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“Parents who are ready to break generational dieting trauma can start by transforming their food parenting practices and feeding environments, setting the stage for their children to have a lifelong healthy relationship with food and their bodies,” Lebovitz offers. Once you understand your history, you’re going to need a unique approach to breaking the cycle with your children. I guide clients through a process of identifying the first moment in their lives when they receive the message from their parents or caregiver that their body is a problem to be fixed or that food is something they need to closely control,” Young says. “Some of the most powerful tools to heal from generational dieting trauma include parts work and values work. If you want to heal from your diet trauma, you’ll benefit from the support of therapists, dietitians, and other healthcare professionals who specialize in disordered eating and body image healing. To break the cycle within your own family, you may need to do your own healing first.
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Sometimes, a person's non-diet journey may include feeling alienated from certain people in their lives because their main commonality was dieting, which can cause relationships to end or change,” explains Caroline Young, MS, RD, RYT, owner of Whole Self Nutrition. “One of the biggest challenges I see is family members or friends getting uncomfortable or even upset about the client's changing approach to their self-care and rejection of diet culture. Now more than ever, it’s important that we change the conversation around food and bodies with our kids.” "Similarly, from another 2010 study in Sex Roles, children as young as three years old express a preference for thinness. “According to this 2023 Review in the Journal of American Medical Association Pediatrics, one in five kids globally shows signs of disordered eating," says Dani Lebovitz, MS, RDN, a kids food and body positivity expert in Franklin, Tenn. So, how many of us are struggling with this? The stats may surprise you. When we watch the adults in our lives participate in dieting and disordered eating patterns, we're shown from a young age that our bodies are meant to be controlled, food is to be feared, and our instincts and preferences shouldn't be trusted.” Intuitive eating dietitian Kelsey Kunik, RDN, from Graciously Nourished, expands on this idea: “We learn how to be in the world, what's important, and what we should prioritize from a young age as we watch the adults around us. "She constantly complained about how fat and unhappy she was. Whether subtle or painfully blatant, this is how generational dieting trauma works, according to Rabiya Bower, MHSc, RDN, who inherited generational dieting trauma from her mother. “My mom has struggled with weight for as long as I can remember," she says. On the other hand, it could have been indirectly communicated by observing a family member who didn’t allow themselves to eat all foods.
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You could have gotten this memo directly from a family member who made you feel as if you weren’t allowed to eat all foods. Somewhere along the way, you received the message that food is to be restricted, portioned, or counted. Think back to when you were a baby: You ate when you felt hungry you stopped when you were full. Let’s look at this through the lens of your relationship with food. Caroline Young, MS, RD, RYT, owner of Whole Self Nutrition.In addition, researchers are also exploring how the body itself may serve as a vehicle through epigenetics (2). While these messages may have helped protect earlier generations, they can cause later generations to have a fearful and distrustful outlook on life and towards helping professionals, further alienating the support that is needed to overcome the aftermath of the trauma itself. “don’t ask for help, it’s dangerous”) that may be taught and passed on from one generation to the next (1). When parents live under oppressive circumstances, for example, they can develop “survival messages” (e.g. Trauma itself can contribute to poverty, compromised parenting, diminished attachment, chronic stress, and unstable living environments, which can directly impact children and their development.Įlena Cherepanov, a trauma psychologist, examines how survivors’ initial reactions to an event can affect future generations. What’s less clear is how this trauma is actually transmitted from one generation to the next.