Nutritionist Jill Castle on What it Takes to Help Our Kids Thrive at Every Size

Debbie:

Hi Jill, welcome to the podcast.

Jill Castle:

Thanks for having me, it’s great to be back!

Debbie:

Yeah, I should have said welcome back to the podcast. It’s been a while, actually, since you were last on the show. We had a really good conversation about nutrition and listeners. There’ll be a link in the show notes. Definitely go back and check that out. It’s a really good conversation. We are here to talk about your new book, which is called Kids Thrive at Every Size. And as we were just discussing before we hit record, I said, This book isn’t what I thought it was going to be necessarily. And you said, yeah, well, people were saying, I thought it was going to be a book about nutrition. And you said, well, nothing’s just, it’s just about nutrition anymore. So I would love to hear a little bit about your kind of personal or professional or both evolution and how this book came to be in the forefront of your mind. And you’re like, this is the book I have to get out into the world.

Jill Castle:

I’ve worked with kids of larger size and smaller size and mid -size my entire career of 33 plus years. And I think more recently since COVID, I’ve watched children in larger and smaller bodies experience more mental health concerns related to their bodies. But I’ve also watched the medical field evolve or I guess I’ve recognized that over time we have been focusing so much on physical health and it’s come, I believe, at the expense of emotional well -being. And so I just was, I kept noticing this and noticing this and then watching sort of this polarization of here’s a psychological model for helping kids be healthy. Here’s the medical model for helping kids be healthy. And the two weren’t always agreeing with each other. And I was feeling very conflicted about that while also recognizing that, you know, it just is causing so much more confusion for parents and, and how can we really help them raise healthy kids, but who are also happy kids, happy kids, and comfortable in the skin that they’re in. And so I just kept noodling over this and realizing that there really isn’t a guide out there for parents to follow this path of raising healthy and happy kids. And what has that caused, right? What has that contributed to? And I came up with this whole new model called Whole Child Healthy, which incorporates both physical health and emotional wellbeing and a path forward, which I call the eight pillars of wellness, which are really those essential habits, which of course, some are food and feeding and eating, they’re nutrition related, but also these other habits that we hear about all the time, sleep, movement, screen time, and how do we incorporate all of those to capitalize on physical health and emotional wellbeing?

And as I thought through that, I also very much realized that the culture of the family, which is one of the pillars of wellness, but the culture of the family, the attitudes of the family really do influence a child’s physical health and emotional wellbeing. And the other pillar of, we need to be actively cultivating self -love in our kids, particularly in this society that we live in whereby our children are bombarded every day with messages and images of these idealized diets and idealized bodies that most kids will never conform to. And so what does that do to their sense of worthiness?

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah, it is all interconnected. And I think, again, that’s what I didn’t expect. And I really appreciate it. It did feel like a fresh conversation. It felt like a different way of looking at all these pieces and bringing them together. And you do weave in nutrition and these things, but it is all connected to this whole child healthiness that you describe. Before we go into some of the pillars of wellness, I’m just, you mentioned COVID and I’m just, always like to ask people how, you know, COVID kind of changed their lens in the work that they do. Like, you know, we talked about the effect of COVID on screen time or mental health and all these things, but in the nutrition space, because that’s where you’ve spent a lot of your professional life working in, did COVID, how did COVID impact nutrition with young people?

Jill Castle:

Yeah, so I’m still seeing the impact of COVID on the families that I work with. You know, they’re a lot more snacking, a lot more mindless eating, a lot more coping with food. So the emotional discomfort that some children feel about being alone or being excluded or they’re turning to food more often as a way to help them cope with those emotions. And I think families also cooking way more probably than they had been before COVID. I know for my own family, all four of my children moved home, some of which were already launched and working in cities, they moved home and we were cooking or eating together at least three, oftentimes four or five times a day. And that was a positive thing, I think for many families, but for families who may not have the structures around food and feeding and eating, or the access to food, that proved very challenging. And so I think families had a lot of opportunities during COVID with nutrition and food, but I also think that it was probably very hard for families who were faced with upticks in eating and snacking and food access and availability and how do you manage all that in the household with kids who are in the pantry all the time? I think it was hard for everybody.

Debbie:

Yeah, and I think like so many other things with COVID, I appreciate that you said you’re still kind of seeing the effects. I think we’re all still kind of like grappling with or not realizing perhaps like, wow. I still sometimes I’m like, I can’t believe we went through that. Like, how did that even happen? And so I think a lot of us are just moved on, but not realizing that it’s still kind of impacting us. Super interesting. I want to go back to one other thing you said that I wrote down that sounded interesting. You said that you think that we’ve prioritized physical health at the expense of emotional well-being. So can you just kind of tease that out a little bit more for us?

Jill Castle:

Yeah. So in the pediatric world or in the child health world, when we encounter a child who may be in a larger body or in a smaller body, our sort of motivation is to change that size. So a child in a smaller body, we want them to, you know, get back on the growth chart, gain some weight, be at a healthier place. And for a child in a larger body, we are oftentimes suggesting that they lose weight or decrease on the weight curve on the growth chart. And in doing so, I think we have forgotten the big picture, which is that some children are naturally going to be smaller. Some children are going to naturally be larger in size and that has nothing to do with their health. It has probably more to do with their genetics than anything else and something to do with their environment and habits that they have. But this automatic response that we need to fix their size can be problematic because in doing so, we’re basically sending a message to children that you’re not good enough in the body that you’re in right now. We need to change that body. And that can cause emotional harm. And I’ve seen the harm and I’m watching the harm just in general. I mean, the harm is undeniable. We see more dysfunctional eating now than we’ve seen in the past. We’ve seen children with more disordered eating, more eating disorders. And that comes, you know, in part from perhaps not feeling good in the body that you’re in or perhaps being told that your body isn’t right or isn’t good enough. And I think that as a healthcare provider, and I hope for parents out there listening, that there is a toll when we’re telling children that their bodies are not okay, or their eating is not okay, or their food choices are not okay, there’s a potential emotional cost to that. And I think my call to action, one of the call to actions in the book is to let’s bring more sensitivity and awareness to how we’re talking about health, how we’re talking about bodies, how we’re talking about food, because we can instill shame unknowingly and unintentionally, but we can do that. And we need to be more careful about that for our children.

Debbie:

Super interesting. So you were just describing this kind of focus on size and how that can instill shame, or we’re focusing on food choices, or maybe just focusing on the wrong things. I guess that’s my question to you would be, what else are we getting wrong? What are the things that we’re doing by mistake that are inadvertently having these kind of negative, potential negative side effects?

Jill Castle:

Yeah, well, one of the things I think that we are getting wrong, and this is pretty systemic, is we are putting a lot of emphasis on food as the problem and as the solution. And in my experience, yes, it’s one slice of the pie, but as I try to convey in my book, there are so many things that feed into your child’s health and well -being. How much sleep they get. Is it quality sleep? How much time do they spend in front of screens? And does that time take away their ability to move or to explore other interests? How much movement are kids getting? What’s the family attitude about bodies? What are the family attitudes about food and eating? So there’s a lot of ingredients to this recipe for building a healthy child. And I think, you know, only focusing on food, just short changes, a lot of what parents and families can be doing out there to cultivate healthy kids who feel good about themselves.

Debbie:

Mm Yeah, yeah. So you touched upon this before, but I want to go a little deeper. So again, the book is called Kids Thrive at Every Size. The subtitle is how to nourish your big, small or in between child for a lifetime of health and happiness. And you have these eight pillars of wellness. And the first one I just loved and wasn’t expecting it was cultivating a family culture. And I love that because in Differently Wired, I talked about how important it is to have a family culture that is neurodiversity affirming, that talks openly about strengths and weaknesses, and that’s just kind of how we work as a family. So can you talk about what cultivating a family culture looks like or what it means within the context of your book?

Jill Castle:

Yeah, so for me, I included family culture because I believe that children of every size, but particularly children with larger and smaller bodies need an affirming, supportive, accepting, inclusive family culture. And that means for families to treat and feed their children the same foods, believe it or not, some families feel that their larger child needs different foods than their average size child. And that again, sets up this weird dynamic whereby that larger child doesn’t feel included or supported. It also involves role modeling the habits and the attitudes you want your children to develop. So you want your child to be an active child, then parents need to be active parents. And so, you know, that’s part of it.

And then the other part of it is just identifying who your family is as a family. What are your values? What are your core beliefs? Particularly around nutrition, food, physical activity, attitudes about body size and inclusivity around that. And so really helping families concretely navigate what their family culture is and to, and I encouraged families, or I hope I encourage parents to really think about, know, this is something that warrants thoughtfulness and can be very helpful for kids who are growing up today, as you mentioned, because it allows conversation, it allows, you know, I give an example of a family manifesto, what the family believes and how they act and behave towards each other and encourage a family mantra and family meetings. so really connectivity in the family, communication in the family, but also being very thoughtful about sort of the attitudes that you want to build in your children as you’re raising them.

Debbie:

And what about parents who have their own kind of food baggage that they bring in? I imagine that in order to really be intentional about our values as a family surrounding food, we may have our own unresolved issues or unhealthy relationships. So how do you advise parents to kind of do their own work so that they can model and appropriate or helpful body culture in a family.

Jill Castle:

Okay, so the first step is awareness, just understanding that there is some baggage. And the baggage can be around food, it can be around body size, it can be around feeding. So I talk a lot about feeding baggage. We come to the table with our own experiences around feeding. How we were raised as a child is oftentimes how we are going to interact with our own children around food and feeding. And so coming to terms with your own experiences may be influencing your own parenting around your child. There are lots of resources. I outline some of the resources in the book that you can go to, obviously, you know, working through some of these issues with a therapist, recognizing that you might be getting re -triggered if you’ve already worked through these things and getting re -triggered as a result of parenting your own child. But also, looking at the social cultural norms that we’re living with and being curious about are these triggering you too? Is it not just your child that’s triggering you? Are you going on social media all the time and seeing, you know, organic, perfect lunch boxes and feeling the pressure to do the same for your child and getting upset or triggered or feeling less than as a parent? I’m always reminding parents that they are everything that their child needs.

And, you know, if you’re feeling like you can’t handle something, there are professionals to reach out to, to work through this stuff. Communication and coaching and emotion coaching through all of these things are so helpful, I think. And the work that I do with families oftentimes does involve a lot of this, what was it like for you as a child? What is it like for you today with your own child? How can we navigate through this? And just affirming that, you know, parenting is hard, feeding kids is hard, raising healthy, productive citizens is not easy. And just providing parents with the validation that, you know, they’re not the only ones who are sort of navigating all of this. And it is particularly hard in our culture today, I think Parents are getting a lot of pressure and mixed messages about what their child should be eating, what they should look like, what behaviors they should be engaged in. So it can be quite hard.

Debbie:

Yeah, absolutely. And I want to talk about feeding for a minute because I just want to say there’s a chapter on feeding that’s pillar four is feeding and then pillar five is eating. And I was like, those are two different things. And I thought that was really interesting. And I found that whole chapter on feeding so fascinating. Starting with the subtitle of that chapter, which was trust, love and limits. And I, I’m wondering if you could talk about why the words trust and love when you were talking about feeding and maybe explaining what feeding is as a concept as well.

Jill Castle:

Sure, so feeding is that interaction between the parent and the child around food. So it’s the, you know, how you’re sitting around the table and what you’re talking about and how you’re trying to get your child to eat this or not eat that. That’s sort of the context of what I mean by feeding. And trust is really a nod to trusting that your child knows what their body needs. When babies are born, they know exactly what they need in terms of nutrition. you’re nursing, if you’ve been a nursing mom, or even if you’re bottle feeding mom, your baby will stop eating when they’re full and when they don’t want anymore. What happens over time as our kids get into the toddler ages, we start to, as parents, intervene and distrust that our kids know how much to eat.

And so we’re trying to get them to eat more or get them to eat something different. And so the trust is really a nod to trust your child. They know how much to eat. They might not know what to eat, that’s on the parent to determine what to feed them, but trust that they know when their body is full and they know when their body is hungry. Love and limits are a nod to diplomatic feeding. Diplomatic feeding has been researched through and through. It’s the gold standard of how we should be feeding children. And it really means that we should be having structure with meal times and snack times, meaning predictable times in a predictable location. And limits are the boundaries. They’re the no’s. They’re the not right now’s. They’re the kitchen is closed. We’re not having a snack right now. We’re waiting until our next meal time. So feeding with trust, love and limits means that you are engaged with your child. You’re considerate of your child’s preferences. You trust that they know that when they’re full and I’ll just say a little side caveat here. Not every child knows when they’re full now. And not every child is appropriately hungry, which I get into in the eating pillar, but setting up a home environment where there’s structure around feeding, structure around meal time and snack time and boundaries around access to food. That’s the love and limits part of it.

Debbie:

So you were just talking about, especially in that trust piece is trusting that our child’s body will tell them when they’re when they’ve had enough or when they’re hungry. And we also know, especially with some neurodivergent kids, kids who might have executive function challenges, they may have struggles with paying attention to cues or knowing what to do when those cues happen or maybe not even tuning in. So I’d love it if you could talk a little bit about the relationship between executive function and eating.

Jill Castle:

Yeah, what we know about, and I feel like I’m speaking to the choir here a little bit because I’m sure you know more about executive function than I might know, but when it comes to eating, we know that delayed gratification can be a challenge for children whose executive functioning skills are developing. We also know that delayed gratification and impulsivity can also be a challenge for children whose executive skills are still developing. So parents really need to be aware of that and set up the structure so that they can operate within that framework during the day and not cave into those tendencies, which may interfere with healthful eating. So, I like to phrase executive functioning skills as sort of on a continuum of development because I do believe kids all get there, but they can get there at different times, at different timeframes. And for children who are on that, who may need more support, just thinking about things like, you know, a younger child needs more structure, more support, more parental involvement, that can be the same situation for children who are developing in those areas.

Debbie:

So you also have a chapter about screens and media in your book. Again, it was one of those, I was like, of course. Right. But it’s all again, interconnected between body image. Like there’s a lot wrapped into two screens and I’m, I would love if you could talk with us a little bit about the context of screens when thinking about food and body image, like do you have any most important things you would want parents to know because I think there’s a lot of fear out there. There’s a lot of worries about how our kids’ engagement with screens is impacting our kids’ emotional health, their physical health, all of those pieces.

Jill Castle:

Yeah, yeah. So I’m so thankful that, you know, the presence of screens was not that prevalent when I was raising my children, because I think today parents are really, it’s a really hard, hard thing. So screens, the way I showcase screens in this book is, you know, what are the pros, what are the cons? We know that screens can be a great educational, method for children, right? There’s positives about screens, but more and more, particularly when you get into social media, more and more kids are suffering. They’re, like I mentioned before, they’re getting bombarded with images of what an ideal body looks like. You know, 90%, 80 % of kids are not gonna have “ideal body.” And how does that instill, you know, worthiness or how does that challenge their worthiness and potentially instill shame? Social media, and I’m not an expert on social media, I did the research as it relates to children developing emotional wellbeing. What I would say for families is, and also on the side, there’s no real great guidelines right now around how much social media children should have particularly as kids get older, the American Academy of Pediatrics basically says, whatever feels good for your family. so families just really need to maybe take a deeper, wider lens look at this from the safety of what their children are using. You know, are there screens updated, are their operating systems updated, are their children’s private information not out there? So I look through and explore all of that, but also look at the impact of social media on how kids feel about themselves. And that’s just really, that’s gonna depend on the child, that’s gonna depend on their temperament, that’s gonna depend on their developmental stage, where they are. Does it impact, we don’t know, does it impact middle schoolers less than elementary school kids? We don’t know, but we know there are developmentally sensitive times where children are building their self -esteem and that is in the elementary to middle school years and up into the high school years. And so I think what parents can do is really look at access, look at how much engagement is happening there and be curious about the impact and influence it’s having on their kids. I encourage parents to have a media diet, a safe media diet, which, you know, includes how often and what types, and also for parents to be right there online with their kids. Your child’s on Instagram, your friends with your child on Instagram. If they’re on TikTok, you’re seeing those videos too. Really being involved in what your child’s getting exposed to and being curious about how it is affecting them, positively and negatively.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah, great. Thank you for that. There are two concepts I want to touch upon before we wrap up. One is you talk about something called a body neutral home. So I’d love it if you could explain what that is and also talk about what parents can do to kind of course correct if that’s not really where they are right now.

Jill Castle:

Right, so a body neutral home really just focuses on the body function rather than the appearance of the body. You can have a body negative home, which is super critical about bodies, talking about people’s bodies all the time, and that’s not healthy for anyone, parent or child. You can have a body positive home, which your listeners may have heard about, which is really focusing on all bodies being excellent, great, no matter what, beautiful as is. And for some children, I believe, body positivity still may focus too much on appearance. And so I really lean towards body neutrality, where we’re not talking about the appearance of the body at all, we’re talking about function. What can the body do? And really leaning into function and not appearance. So how do you set that up in your home? Well, you don’t comment about your own body in front of your children. You don’t comment about other people’s bodies in front of your children. You talk about bodies in ways that are very neutral. Your legs really ran fast at that race today. Your body is strong and powerful. So how can parents course correct? I think that was your second part. I think, you know, stepping back, awareness is so key. Do you disparage yourself in front of your children? Do you say things like, I wish my body didn’t look like this or more overt things like, you know, I can’t get in that bathing suit because I’m too large. Kids internalize all these messages. If you’re saying that about yourself, children may start to think, well, she must think that way about me too, or he must think that way about me too. And so really taking a step back and looking at yourself through the lens of how am I potentially talking about my own body or other people’s bodies or even my child’s body. Parents do unfortunately speak of their children’s bodies. And there’s no upside to that, I don’t think. I think eventually it can potentially cause harm. And so keeping this idea that just be neutral about, everybody’s got a different body and everybody’s body looks different, right? We all have the same organs on the inside, our outsides look differently. And so really celebrating the differences rather than attaching negativity or unacceptance to differences in size.

Debbie:

As you’re saying that, I feel like I was having this flood of memories that kept coming forward for me of things that were said to me about my body as I was growing up and how they’re still with me at this age. And I also wonder, you know, I imagine there would be value and also just like having a frank conversation with your kid and saying, you know what, we’ve been doing this and we’re not going to do it anymore. And just kind of being really explicit about it. Like we’ve learned that this is harmful and we’re going to do better and let’s support each other in doing that. So yeah.

Jill Castle:

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, and that’s that family culture piece. Those conversations are so helpful. Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah. So at the end of your book, you have a, I believe it’s a quiz, but you ask parents if they’re size wise. So how would you define size wise?

Jill Castle:

That’s a great question. So I think it’s really knowing sort of the eight pillars that you want to be working on, understanding where you are in that process. Some people will be just starting out, beginners, what I call learners. Some will be strivers. They’re on their way. They’ve got a lot of good things in place, but there’s some areas they can improve. And there are thrivers who have mastered a pillar. For example, they’ve got everything in place and things are just going swimmingly.

Size wise is, you know how to raise a healthy child who also feels good about themselves. You know all the key ingredients, you’re working on them or are there. And I honestly believe it’s a work in progress. It’s a very goal oriented book. And it’s a book that meets you where you’re at and helps support you along the way. But the goal is to raise healthy, happy kids – physically healthy, emotionally well, and there’s a path to doing that. And so being size wise is you’re on that path and you know the path and you know where you’re going and you’ve got a plan to get there.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s great. And it really is, as a writer, I just really appreciated the organization of the book. It did feel very accessible. I love the learners, the strivers, the thrivers. There’s charts, and I love a good chart. And there, throughout the book, you have scripts in there for how to talk about things. So I just feel it is so practical and helpful. Well done with that. Before we say goodbye, where would you like to direct listeners to learn more about your work and your book?

Jill Castle:

Sure, thank you for that and for your comments about the book. I appreciate that. You can find me and my professional services over at jillcastle .com. And I also have a website for parents called thenourishchild.com and that has free articles, some courses, and also my podcast of the same name. that can be found there and Kids Thrive at Every Size can be found anywhere books are sold.

Debbie:

Awesome, excellent. And listeners, again, I will have links to all those resources in the show notes page. But Jill, just want to say thank you so much for everything you shared today. Congratulations on the book. And yeah, I just appreciate you coming by and giving us so many great things to think about when it comes to helping our kids really thrive, no matter their size, their age, or where they are in life. So thank you so much.

Jill Castle:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me here.