#110 - Parenting Without Diet Culture with Oona Hanson

Join me and parent coach Oona Hanson for a compassionate conversation about the tangled relationship between diet culture, body image, and family dynamics. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal journey through eating disorder recovery, Oona offers helpful insights into the subtle ways language shapes our beliefs about food and self-worth, and how these patterns impact the next generation.

Together, we call out why parenting in the face of eating disorders is so tricky to navigate, and why we have to prioritize understanding and advocating for early intervention over blaming ourselves. We cover fostering positive body image (including how social media plays a part) and Oona shares practical strategies for instilling positive eating habits in children, especially young athletes.

To learn more about Oona and the work she does, be sure to check out her website at www.oonahanson.com or follow her on IG @oona_hanson or on FB @ParentingWithoutDietCulture.

Get on the waitlist for September's Beyond The Scale Un-Dieting & Intuitive Eating Group
Program: https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/undietyourlife

Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free resources and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links

Transcript

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr Jen Salib-Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the midlife feast community, my monthly membership that combines my no nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife. Hey, everyone, welcome to this week's episode of Midlife Feast.

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:54

So I've been looking for someone to come and talk about intergenerational stuff around dieting, diet, culture, body shame, body talk. And the reason why I was looking for someone is because in these midlife conversations that I have with people all the time, you know, we're talking about what we learned from our parents, from our friends, from our aunts, uncles, cousins, and we're often talking about it in the context of our own children, and so I know, not everyone has children, but most people have someone in their life that they feel, you know, connected to, in that mentory kind of way, whether it's a parent, an aunt, a godmother, whatever it is. You know, there's often just this awareness of I want, I want to do better. I realize that there are some things that I was taught, there are ways that I was raised that aren't serving me, and I want to do better.

Jenn Salib Huber: 1:52

right, we know better we do better, and so when I came across Una Hansen on Instagram and started to follow her, I realized that she was the perfect person to kind of start this conversation with.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:05

So, una is a parent coach with an education background, and she has a lot of experience working with families and parents, you know, who have children, who are in eating disorder recovery.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:20

But what we talk about in this episode, which I think is relevant to anyone and everyone, is what are some of the things that we can start to do in our own conversations, not just with our kids, but also just with ourselves. What are some of the things, what's the language that we can start to change? What are some of the ways that we can just start to normalize the fact that bodies change? And so I'm really excited to bring this one to you, and if you're someone who is, you know, thinking, you know I really want to learn more about this 2024, because Una's going to come in and do a session in the Midlife Feast community about how do we respond to that desire to get back on track in September and how do we start to change the language and the conversations around that so that we're not triggering ourselves and, potentially, other people in our house right back into the diet cycle. So let's get this conversation started. Hi Una, welcome to the Midlife Feast, thanks for having me.

Jenn Salib Huber: 3:32

So I have been looking for someone for a while to touch on this topic that I think has come up at a few different times in different episodes, certainly in the work that I do, either in my community or one-on-one stuff around this intergenerational cycle of not just dieting and diet culture but body shame and specifically kind of what we learn from the generation before us and even what we inadvertently pass on to our children or nieces, neighbors, whatever, nephews, all the people. So I'm very excited for this conversation. So thank you for coming on today, but why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and how you got to do this kind of work?

Oona Hanson: 4:20

Yeah, well, I've always been an educator at heart, teaching high school English and coaching girls sports. That was my first career and then, when I had my own kids, I got really interested in learning about how people learn and adolescent development, things that I really hadn't studied a lot in school because I worked in an independent school where you're not required to have an education background. So I went back to school to learn more because I realized there was a lot, a lot that I didn't know and I started doing more and more parent education Because I realized that, especially for parents of teens, teens and tweens, there really isn't enough support. So, you know, when you have little ones, there's often maybe a parent and me class or there are, you know, lots of books and resources and communities for kind of those early years of parenting and you're you tend to be a lot more kind of forthcoming with other parents about what you're struggling with, whether it's, you know, teething or starting solid foods or starting kindergarten. But when your kids enter adolescence we tend to get a lot more private right Because we want to protect our kids and parents are kind of left alone in a lot of cases, and there are some great books and resources out there. But the more I worked with parents, the more I realized parents of adolescents need support. They need some education about kind of what's normal adolescent development and also kind of how to take care of themselves through this, which can be a bumpy ride.

Oona Hanson: 5:58

And then I ended up having an unfortunate experience in our own family where I had a child development eating disorder and very quickly, you know, people came out of the woodwork to ask me for help with their child because this wasn't something they had put on social media, they hadn't told their religious community.

Oona Hanson: 6:17

You know eating disorders because of the stigma and misinformation out there, it's not, you know, what we call like a casserole illness, right when you, you know you tell everyone and people come and support you.

Oona Hanson: 6:29

It can be a very isolating experience and I quickly realized while parents of kids going through some kind of health crisis, like an eating disorder, they need even more support. So that might my parent education work evolved to really focus on eating disorder awareness, prevention and supporting families that are going through treatment with a child really want to do right by their adolescence and they're so aware of social media and the pressures that didn't even exist when we were that age and knowing that, wow, we struggled. Maybe it was 17 magazine, maybe it was the supermodel and all the other reasons we might have tricky feelings about our body or about our food. So I just I love being a support for parents navigating diet, culture, fat phobia and I really do see it often. I know it can sound corny to some people but I really do think we can reparent ourselves and a lot of ways around this when we're supporting supporting our own kids.

Jenn Salib Huber: 7:42

Oh, we absolutely can. We absolutely can. I often talk about Sonia. Renee Taylor has this great analogy that she uses of the ladder that we need to be dismantling the ladder of body hierarchy in order to really affect change. And I often tell people that your personal body acceptance journey has to be happening in parallel to this bigger picture. And so I think I see, certainly see, in a lot of the people that I'm talking to in midlife that you know, as they're trying to improve things for their family, they are healing their own relationship with food and their body as well. So I think those two things are definitely happening side by side.

Jenn Salib Huber: 8:24

Well, you mentioned about two things One Seventeen Magazine oh, my goodness, yes, I mean, there was Seventeen. There was YM, there was Teen and Teen Beat, and all of them were upholding this thin ideal, right, thin blonde, beautiful like just this one ideal version of a body, beautiful like just this one, this one ideal version of a body. And is that? Do you feel like that's actually different For how it? Do you think it's different for teens these days, or is it just kind of a different version?

Oona Hanson: 8:55

That's a great question. I mean, I think obviously social media has. You know it's no longer a magazine that comes once a month or that you see in the grocery store checkout, it's 24 seven on your phone, right? These images so kind of like. You know we said like the dose makes the poison, right.

Oona Hanson: 9:13

I think kids just have so much more exposure to these messages that can be toxic. And I think what's also tricky is that kids aren't just comparing themselves to an adult supermodel for whom that's their entire career, right? Or a professional athlete. You know they're seeing kids their own age who are influencers, or maybe just a couple of years older, who are sending messages about. You know, here's what I eat in a day. Here are my workouts and, by the way, you know, if you're eating X, y or Z, those are going to hurt your skin like it's a full body.

Oona Hanson: 9:53

Onslaught of comparisons, fear mongering and you know, as you've seen, with the trend of, you know, eight and nine year olds going to Sephora to buy anti aging cream, I mean it's really affecting younger and younger kids and kids of all genders, Right. So I think you know one thing that has, I hope, gotten somewhat better is there is a little more awareness about the dangers of hyper fixation on your appearance, more awareness that eating disorders don't just affect thin white girls and young women. But there's still a lot of room for more awareness around those things.

Jenn Salib Huber: 10:36

Absolutely. So. Let's talk a little bit about the intergenerational stuff. I know I'm sure that you've heard this many times before, but when I'm talking to parents who have a teen or a child who is experiencing an eating disorder, they are often very surprised because they often don't recognize themselves as dieters, felt like they did their best and I mean there's, it doesn't matter what it is. As a parent, if something happens to your child, I think it's a very natural reaction to try and think like what could I have done differently? But sometimes what comes out of those conversations is recognizing that while the nuclear family may have protected, you know, the kids and tried to keep those conversations out, they were happening at holiday dinners with other family members and there was still this kind of generational tradition around that welcomed diet culture inadvertently to the table. What is that? Has that been your experience as well?

Oona Hanson: 11:44

Yeah, I think we've all inherited things from. Inherited things from our parents or the other people around us. And I think I want to pause and say, for every parent who has a child diagnosed with an eating disorder, it makes total sense to say what could I have done differently? Or if I knew then what I know now? And there's a long history in the treatment of eating disorders of blaming parents, especially mothers, and this has been deeply problematic, problematic and I think, while it's natural to wonder, I think if your child had any diagnosis, you might wonder could I have caught this sooner? Or, you know, there are certain. I think it's just an innate we're. We're hardwired to be protective and we want to, we always want to do right by our kids. And I think one other piece of this is that you know eating disorders have a huge genetic component. So it may even make you realize, wow, you know, uncle so and so, or aunt so and so, or my grandparent, you know, maybe they were struggling with something like this and what we chalked up to being just sort of fat phobia or diet culture, they might have really been struggling with an eating disorder. That has you know if these are your genetic children. That has you know if these are your genetic children, that this might actually be a genetic through line. But the other important piece is that eating disorders are about aren't necessarily about body image or dieting to. I want to make that really clear.

Oona Hanson: 13:18

I think there's this myth that you know, if there's no dieting and everyone's super body positive, that a kid could never develop an eating disorder, and I wish that were true. I think we can lower the risk by being thoughtful about what we do in our home and how we talk and how we talk to ourselves, and I also think if we're trying to, you know, heal from those generational things, we can also we're going to be more aware that something's a problem. So if a child does develop an eating disorder or body dysmorphia, something like that, we're going to catch it a lot earlier because we aren't going to see it as just this normal way, like this is just the way our family operates around food, and so getting that early intervention I think is really really powerful. And even one step from that is a lot of families. You know a child will launch into a health kick right So-called healthy eating, which parents and grandparents might be doing as well at the direction of their doctor or something they've read online. And kids can get a lot of praise for making changes to their diet or their exercise. But and we can end up actually complementing, you know, promoting an eating disorder and not realize it.

Oona Hanson: 14:33

So when families do take stock of those inherited ideas about body size or about foods being so-called healthy or unhealthy, I think it really is protective.

Oona Hanson: 14:46

I know that wasn't quite your question, but you know, I think the challenge is that we, you know, even if we had this sort of ideal anti diet, all you know, fat positive household with all foods available that we could afford, unless our kids are in a bubble, they're going to get these things from school, from the culture, from social media, from peers, maybe from an athletic coach.

Oona Hanson: 15:15

So I don't want to put all the pressure on the family unit and at the same time, of course, we've inherited so many, not just like the genetic inheritance, but we've inherited a lot of beliefs that, again, it's the water we're swimming in. It's so normalized, it's our default mode that we've been taught, and so there can be a lot of unlearning and a lot of healing and sometimes a lot of anger, maybe at people in our extended family or parents or grandparents, and I tend to come down on the side of also trying to have a lot of compassion that they were doing the best they could with the resources they had and the information they had and that, you know, diet culture is always shape-shifting and it takes different forms and different eras. So knowing that they just they didn't have all the same information that we do, so trying to come yes, I think if you need to have that anger to get that out, that can be really helpful and also trying to hold space for compassion for those family members too.

Jenn Salib Huber: 16:22

Absolutely, and it is so true. I mean, I think most parents are doing the best they can with the resources they have at the time. It doesn't matter what the decision is, whether it's the kind of diapers that you buy or the kind of food that you feed your kids, like, we just tried to do the best we could at the time, right. So when that, you know, when people hear you know intergenerational, they tend to think of like this long line of things that are passed down either genetically or otherwise. How do you describe, you know, what you, what you call this intergenerational cycle of body shame? Like, how, how does that show up? Like, how might you see that in the people, in the families that you're working with?

Oona Hanson: 17:03

Well, I think you know, parenting is really hard. There can be times can be joyful too. Of course. Parenting can be really hard and I think the adolescent years can be especially hard for parents and oftentimes we get taken right back to that time of our own lives and so I think we bring our own adolescence with us and also how the adults in our lives talk to us, the feelings we were allowed to have, or express or not the way we felt in our body. It's like it comes just roaring back. Especially in these times of tension or stress. That's not necessarily when we're going to have our most calm, compassionate way of talking with our kids or ourselves.

Oona Hanson: 17:53

So to me, that's that's where I see this coming out the most is, you know, a parent, here's a child saying something negative about their own body, and it can just take you right back to that feeling of being 13 or 14 and getting dressed for something, going to the pool party or whatever it is, the prom you know, and also how your parents treated you in those moments and were you even allowed to tell a parent that you?

Oona Hanson: 18:22

You know how you were feeling. So I really think it is about the way that when we are most stressed or most under pressure, most under-resourced, we're going to default to what's familiar, and what's familiar is what we learned when we were kids. So that's kind of that's, I would say, the primary way that I see this happening. And one other thing I'll add is that I think a lot of times we want to do the opposite, like if we really are aware. I didn't like how this happened when I was a kid Maybe it was the clean plate club, right that we were forced to clean our plates even if we were full. So a lot of parents, I do think, consciously want to do something different for their own kids. And yet we can still get kind of pulled into what's familiar or what's the default that we've been handed down by our parents or grandparents.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:11

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:13

You know, and the thing too about when we feel emotionally dysregulated, right, that our window of reaction and our ability to think, you know, rationally, mindfully, intentionally, kind of goes out the window.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:30

And so if a situation kind of triggers us into a feeling that we felt maybe for a long time because you know, that's often what I hear from from people who are in midlife let's say that they're, you know, like I have teenagers and I talk to a lot of people who have teenagers and they'll just say, oh, my goodness, I see my daughter or I see my son doing this or saying this, and it brings me, like you just said, right back to feeling like I need to do something about this, and so and we do want to protect our kids, and yet, at the same time, it can feel like we're in a trap, right, that we just don't know what else to do, because this is what our parents taught us and that's what we've seen our aunts and uncles do with their kids, and so it's just these patterns that we repeat, even if we don't want to. So it can feel very.

Jenn Salib Huber: 20:22

Yeah, I think it can feel a little claustrophobic sometimes for people to feel like, well, there's nothing I can do, because this is just you know what happens, but obviously there are things that they can do. So what are, what are some of those things that you suggest?

Oona Hanson: 20:35

Well, I'm thinking about, you know, because most of your audience are, you know, women in midlife. I'm thinking about, you know, I often consider this sort of the perfect storm and a lot of homes. You know, obviously people have their kids along a wide range of ages, but what I find is most common is that, as a parent is, you know, entering or approaching middle age, their child is entering or approaching or in puberty, and so we have obviously hormonal changes happening, but also a lot of body changes happening at the same time, and I know this is something you've talked about a lot before, but I I'd like I would invite parents to consider maybe it's not a perfect storm, maybe it's a perfect opportunity to model a more accepting, kind, compassionate approach to body changes. So, you know, I think about the parent that goes to try on their you know their pants for something I realize, if you have UK listeners, their trousers, you know, you go to put on some clothes that you know aren't fitting you comfortably, and I think it's common for a lot of moms to beat themselves up and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe I don't fit into those, because we have this pressure to somehow stay the same size for our whole lives, which doesn't really make sense. And it's an opportunity for a parent to say, oh, ok, I'm going to model for my kid that, oh, clothes should fit your body, not the other way around.

Oona Hanson: 22:12

If there is a lot of body grief or maybe like clothing grief, like that was something you really loved or it was really expensive, it was something you invested in and you're, you have a lot of feelings like you can say, yeah, it's really hard when your favorite clothes don't fit, or I really loved those. And then we can be somewhat more matter of fact and say you know what? I it's too bad, these, these aren't fitting me comfortably anymore. I'm going to donate them or sell them. And you know, really show model that self care isn't, isn't just like massages and manicures, right, but it's also making sure you have clothes that fit you comfortably. Because our kids in puberty and adolescence. They have to gain weight to grow and develop and they're in a culture that's constantly demonizing weight gain and body changes. Obviously, women in midlife get a lot of demonization about their body changes and potential weight gain, lot of demonization about their body changes and potential weight gain. So this really is, I think, an opportunity to model ways of navigating this that aren't about restricting or being saying unkind things to yourself.

Oona Hanson: 23:27

So again, I think that shifting that perfect storm to that perfect opportunity and again it's not going to go like I just said. Every time I mean, I don't want it to sound like you know that it's, there's some perfect script that you can say, but I think there are ways of and even going back, you might realize oh my gosh, just last week I was trying on something and I said something about my body. You can go back to your kid and say you know what? I realized I was really mean to myself. You know, do you want to do some? Do you want to help me online shop for something new? Or let's go to the thrift store together. And I think you know we can find those moments of rupture and repair. We don't have to get it so-called perfect every time.

Jenn Salib Huber: 24:06

Oh, I love that Rupture and repair. I think that that is the self-compassionate piece that we as the parent can really invite to the conversation that. You know we don't have to get it right every time, but if we recognize that we can do better, then we can move towards that. One of the things that and listeners will have heard me say this many times before, but you know we have to. To your point about bodies needing to change, especially with girls, we know that their body fat percentage has to double to achieve and maintain menstruation. That and they have said if only I had known that Because it is at that stage of life when we start to become very aware of body changes.

Jenn Salib Huber: 24:56

It's when stretch marks normally appear on bodies that are growing quickly. You know, and we don't normalize that we talk about well, not hopefully not we now as a culture, but certainly you know. My mom remembers seeing, you know, bleach cream and the back of her equivalent of 17 magazine about how to bleach your stretch marks. You know. So we have been shaming bodies for changing in very normal ways for many generations. So, yeah, one of the ways that we can change that is to normalize that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 25:30

Bodies change and with clothes. One of the best things that I change, that is, to normalize that bodies change. And with clothes, one of the best things that I heard and I can't give credit to it because I can't remember who said it but instead of waiting for your child to say I need some new clothes, to just regularly go around and say I'm collecting clothes that you don't want anymore. And I think that, and we do that regularly and it's amazing, the bag always gets filled up. You know, and we were not putting the onus on them to say I vote grown this. You know. We're saying like hey, if you don't want this, for whatever reason, you can just pass it on.

Oona Hanson: 26:03

Yeah, I think that's a great practical tip, especially a lot of us. Obviously, this is recording in March, so like there's like a spring cleaning vibe happening. Obviously this is we're recording in March, so like there's like a spring cleaning vibe happening, you know. So like seasonally can be a great, a great time to, yeah, to get gotten to normalize that, whether it's donating the clothes or a resale shop or something like that can really be, you know, a great way to touch, touch base on that. And I also for for kids who wear a school uniform or even, if you know, kind of back-to-school shopping.

Oona Hanson: 26:33

If a kid really loves something and it's in your budget, especially with back-to-school sales or whenever there are, that means it's like there are sales always happening, but you know, if they love something, buying it in the next size up and having it ready to go. Um, especially with uniforms, where there can be kind of a delay and when you can get something and the thought of your kid being in that kilt or those trousers that are too tight, you know, all day long at school, I mean it's really hard to focus when your clothes are uncomfortable. So, yeah, again, not every family can, you know, put all that money in upfront. But when there are those big back to school sales, or if your school has a used uniform sale, you know thinking like, oh, maybe I'll just get. Like let me get one size up in a couple of things so that we're ready when that growth happens.

Jenn Salib Huber: 27:21

I have to share a really funny story from our school secondhand uniform sale, which is going to tie into your comment about the UK listeners and trousers versus pants. So we live in the Netherlands, my kids go to a British school here in the Netherlands. We were Canadians. I eagerly joined the Family Association, also known as the PTA. We were having a meeting about secondhand uniform sales and this was during COVID, so it was all virtual and I put my hand up and I asked a question about well, what about the secondhand pants? And so, for anybody who's listening, pants in the UK are underwear to those of us from North America. And so there was about five seconds of silence and then a solid two minutes of laughter, which was really kind of a nice icebreaker. But yes, to your point, secondhand uniform sales are great, but if you have any British affiliations, do not call pants, do not call trousers pants, because they are not the same thing, oh my goodness.

Jenn Salib Huber: 28:23

And another kind of question around food, to kind of bring it around to the nutrition piece and the food piece. There's often, I think, a healthy interest in eating to support health, energy, performance. With teenagers. I think it's a great opportunity to have conversations about how food makes us feel and I think sometimes parents connect with their kids in that way for the first time, especially if you had a picky eater. Now having a kid who's asking you about you know what's quote unquote good for me, or what can I eat to help my running or my you know my sport, it can feel really great. But I often will hear from parents that they feel kind of, I guess, trapped because they don't know how to speak about food.

Oona Hanson: 29:07

They don't know how to talk about food without using those words of healthy unhealthy or, you know, good or bad, and is that something that you see in your work as well, all the time? And I'm not a registered dietitian, but I've worked with many over the years and there are so many wonderful people who give a lot of information on Instagram and other places for people who want to hear this from an RD's mouth. But thinking about the context of, you know, eating disorder awareness and eating disorder prevention, I do think it's really important that we notice when we're putting foods into those dichotomous or binary categories of healthy and unhealthy, we know that that's not a great way to help kids have a healthy relationship with food and an adolescent, especially one who's in athletics they're already at higher risk for disordered eating and eating disorders. So those are actually the kids we want to be most thoughtful about. So, yeah, the parents who are wondering what do I say? It's? I think it's a good thing that they're getting that gut feeling that they want to be careful about this and thoughtful about this.

Oona Hanson: 30:20

So I think one of the things if a kid does come to you and say I want to eat so called healthier or I want to you know, how should I eat for my sport? I think it's great to start with a question back to them Like well, what, what does, what are you concerned about? Or what are you hearing, or what do you think is? Is the you know the right way to go for you Get a sense of where they're coming from. Was it a comment from a coach? Was it a comment from the captain of the team that said you know I'm, you know, ever since I did X, y or Z diet, like I've cut 30 seconds off my time or whatever? So kind of getting a sense of where it's coming. It could be coming from science class and kids get can get really inappropriate nutrition education at school appropriate nutrition education at school and from coach.

Jenn Salib Huber: 31:11

I need to devote like 10 episodes to that. So yes, I am in a wholehearted agreement about that.

Oona Hanson: 31:14

Yeah, and again, I used to be a teacher. The teachers mean well, a lot of times they are beholden to curriculum standards and you know things that they're required to teach certain things and it can get get pretty tricky pretty fast. My, you know, the bottom line is kids getting enough to eat. So you know, we know that when a when an athlete doesn't have enough just overall throughout the day, that that's going to affect their performance. So I think you know if your child is like heading to the Olympics, they're an elite athlete. In that realm You're probably working with a sports nutritionist right at that point.

Oona Hanson: 31:56

For the average kid, getting you into the weeds on nutrition details in my experience is pretty counterproductive.

Oona Hanson: 32:06

So if kids are obsessively reading labels or cutting things out or using apps to tell them what or when to eat, I think that's worth having a conversation. So, with the focus being on kids having enough to eat, I think our culture defaults to under fueling our kids, especially our athletes. So really focusing on sufficiency and also regular. You know eating regularly throughout the day. You know maybe there's a snack before a practice or game and a refuel snack after, in addition to their other meals and snacks. And this gets tricky when practices and games are in the evening during kind of what's normally dinner hour, and so really keeping an eye on you know our kids getting, are they getting enough? And getting enough regularly throughout the day to me would be kind of the focus. Again, if your kid really is in that, whatever tiny percentage are headed toward like a career or the Olympics, you're probably working with a professional that is going to give you that kind of granular level of detail. But for most kids that can really do more harm than good.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:23

Absolutely, and I often, you know, when I work with parents and families which isn't as often these days, but you know, they would say, well, I just want them to become healthy eaters. And I'd say, do you want them to become a quote unquote healthy eater or a normal eater? And they would say, oh, normal, I just want them to be able to eat normally. Well, that means you're going to have to drop the expectation of healthy being eating good foods all the time, right, because that's not normal eating. And I think that there's so much pressure on parents to do everything that we possibly can right.

Jenn Salib Huber: 33:57

Kind of going back to our earlier point, about we're just doing the best we can most of the time and that, like you know to your point about like just giving them access to enough food that is going to support them overall, including foods that taste good because they're fun and enjoyable, including foods that will, you know, improve their health and sport, but just under that umbrella of normal eating, having access to it when they want to need it, I think takes a lot of pressure off of what our jobs are as parents. It's not to make them perfect eaters, because that doesn't exist Right.

Oona Hanson: 34:32

Yeah, and I think it's important for parents to know that one of the most common origin story for eating disorders is a desire to so called eat healthier. So that you know more and more. I mean, obviously there are all kinds of ways kids can get into energy deficit or have a disrupted relationship with food, but what I'm hearing more and more is, you know, my kid just wanted to eat healthier to please the coach, to follow the guidelines from school, maybe to imitate mom and dad or parents or guardians who are changing their, their diet based on something that they've been told and really haven't had a conversation as a family about about some of these changes. So you know, I think when, when parents really think about you know, do I want my kid to have a healthy relationship with all foods? I think that can relate when we zoom out and it's not about I want my kid to eat this certain specific kind of food. That really actually gets in the way of the healthy relationship with food. So the nice thing is that we can kind of take that deep breath and relax a little bit If we're following kid food influencers that make us think our kids need like 17 kinds of produce a day and there always has to be a green vegetable at every like. There's so much pressure out there. We think about teens comparing their bodies on instagram. Moms are comparing their dinner menus and not just moms, but I know most of your audience are are women.

Oona Hanson: 36:06

So, you know, I think we need to be aware of how we are processing what we're getting from social media and, I think, tying it back to kind of the ways we can see this as not just a perfect storm but a perfect opportunity.

Oona Hanson: 36:22

I think this is a fantastic time to say to a kid you know, I'm going to really try to curate my social media. So I'm seeing things that really are positive and make me feel good and give me information that I want. Could you help me figure out how to adjust my settings and we can start having a conversation about oh yeah, what's the difference between blocking and muting? Or you know, what do you do when, when you're, the algorithm seems to be giving you stuff you don't like? How do you curate that? So that's a moment for the team to really become the like oh here, mom, dad, let me show you. You know, and it's this great bonding moment. It's also planting these seeds of being critical about what we're exposing ourselves to and kind of that media literacy piece can be really the beginning of a great conversation about that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 37:10

I think that's a great place for us to end. Thank you so much, una. I know that this conversation will be well loved because you know, there certainly are lots of parents of kids of all ages and, like you said at the beginning, it's an opportunity for us to not only help our kids, which is what we all want to do, but to also kind of help heal our own relationships with our body and self. So thank you so so much. Before we kind of get to the my favorite question what is? Where can people find you? Where can they learn about the work that you're doing?

Oona Hanson: 37:44

Yeah, so my website is my name. It's una hansencom. I always say when in doubt, when in doubt it's an O, that's what I always say, so una hansencom. I'm also um on Instagram a lot Um, and there, um, it's una underscore Hanson, um. I also have a Substack newsletter that's also under my name as well and it's called parent. The website to get there is just Substack Una Hanson, I think, but it's called Parenting Without Diet Culture. So I really try to give people just some really practical things of like how to say things, maybe in a way that that might resonate with you. I'm not saying here's a script that will work for every family, but just giving ideas. So that's another place that that folks can get more information about the work that I do.

Jenn Salib Huber: 38:40

Amazing. Thank you so much. So what do you think is the missing ingredient in midlife?

Oona Hanson: 38:46

in midlife, I've got to say joy. I think what's so hard is, especially again for midlife women. We might be taking care of the cliche of the sandwich generation piece, where we are in survival mode, caring for our if we have children, trying to keep ourselves in one piece, maybe caring for, you know, older, aging parents, and there often is very little room for fun and joy and yet we probably need it more than ever. So you know finding those, even if it's just those little moments of delight, like I'll just say I was stuck in traffic this morning. You know finding those, even if it's just those little moments of delight, like I'll just say I was stuck in traffic this morning.

Oona Hanson: 39:32

You know, los Angeles, such a cliche, like literally not moving, and the guy next to me in a pickup truck has his drumsticks out like actually a drummer and he is jamming on his steering wheel, and it was just such a moment of delight and joy in this otherwise pretty miserable experience of being stuck in traffic and not moving. But just seeing like I mean, I just feel it in my body right now, even remembering this moment of how much fun this guy was having. It was just such an LA moment too. Yeah, so sometimes it's just observing someone else in that kind of moment. But also I think of like, how can we, when we're like stuck in metaphoric traffic, like how can we get out our drumsticks and sort of like find the? Not that I want to add another thing onto this full plate, for you know the busyness part of the full plate, but there are sometimes ways I think we can kind of tap into those little moments of silliness, right, yeah, so that would be what comes to mind.

Jenn Salib Huber: 40:36

I have a playlist of like my favorite 80s and 90s shower songs and when I'm in, when I'm stuck in traffic, I just love putting that on and like singing and singing my heart out. I'm sure somebody's had a good laugh at me singing, but just like those moments of joy and and you're right, you know there's a lot of research around the U-shaped curve of life and you know midlife is kind of we've bottomed out for a little while.

Jenn Salib Huber: 40:57

It gets better, but we've bottomed out on joy for a while, because life is busy and we have to find those pockets of pockets of joy. I love that. Thank you so much, una. We're going to put all the links to all the things in the show notes, but I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us because I think this is such an important conversation and I know lots of people will benefit from it.

Oona Hanson: 41:18

It's a total pleasure. Thanks again for having me.

Jenn Salib Huber: 41:21

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast. For more non-diet, health, hormone and general midlife support, click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.