Why Our Kids’ Relationship with Food Starts with Us: Recognizing and Changing Generational Patterns

 

When we think about how we approach food, bodies, and health, it’s easy to focus on what we’re doing in the present—our habits, thoughts, and beliefs. But what if we looked further back? What if we considered the generational patterns that have shaped the way we view food and our bodies, passed down from our great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents? The truth is, many of our struggles with food and body image have roots far deeper than we realize, and these patterns often get unconsciously passed on to our children.

 

Messages from the Past: Our Great-Grandparents’ Generation

In the early 1900s, food was seen primarily as sustenance. Our great-grandparents lived in a time when food security wasn’t guaranteed for many, and there was less emphasis on body image or aesthetic ideals. Instead, messages about food were more about survival and practicality. “Finish your plate” wasn’t just a common saying—it was a necessity in times of scarcity, and wasting food was unthinkable. The ideal body type was less about slimness and more about being healthy enough to work and provide for a family.

 

At the same time, cultural shifts began to influence ideals of beauty. For women, the early 1900s brought with it changing fashions, which in turn influenced body ideals. The curvaceous figures of the Victorian era began to give way to the slender figures of the flapper era in the 1920s. These shifts were subtle at first but laid the groundwork for the rise of a diet culture that would soon gain momentum.

 

Our Grandparents’ Generation: The Rise of Diet Culture

By the time many of our grandparents were adults in the 1950s and 60s, the cultural messages about bodies and food had shifted significantly. Post-World War II, there was an economic boom in many parts of the world, and food scarcity was less of an issue. Instead, convenience foods, processed snacks, and fast food became more widely available, while at the same time, the media began to promote slimness as the new ideal.

 

This was the era when diet culture truly began to take off. Fad diets like the grapefruit diet, cabbage soup diet, and low-calorie meal plans promised quick fixes for achieving the slender figure that had become the gold standard of beauty. For women, in particular, staying slim was equated with worthiness, beauty, and even success. Messages from this time told women that to be desirable, they had to be thin, and controlling their food intake was the way to achieve that.

 

Our Parents’ and Our Generation: The Height of Diet Culture and the Pursuit of the Thin/Fit Ideal

Diet culture became even more pervasive in the 80s and 90s. Various supermodels set an impossibly thin standard for women’s bodies, and this era was dominated by low-fat/low-calorie diets. The diet industry boomed, with programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig promising that thinness was the key to health and happiness. (It’s important to note that the Weight Watchers CEO just recently apologized for the company’s role in contributing to a toxic culture around food and bodies in the past.)

 

For many individuals, their parents passed down these ideas, even if unintentionally. They grew up hearing messages like, “Are you sure you want seconds?” or “You’d be so much prettier if you just lost a little weight” or “Once on the lips, always on the hips!” Around this time, the wellness industry began to emerge, promoting the idea that “clean eating” or following restrictive diets in the name of health was virtuous. This conflation of food and morality, health and thinness, left many of us confused about the “right” ways to approach our relationships with food.

 

Changing the Narrative for the Next Generation

As parents today, we have the unique opportunity—and responsibility—to break these generational patterns. Though things have definitely improved in many ways, our kids are growing up in a world still heavily influenced by diet culture and unrealistic body standards, but we have the power to change the conversation around food, bodies, and health.

 

The first step is recognizing how these patterns show up in our own lives. Do we find ourselves commenting on our weight or food choices in front of our kids? Are we still influenced by the idea that thinness equals health or worth? These are deep-rooted beliefs that can be hard to shake, but awareness is the first step toward change.

 

Next, we can start modeling a more intuitive approach to food. This means listening to our own hunger and fullness cues, making peace with food, and rejecting rigid food rules. By practicing these principles ourselves, we show our kids that they can trust their bodies, that all foods can fit within a balanced lifestyle, and that they don’t need to “outsource” their eating to the latest food craze or so-called expert. We can teach our kids that what we eat can be important, yes, but equally important is our relationship with food and eating.

 

We can teach our kids to take a “big picture view of health”. In other words, we can emphasize the various facets of health that contribute to a life well-lived (relationships, mental health, spirituality, physical health, a sense of purpose, etc.). We can promote focusing on sustainable behaviors versus a number on the scale.

 

It’s also important to actively teach our kids that all bodies are worthy of respect and love, regardless of size or shape. When we stigmatize others based on weight or appearance, we not only end up reinforcing harmful cultural ideals, but we also greatly harm the individual. Weight stigma has been linked to poor mental health and physical health outcomes. It’s time for a different approach; we can do so much better.

 

Fostering a Healthier Legacy

Our kids’ relationship with food truly does start with us. By recognizing and challenging the generational patterns that shaped our own beliefs about food and bodies, we can create a more positive, empowered approach for the next generation. Let’s give our kids the freedom to trust their bodies, truly enjoy food, and grow up with the confidence that their worth is stable and inherent, not based on ever-changing cultural notions of desirability and beauty.

If you’re interested in breaking cycles for the next generation, check out my online course Body Confident Parenting: Your Blueprint to Raising Empowered Kids, at Peace with Their Bodies and Food.