner, the kind of perfect meal. It’s the meal where you kind of think about, okay, this is the meal we’re going to sit down and talk about what happened in our day. But the honest truth is that a lot of the time adults are exhausted from working all day kind of juggling a whole bunch of household things. And then kids are tired, especially right now a lot of kids are doing sort of a new way of learning if they’re back at school. And I know my kids are in-person at school right now and they have so many rules, they have to follow that by the time they get home, they’re just done. So what I usually suggest is when we look at the research, it’s actually a minimum of three family meals a day is what we’re looking at. So I think sometimes that can… I mean, a day a week. So-

Melissa Landry:

I was going to say, whoa.

Dalina Soto:

Yeah that’s every meal. If I was that….

Melissa Landry:

It is like you’re not making this out easier Jay.

Jay Baum:

Family meals a week is what I’m saying. Okay. Yeah, I take that back. So it’s three family meals a week is what we’re looking at for that connection. And if you can manage that, you’re doing excellent. If you can’t manage it every day, it doesn’t matter. Honestly. So I think if you are spending all this time kind of trying to get your kids to sit at the table, trying to get food on the table and you’re feeling anxious and stressed and you’re not connecting anyways. So what I usually say is if for some families who my family, our main meal of the day, where we all sit down together is actually breakfast. I know that’s not possible for everyone. I’m not talking fancy breakfast, half the time it’s cold cereal and freezer waffles.

Melissa Landry:

Oh, that does too.

Jay Baum:

So everyone likes it and it doesn’t take much time. Everyone has time to sit down and connect. My kids are morning kids. So they’re in good moods in the morning. And then at dinner, I usually do something super simple. I find that for a lot of my clients, kids actually do pretty well eating throughout the day. So if they’re not eating that much at dinner, I wouldn’t worry that much about it. You offer them the food and if they don’t eat much or they only pick and choose, I wouldn’t worry so much about it. I think that snack dinners are something that I love in our house. We do leftovers a lot. We do kind of sometimes a fun thing. We’ll do muffin tins, and we’ll put like, just kind of snack foods, a variety. So they get veggies and fruit in there along with some cold cuts and crackers and dinner’s done. Right? So I think that you don’t need to have the perfect family meal.

Dalina Soto:

Oh my God. Thank you so much for saying that because I feel that’s a lot of what I always tell the clients I’m working with. I’m breakfast, lunch, whenever you sit down, even like, it’s fall here where Melissa and I live. It’s a little cooler. I know you’re in Canada. I mean, Toronto is cool too. So I shouldn’t say fall here. Okay, we’re all in the cold soon and it’s-

Dalina Soto:

It’s getting chilly. And our favorite thing to do is go outside and make smores. That’s our family time. We’ll go out after dinner and make smores. We’re together as a family, we’re talking. It doesn’t have to be just a sit down dinner. You can connect with your family and kind of be screen time free at any moment.

Melissa Landry:

Yeah. Hey, so guys, that’s totally helpful. Right?

Dalina Soto:

It’s smores.

Melissa Landry:

We don’t have to put all this pressure on this dinner meal. The actual goal is connection at least three times per week in some way. Right? So these kiddos have space to connect with you that they’re learning some social skills or unreal time that structure is there. And then eating enough, whatever way that looks for you. Is it the snack cards? Is it smores? Is it cereal the table, whatever enough is. And that’s true for adults too. Our job is to eat enough, not too little. Trust our bodies to know how much and whether or not we’re to want to eat. That’s true for kids too. So, I’m not a parent, but I would like, I feel excited to become one, one day, Jay, with this advice, you guys thank you for preparing me. Incredible. Any last takeaways, Jay, from our episode that you want our listeners to hear, if they’re really feeling they want to protect their kids and they’re struggling with that right now.

Jay Baum:

So actually the one thing that I often say is that we can’t actually protect our kids from it, everything to do with diet culture. They’re going to experience it when they go out in the world. So what I encourage the families that I work with is that you’re giving your kids skills to navigate that. We’re not protecting them from it. We’re calling it out. When we see it, we’re having discussions with them and then we’re giving them respectful language to use, to basically call out diet culture and advocate for themselves.

Dalina Soto:

Yes. Yes. That’s all good.

Melissa Landry:

That’s really beautiful. That’s really, all we can do is give them a framework to see the world and let them fill in the rest. It’s beautiful. Jay, you are a gift. I am just so excited. She has the capacity to make these amazing meals, but allows herself the middle ground. She is graceful. She understands this. Jay, where can people find you and follow you to see what you’re up to?

Jay Baum:

So on Instagram, I’m feeding kids, Intuitive Eating, and then my private practice is Pommetta. So pometta.com.

Melissa Landry:

Excellent. Go ahead. If you’re not driving, take out your phone right now and find Jay. We will put a series of posts up on your week when the episode releases. So folks can find her. And I don’t know if people notice this, but on our Instagram page, we only follow our guests. So if you’re wanting to find our guests, you go up to who we’re following. You will find all of them there. Please support them for their time and expertise. Jay, it was lovely talking with you. Thanks for being with us today.

Dalina Soto:

Thank you, Jay.

Dalina Soto:

Very fun. Thanks for having me.

Melissa Landry:

All right. Bye everybody.

Dalina Soto:

Bye.

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