The myth of letting go

Picky eating

When a parent asks other parents how to get their child to eat more vegetables or more solids, there’s a wave of advice flooding in. ‘Relax, she’ll grow out of it.’ ‘Just let it go and wait until it passes, it’s just another phase.’ ‘Make Pinterest-proof monsters out of fruit.’ ‘Tell how broccoli are little…

Different rules, same game?

Diet culture

Different day, same sh*t.’ It was written in capital letters on the pencil case of one of the ‘bad’ guys when I was in high school. That phrase clearly left a mark, and I’m still unsure if that’s because I’m passionate about what drives human motivation, or because it was written so clearly, so real,…

It also takes a voice to raise a child

Embodiment

‘It takes a village to raise a child,’ the saying goes. That’s true. We’re not meant to raise children alone. But here’s something we don’t always talk about: even when do have a village – or something that comes close, like when your extended family is visiting or you’re visiting them – I’ve learned I need a…

De-pathologizing picky eating

Picky eating

‘I hope my child won’t be a picky eater.’ I hear this so often from parents, and every time I recognize both the worry and the hope behind those words. The tricky part of ‘picky’ is that picky eating lacks a clear definition. Researchers, blogs, and parents all describe picky eating differently: some say it’s…

Picky feeding with healthy foods

‘I was a picky feeder’

Picky eating

There I was, nearly 3 years ago, helping my toddler in our hotel bathroom, telling him that it might be harder to poo because he ate too many of those cookies at the buffet. What I said wasn’t exactly true, because our transit is more complex than my one-liner. The truth was … I could…