Daniel Tiger: How Diet Culture Shows Up and How to Protect Your Kids
Let me start out by saying that this is not a personal attack against Daniel Tiger, okay?
My beef is not with Daniel Tiger. I love Daniel Tiger. He taught my kid how to use the potty with confidence. I owe him big time for that one.
I think it’s safe to agree that this is one of the most wholesome television shows that’s currently out there for kids.
Which brings me to my point: Diet culture is lurking, even in the most unexpected places. Even in shows like Daniel Tiger, that teaches our kids how to share and be kind toward one another. Yes, even here.
I happened on this realization when my kids were recently watching an episode of this beloved show. I casually heard the Tiger family singing a song in unison when I realized what was happening.
Maybe you’ve heard it?
The main chorus goes like this, (accompanied with a catchy tune in typical Daniel Tiger fashion, of course):
“We gotta try new food cause it might taste good.”
Wait, what?
I almost spit out my tea when I heard this song.
To give you a background on the episode itself, the first part of the show is about how Teacher Harriet introduces Daniel and his friends to the school’s vegetable garden and convinces (AKA: subtly pressures) them to pick out veggies for their snack, because that’s the “healthy” option.
In the later part of the show, Miss Elaina is having dinner with the Tiger family, and she encourages (AKA: subtly pressures) Daniel to try some new food: Veggie Spaghetti. To Miss Elaina’s defense, she’s encouraging Daniel to be adventurous by trying new food and does the same herself, even though she doesn’t like it at all.
You might be thinking: “That sounds innocent enough. So what’s the big deal?”
Getting kids to try and eat their veggies to a catchy tune seems harmless, right?
WRONG.
Dangers of Diet Culture in Kids’ Media
Please understand, I understand the well-meaning intention behind this episode. I really do. I think it speaks to a common scenario that many parents are dealing with: kids who may be hesitant about trying new foods, or children who may be more selective/picky eaters.
Food neophobia, or fear of trying new foods, is NORMAL and common in kids; yet this can be the cause of many mealtime struggles for parents and families across the world. As a parent of a selective eater who has sensory sensitivities, I completely get it.
My issue here is with the subliminal messaging of a diet culture that has hijacked kids’ media, which is making feeding a whole lot more stressful for both kids and parents.
The messages that are communicated about how to approach these common feeding problems are actually making food more confusing and chaotic for families.
Just because Daniel Tiger says, “You gotta try new foods' ' means you should?
What about the child with sensory sensitivities who’s not ready to try new foods outside his safe few foods? Or the selective eater? Or the kid who’s just not yet ready to branch out yet?
This is making a problem of the child who’s not ready to try new foods or who struggles with eating vegetables.
It also can make a parent seem incompetent for not being able to get a child to eat or like these foods, or make a child who is unwilling to comply seem like the problem.
Furthermore, it perpetuates the damaging idea that raising a healthy child means having a compliant child who is willing to try new foods and eat all the vegetables, when this could not be further from the truth.
This kind of messaging is completely damaging to the foundations of a positive and trusting feeding relationship between a parent and child: parents provide, child decides. NOT that a parent is supposed to get a kid to eat healthy foods, etc.
Guess what, Daniel Tiger? It’s not our job to get our kids to try new foods. It’s not our job to get our kids to eat.
When we try to do those jobs for our kids, that’s when eating and feeding becomes stressful for everyone - parents and kids alike.
Your job is to help your child develop a positive relationship with food and build confidence in her body.
This is cultivated by positive mealtime experiences. A child who feels pressure to eat in any form is not going to take steps toward these important long term goals.
Pressure is pressure - no matter if it’s in a positive light, like Daniel Tiger, where food is sung about in a catching tune. Or negative pressure to eat tactics.
It’s all the same.
It’s trying to get your child to eat or try new foods on YOUR terms, which is counterproductive to helping them feel confident about food and eating.
Pressure-to-eat tactics will only make your child feel more anxious and fearful about eating.
Worse, our kids are hearing the message that there is moral correctness attached to trying new food: “I did a GOOD job because I tried something new, even though I didn’t like it”.
Or they may pick up on another message: “I am BAD because I didn’t try a new food”.
Suddenly, their autonomy and preferences are thrown out the window in favor of bowing down to another person's feeding agenda. This is not how kids build trust and confidence around food and in their own bodies.
Kids who are pressured to prematurely try new foods before they are ready are not going to build positive associations with food.
As parents, we are in charge of providing the food. It’s up to our kids to decide whether or not they want to try, interact with, or eat these foods, on their terms, not ours.
Redefining the Message of Raising a Healthy Eater
Media attention hyper focuses on our kids eating vegetables/fruits to be healthy and trying new foods.
However, the research is clear that any form of pressure to get our kids to eat (positive or negative) can actually discourage them from eating or create aversions to the very foods you want them to eat.
You might think this is ridiculous: how can something so innocent be problematic?
If we want to take down diet culture and immunize our kids from its harmful messages, we have to be aware of the subtle places it hides.
These messages perpetuate the dangerous idea that we can’t trust our kids to eat.
We can’t effectively dismantle diet culture for our families if we’re not aware of the subtle places it hides.
We can’t take it down and create a generation of kids who are free from diet culture when we turn a blind eye to it.
I guarantee you that once you begin to become aware of diet culture in our kids’ media, you won’t be able to unsee it.
Again, this is not a personal attack on Daniel Tiger, but an example of how these subtle messages can appear even in the most innocent and wholesome television shows for our kids.
While there are countless examples I can pull from, I remember another instance from Pete the Cat, a cartoon that my kids also liked watching.
There was one particular episode where Pete makes a dish to share with his friends at school. His friend, Grumpy, is reluctant to try the dish because he doesn’t like bananas.
Pete then handily explains the “3 bite rule” to him, in which he states that he needs to take 3 bites of something before he can decide he likes it or not. (Insert facepalm emoji here).
I didn’t see the episode, but one of my daughters (who was 4 at the time) proclaimed that everyone needed to follow the 3 bite rule at dinner one evening, because “that’s what Pete the Cat says we should do”.
Rest assured, I nipped that one in the bud as quick as they could say “Pete the Cat” and reminded her that we had no rules around taking bites of our foods.
We are all our own people with our own bodies, and each of our bodies needs a different amount of food than the other person.
The best way to know what our bodies need is to listen to what our tummies are telling us. Sometimes, this might mean we need more bites of food or less bites of food. The number of bites of food is irrelevant. You get the picture...
At the end of the day, these messages are creating unnecessary confusion for kids and parents alike when it comes to feeding and eating, making martyrs of our mealtimes, rather than creating opportunities that could otherwise help our children explore food in a helpful way.
It’s also important to continue challenging our idea of what healthy eating means, for ourselves and for our kids.
Like what was depicted in the Daniel Tiger episode I described, the hidden message was that trying new food and eating vegetables, even if you don’t like them, is important because that’s what’s “healthy”.
In reality, this is not healthy whatsoever, for ourselves or for our kids.
As long as we stay married to this message of health, we will only perpetuate a vicious cycle of disordered eating for our kids for years to come.
Health for our kids has so much more to do than just the food itself.
Their overall health is dependent on things like their feeding interactions with us, their emotional environment, the status of their overall relationships, how they relate to food, access to regular sources of food, and SO MUCH MORE.
We can’t get hung up on the minutiae of food because we are then wasting mental energy pursuing the wrong goals for ourselves and damaging our kids in the process.
Diet culture has deeply ingrained the message in us that our kids’ health has to do with the types of foods they eat, their appetite and the size of their body.
It’s time to take down these misleading messages in order to help our kids truly thrive.
Food is meant to be pleasurable and enjoyable, and somehow we’ve grown accustomed to think that nourishment and pleasure can’t co-exist.
But if we step back and take an honest look at the big picture here, what benefits ever resulted from forcing kids to eat vegetables or try new foods prematurely that they may have not been ready to eat?
I can’t think of a single thing.
I can tell you the countless stories of many mothers I’ve worked with who are trying so hard to repair their relationships with food and their bodies who remember being forced to eat certain foods as a kid, and those memories have haunted them throughout their lives.
Is this the story of health that we want to repeat with our own kids?
Recognizing Diet Culture in Kids Media
Just because these messages are mainstream doesn’t mean we have to go along with this.
Listen to me when I tell you that you can opt-out of diet culture.
You can opt-out of the damaging generational messages that have cycled through families for years and years.
You can choose to write a different story for yourself and your kids, one that is not based on fear-mongering messages around food and bodies.
The first step is awareness.
You have to be aware of where these diet culture messages are lurking and hiding.
You have to call out the crap for what it is and not be afraid to back down because you and your children deserve better.
By taking a stand, you are saying no more and helping your kids do the same.
Sadly, we’re saturated in diet culture, but by practicing greater awareness, you can begin to peel off the harmful layers that have kept you from growing to make space for you and your family to truly flourish.
So be aware of where it hides.
Have conscious, proactive eyes and ears open to the things you’re consuming. When you’re aware of these messages, you can stop them dead in their tracks for good.
You might be wondering - how can you help your child with this?
Educating Children and Helping Them be Critical Consumers of Media
Let me be clear here: I’m not suggesting that we should somehow keep our kids in a bubble and prevent them from having any exposure to media whatsoever.
No, I’m not that naive, nor do I think this is an effective solution for taking down diet culture and keeping our kids from being prey to its trap.
Instead, I’m suggesting that we educate our kids to help them become more aware of diet culture. To understand where it’s lurking, to call it out for what it is so they can in turn do the same instead of following it blindly.
When we teach our children to be critical consumers of media, we’re empowering them to trust themselves, to remain the best experts of their bodies so they can listen to their bodies’ own innate wisdom OVER the drowning noise of diet culture.
This means having honest conversations with your kids.
Call out diet culture whenever you hear it or see and teach them to do the same. Remind them that they don’t have to succumb to the rules around eating that diet culture prescribes and reinforce that they can continue to trust their own bodies.
Help them see that any type of messaging that is telling them they need to eat a certain way or change their bodies is FALSE, not something that needs to be taken in and internalized.
For example, when I heard this particular episode of Daniel Tiger, I made sure to talk with my kids about it afterward, (especially since they were all singing that tune for quite some time).
I simply reminded them that they didn’t have to try any new foods, unless they were ready to and wanted to do so. I reminded them that the most important thing they can do is listen to their bodies and that they can always trust what their body is telling them it needs.
Focusing on the bigger picture, I told them that sometimes, we may hear things in cartoons or in movies that may not sound right to us, and that just because we hear these things doesn’t mean they are true.
Because diet culture is lurking EVERYWHERE and shows up in different shapes and forms, we have to continue to teach our children to be critical consumers of media.
In order to do that, we need to be critical consumers of the media ourselves to teach our kids to do the same.
Be aware of the subtle messages of diet culture that show up in your social media feeds, in the articles, books, and magazines you read, or in the shows that you’re watching.
Instead of passively consuming it and it’s harmful messages, commit to being proactive about the messages you’re internalizing.
As a reminder, some of the common messages promoted by diet culture look like this:
Your body can’t be trusted
You need external rules to help you decide what and how to eat
Your body needs to be changed in order to be acceptable
“Fixing” your body will solve your life’s problems
Certain foods are demonized; therefore, you can’t trust yourself to eat them
Foods talked about in a “good” versus “bad” way
Certain foods are elevated over others
Certain foods or eating behaviors are attached to moral correctness: i.e. “you are so good for trying your vegetables”
Promotion of any kind of disordered eating behaviors, like restricting, over-exercising, dieting, etc.
You can immunize your children from these harmful messages by not allowing diet culture to take a foot hold in their lives.
Remind them constantly that their bodies are vessels that should be treated with respect, kindness, and compassion.
Help them remember that they can trust themselves and their intuitions and that they are the best expert of their bodies - not anyone else in the whole wide world can take this place but THEM.
When you are teaching them this and modeling these behaviors through your own life, you are helping them lay a strong foundation for life that will be immovable by diet culture.
Fostering a Trusting Feeding Relationship to Help Them Trust Their Bodies
One of the most impactful ways you can immunize your children from diet culture is to build a trusting feeding relationship with them.
This means that you are respecting your children to do their parts with eating while you focus on doing your part with feeding.
Remember, getting our kids to eat or trying to get them to try new foods does not fall under our feeding responsibilities.
At the end of the day, our kids can be trusted to eat what they need to grow at a rate that is right for them if we stick to our jobs and let them do theirs.
This means letting go of your own hidden agenda that may be lurking around the foods that you wish your child would eat, or the portion sizes you feel comfortable with her eating or the way her body size may be evolving.
All of this is NOT in your control.
You have to surrender this in order to make space for your child to have a healthy relationship with food and her body, in order to help her feel confident in her body and to trust herself with food (and with everything).
I know this is hard and easier said than done, especially if:
You have a child who may be in a larger or smaller body
You’ve struggled with an eating disorder, chronic dieting or a chaotic relationship with food
Your child is a selective eater or deals with sensory sensitivities
Your child has had medical, behavior or cognitive issues that have made eating difficult
You grew up in a culture that enforced certain eating habits, like cleaning your plate
Check out these blog posts here to help support you along your journey:
This is Why You Need to Make Peace With Your Child’s Body Size
How to Raise a Confident Child by Healing Your Relationship With Food
Child Nutrition: How Healthy Eating For Kids Starts With You
No matter what your situation has been, it’s never too late to right the cycle and to rebuild trust in yourself so that you can confidently feed your kids and build a trusting feeding relationship with your own children so they can learn to trust themselves too.
When you can heal your own anxieties and fears around eating, you will be better positioned to build a trusting feeding relationship with your child.
What’s a More Effective Way to Help My Picky Eater?
If you are a parent who has a picky eater or who’s child is very selective with food, please hear me out: you are not alone as you navigate this.
I understand the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties that can result when your child is having a hard time eating.
This does not make you a failure. How your child eats is not a reflection of your parenting abilities. You are still a good mom.
Further, you don’t have to fall back on diet culture tactics that have normalized the backwards way we’ve been taught to feed our kids.
First and foremost, keep an eye on the big picture goal: you want your child to have positive meal time experiences in order to cultivate a confident relationship with food and her body.
This can’t happen when we hyper focus on the minutiae of nutrition and food.
Meaning, it’s going to be a lot harder for your child to feel comfortable eating if you’re worried about how many servings of vegetables she’s eaten that day or whether or not she’s staying away from sugar and processed foods.
These things in themselves are not bad things - but they can’t be the end-all, be-all goal of feeding our kids. When these become goals, nutrition does suffer because the joy in eating and in feeding is lost.
So what are more effective ways to help your kids who might be selective eaters or with sensory sensitivities?
Here are some helpful suggestions and tips to keep in mind:
1.Continued exposure with ZERO pressure to eat:
Remember that negative or positive pressure is still PRESSURE, no matter how you spin it.
Pressure-to-eat feeding tactics can potentially backfire and cause your child to have aversions to food and negative associations with eating.
Continue to expose your child to a variety of foods without any pressure to eat those foods.
2. Serve 1-2 safe foods alongside meals/snacks:
Even while exposing your child to new foods, you can be considerate of her preferences without catering to her every want and desire.
Try to include at least 1-2 food components that she feels comfortable with at mealtimes so she can identify something that helps her feel safe at the table.
This, in conjunction with a zero pressure-to-eat environment can make mealtimes a safe place for her to explore foods on her terms.
3. Be aware of your language:
It’s easy to label foods as “good” versus “bad”, “healthy” versus “unhealthy”, because that is what our predominant diet culture has taught us to do.
Remember that kids don’t view food in this way, and when we talk about food through this lens, it makes food confusing and chaotic.
Don’t attach any moral value to how/what your child is eating with polarizing language. If you are talking to your kids about food, try to focus more on the characteristics of food: i.e. textures, colors, flavors, etc.
4. Offer food exposures outside of eating:
Allowing kids to interact with food in ways that don’t involve eating can actually help increase their familiarity and comfortability with new foods.
This may involve taking your child to the grocery store or farmer’s market, allowing your child to prepare food in the kitchen with you, or gardening.
Remember that the key is NO pressure, so even while exposing your child to new foods in alternative ways, it’s important to not interject an agenda that is subtly pressuring your child to eat those foods.
5. Be aware of your own anxieties to help decrease power struggles:
While you don’t have much control in how your child eats or any feeding challenges you might encounter, you do have a say in your part of the feeding relationship.
This involves how you respond to your child during mealtimes or in any circumstance where food might feel more challenging.
Do your child’s current eating habits bring up feelings of fear or anxiety for you?
If so, be aware of how these feelings may influence your feeding interactions with your child.
You can continue to focus on your job with feeding without projecting these fears on your child. These feelings may be clues of potential areas you can explore further.
If your child is a selective eater and you need more support in this area, please be sure to check out this post to help you navigate picky eating with your child.
If you are in need of more support, please schedule a free call with me today. I’d love to hear your story and learn how I can help you.
You Can Help Immunize Your Child From Diet Culture
At the end of the day, we can’t protect our children from everything.
However, what is happening in your own home is what will be most influential to your kids, especially in regards to how they feel about food and their bodies.
By focusing on building a trusting feeding relationship with your children and being a critical consumer of the media, you can help protect them from the damaging messages that are perpetuated by diet culture.
Sticking with your jobs in feeding and allowing your kids to do their jobs with eating, you can also end the power struggles and anxieties that may arise to create more peaceful and positive mealtime experiences.
Lastly, if your kids, like mine, watched that episode of Daniel Tiger, you can tell them that a better way to sing that song goes something like this: “You can try new foods whenever you choose”.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Where have you seen diet culture present in the media your kids are consuming?