442. Picky eating, protein, food dyes, and nutrition myths: What parents actually need to know with Jennifer Anderson

Jennifer Anderson (00:00):

We still want kids to have a good relationship with their body and to have a good relationship with food and be able to eat to meet their body’s needs. That is the core thing that we’re always shooting for. And so often the strategies matter less than how you do them.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:23):

Feeding our children has somehow become one of the most stressful parts of parenting. Everywhere we turn, we are told to worry about sugar, food dyes, ultra processed foods, protein, organic produce, and pick eating. It’s no wonder why so many parents feel like every meal carries enormous pressure. Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist, mom of two, and the host of Securely Attached. In this podcast, I’m joined each week by leaders in the field of medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and child development. And together we translate the science and research into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. Joining me this week is Jennifer Anderson. Jennifer is a registered dietician, founder of Kids Eat in Color, and the author of the new book, Feed Them Well: A Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident Eaters for Life. Through her work, Jennifer has helped millions of parents cut through the noise surrounding childhood nutrition and approach feeding with way more confidence, flexibility, and far less stress.

(01:26):

In this conversation, Jennifer challenges the idea that raising healthy eaters is about perfect nutrition or following every new food trend. Instead, she explains why the relationship that we build around food often matters just as much, if not even more than the food itself. We talk about why play can be one of the most powerful tools for helping picky eaters try new foods, how anxiety in a child’s nervous system influence eating in ways many parents don’t quite realize, and why so much of the nutrition advice circulating online actually distracts us from the changes that really make the biggest difference. Jennifer also shares a very practical framework for helping parents decide which nutrition concerns deserve their attention and which are mostly creating unnecessary worry. Plus we explore how our own relationship with food shapes the messages our children receive and why letting go of perfection can actually help raise healthier, more confident eaters.

(02:25):

So whether you’re navigating picky eating, feeling overwhelmed by conflicting nutritional advice, or simply hoping to make meal times feel a little calmer, this conversation will leave you feeling so much more confident about what really matters and what you can finally let go of.

(02:46):

Hello, Jennifer. Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here.

Jennifer Anderson (02:50):

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:52):

Yes. So first, let me just start by saying congratulations because your book, Feed Them Well: A Guide to Raising Healthy, Confident Eaters for Life comes out today everywhere the books are sold. So amazing.

Jennifer Anderson (03:04):

Thank you so much.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:06):

This is exciting. This book is a long time coming. You’ve been doing this work for a very long time.

Jennifer Anderson (03:13):

I look back and it’s actually been over four years. It’s just forever.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:21):

That’s incredible. I’ve been following you for longer than that actually. Full disclosure, I am a fan. I was so excited. I was telling my podcast producer when she told me that you were coming to the show, I was like, it’s going to be hard for me to keep it together. I’m so excited. Partly because I’ve been following you since my kids were really little, you are one of the sort of. First, let me let people get acquainted with your work and we can tell them, but you are one of the first food voices on the internet that made me feel like, okay, oh, okay, I can do this. This feels really doable and comfortable and not shaming and not scary. And I think that that is very hard to do in the world of parenting and food. The intersection of those two things is like a landline.

Jennifer Anderson (04:16):

Yeah. And it’s gotten harder because the messages have gotten more extreme and the social content that’s extreme gets pushed out more. And so it is, but I think at the core, I truly, truly believe every parent is doing a good job. I really believe that and I don’t want to be scared. I can’t follow scary food accounts either. And so I always come at it from, I really believe that you’re doing a good job. And I also believe that if you want to change something, I’m here to help. And so I offer you things, but it’s really up to you in terms of whether you’re in a position where you want to change something or you don’t, or you want to just feel good. Take a minute to think, oh wow, there’s actually a lot of good things I’m doing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:07):

Yes, yes. And let’s give people a little orientation to your work and what your pathway is to creating the type of nutritional content that you create and now this book. What’s your background in all of this? How’d you get here?

Jennifer Anderson (05:23):

Yeah. So my son, I became a dietician. I went to public health school. I became a dietician and I was working doing non-traditional work in reviewing information for the USDA SNAP education program. And I’m like, oh great, I know how to feed my kid. I have the kid, he’s like a little chunky baby, has a little cheeks. Oh my gosh, so kissable. And I bring him into the pediatrician’s office when he was nine months old and she was like, “He’s not gaining weight.” And that moment, it was like the rug was pulled out from under me. And that began years of working really hard to keep him on the growth chart. And then my second son came along and he started showing early signs of extreme picky eating, which I recognized because I had started to get into this with my first kid. And I’m standing in the kitchen one day, I’m making this cute little Bento lunch for my preschooler to eat because he’s so distracted.

(06:28):

I’m like, “Oh, I need to get his attention so that he’ll eat at school.” And I though, “I can’t be the only parent having a hard time.” But it was so isolating. And a friend of mine was like, “Look, you’re making these cute lunches. Why don’t you start an Instagram account?” I was like, “Okay.” So as a hobby, I started Kids in Color, posted these cute little pictures with feeding tips and evidence-based things that parents could do. And I learned, I’m not alone, and that there’s so much that I can give to parents. And that was in 2019, I started my Better Rites program to help parents of picky eaters. And I’ve done the meal plans and so many things. And as I kind of went along four years ago, I was like, “The conversations are getting more complicated as kids get older, but also as there’s just an influx of information hitting us and bombarding us as parents.” And diet culture has gotten more complicated since I started.

(07:32):

The what to feed your kid has gotten more amped up. Are you poisoning your kid if you’re giving him a cookie? Are you feeding him toxic? I don’t know, you name it, toxic anything. And I was like, “This is stuff that can’t be addressed on social media and we need to have a conversation about this and that needs to happen in a book because we can’t have these little light conversations in a 15 second, one minute, 15 second video.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:06):

Right. It’s true. And as you have been trying to take what I think you’ve done very well, even in the confines of a tiny little reel, from a context standpoint, some of my favorite things that I’ve seen you do in terms of content that really sat with me as a parent of like, “Oh gosh, thank you. That was so permission giving.” Where I remember you’ve done it a couple different ways, but you’ll put up a picture of if your kid is under eating, this is what a meal should look like. And then you’ll have a follow-up slide that’s like, “If your kid is overeating, this is what the meal should look like.” And the pictures are exactly the same. And it’s all about building this relationship to food and building this relationship to the comfort around being in the home around food. There’s just such a neutrality about it and a, I don’t know, depotenty, it’s not a word, but making it not so potent, not so charged, chilling it out and the relaxing that happens when we don’t have the constant pressure around making every single bite it.

Jennifer Anderson (09:29):

Right. Yeah. I mean, I can’t live my life like that. I can’t have it totally escalated. And I’ve had to work through so many issues with my kids. And I think the fact that feeding my kids has been a real challenge for me. I can never judge another parent for absolutely anything that they’re doing. I mean, outside of really extreme things. I cannot judge a parent because I know how hard it is. And I think one of the interesting things over the course of years is, and it’s kind of really coming out in the book, is just how much I want to give people permission to do what their kid needs. You have my full permission to step outside the box of what that reel told you was a good idea. There’s going to be people and they’re going to say, “Hey, these are the six steps.” And guess what?

(10:25):

Your kid isn’t going to follow a single one of those six steps. And I’m here to tell you that’s okay. That’s because those six steps weren’t for your kid. And I mean, I have a whole chapter talking about the kind of state of research and I wanted it to be really wonky. And my editors were like, “Sorry, you need to make this not as boring.” So we brought it way down and it’s very understandable, but just trying to give people permission, the research that is out there and when you hear the research says that might not apply at all to your child. And so you have permission to figure out what your child needs. And I think, I mean, for me, when I hear, “Hey, you’re the expert on your child and you’re going to get the information that you need and find the therapies or the strategies or whatever you need, you’re going to figure that out. And because you’re the expert on your child, you are going to be able to find what your kid needs and find success in whatever that means for your kid and your family.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (11:38):

So you’ve got these ideas that you’re sending out in these soundbites and you’re like, “This is not enough context. I need to stretch it out. I need to be able to have more of a dialogue.” What were some of the things that you felt like were getting too simplified that you needed to be able to give more nuance and color to?

Jennifer Anderson (11:57):

So I mean, really everything. I mean, there’s just so much more to the conversation than don’t pressure your kid to eat, which is a great soundbite. And for some families, just saying that is enough and that can be so powerful. But then there’s also the questions of like, but what happens when my kid is really not thriving and they maybe actually need a little bit of pressure? I went and did such a deep dive on the research and pressure to eat and realized it’s not as strong as it’s made out to be, even in eating by dieticians or whoever’s talking about feeding kids. And parents have a lot more permission to experiment and see what that means. And so I think always giving parents a starting point, it’s like, “Hey, start here. This is actually probably going to work for most kids, but also if it’s not working, here are some of the things that you can try and do.” And that’s the whole second part of my book because I have read a lot of parenting books and I don’t know about you, but I read the parenting book, I try to do the parenting book and the parenting book is like, “Well, if your kid does this, you do that and then your kid will do this.

(13:13):

And then my kid would do that and I would do this and my kid would definitely not ever do the thing ever.” I’m like, “But then what? What happens when that doesn’t work?” And almost no parenting books ever have actually explained what I’m supposed to do when I don’t have that result that was promised. And I was like, “I am absolutely not putting a parenting book out there that does that.” And so mine doesn’t. Mine actually goes into the, “And what happens when your kid really doesn’t do it? What happens when you’re like the quote right strategy, the best practice strategy when that doesn’t work, then what do I do?” Whole second part of my book is like, “Here are the strategies, here’s the basics, right? Here’s what I would generally recommend. Start here. But then how are you going to implement these things that you though were not a good idea in a way that’s kind of reducing the risk?” Because dieticians and healthcare professionals, we want to recommend things that carry the least amount of risk.

(14:21):

And so that’s what we do, but it’s not going to work for every kid. And if that doesn’t work, then you’re going to have to take on another strategy that may carry a little bit of risk. And so our goal then is to reduce that risk. And I call it risk reduction. And there’s a whole framework on how we’re going to reduce that risk because we still want kids to have a good relationship with their body and to have a good relationship with food and be able to eat to meet their body’s needs. That is the core thing that we’re always shooting for. And so often the strategies matter less than how you do them. And that’s really what we have to focus on is how are we doing this?

Dr. Sarah Bren (15:07):

I think one of the reasons I just realized one of the reasons I’ve always really liked you is because you are describing almost the exact approach I take as a clinical psychologist working with behavioral and emotional dysregulation and issues in that domain. I take that exact same approach that you are describing how you take with children’s relationship to food. I take that with their relationship to their emotions and behaviors, which is one, it isn’t what you do, it’s how you do it. You have to figure out how to modify all of these cookie cutter strategies to fit your kid and their systems. So in my case, I’m helping parents a lot of times tweak the strategies to fit their kid’s nervous system and sensory preferences or just where they are in their regulation threshold. And for you, it’s not that dissimilar. It’s like, I’m going to take the strategy, but I have to modify it to my kid. I have to take this thing and say, well, let’s replace the ingredients that my kid won’t even look at and just put the ones that they do like. I love the exposures that you teach parents to do of you put a little tiny piece of pepper on a plate full of their favorite food and the goal is not for them to eat the pepper, it’s to just desensitize them to the presence of the pepper. And you could put a little piece of pepper on their plate 500 times before they even sniff it.

(16:35):

But guess what? One day. They’re going to sniff it. And then they’re going to lick it and then they’re going to throw it at their brother and then they’re going to eat it. And then it’s like, oh, it just takes so much of the. It’s playful and it’s just not so high stakes, but it’s so individualized. I love how individualized it is.

Jennifer Anderson (16:59):

Right. Exactly. And it really is. I mean, there’s such a huge connection between sensory system and regulation and eating. And of course I couldn’t make it a 500 page book, but if I could have, I talk a lot more about regulation. I mean, that’s just such a core part of what I teach parents in my Better Bites programs is like, if your kid isn’t regulated, they’re not going to be able to branch out. They’re not going to be able to taste the pepper because they’re freaked out about who even knows what.

(17:30):

And so we have to get them calmed down before they get to the table. When I say we have to, I mean, we try our best. We try our best to, and we hope for the best. But when that magic happens and they do show up to the table and you’ve been able to kind of fill their sensory cup that day so that they are coming just kind of chill and open, then they see the pepper and they’re like, “Oh, no big deal, that pepper’s always been there.” And then when as a parent, you stab your pepper with a toothpick and you eat it, then they’re like, “Oh wow, that’s interesting. Maybe I’ll stab mine with a toothpick.” It’s play. The play. The play is magic.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:18):

It turns it into play.

Jennifer Anderson (18:19):

The toothpick is magic. I call it toothpick magic. I mean, I was at a fancy party for a friend of mine and it was like one of these fancy parties where they have hors d’oeuvres and everything’s on a toothpick. Everybody loves to eat things on a toothpick.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:35):

Everybody loves a toothpick. Grownups are no different than children.

Jennifer Anderson (18:40):

Oh yeah. They have the little bamboo, tie a little knot, fancy toothpicks. You can buy fancy toothpicks for cheap.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:47):

Well, like the hospitality industry, I don’t remember, someone was famous for sort of saying in hospitality, the goal is to surprise and delight.

Jennifer Anderson (18:56):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:57):

That’s like a good hospitality.

Jennifer Anderson (18:59):

It’s a hospitality move.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:59):

Right?

Jennifer Anderson (19:00):

Yeah. And don’t use the toothpicks every night, but strategically use the toothpicks and you will, I’m just telling you. And of course they’re kids, so you never know about your kid, but so many children will eat just about anything on a toothpick.

Dr. Sarah Bren (19:19):

It is really interesting because it’s like if someone immediately quickly just scans your content, it’s like, okay, it’s really beautiful. You’re cutting things into little shapes and it’s fun. It’s super playful. And I think for a lot of people that’s very lean in kind of content. And then for some, I would imagine they’re like, “That’s too much work. I don’t want to have to do that much work.” And I feel like one of the differences between. I think the messaging you place around that is you don’t have to do this one. You can do this, but it’s not about making it pretty. It’s about bringing the food to the level of our kids’ engagement, right? It’s about. I guess the differentiation for me is that you’re not creating a Pinterest.

(20:08):

You know how there’s some types of content where it puts all this pressure for it to be picture perfect, which is so not the messaging, right? For me, the essence of what you talk about is, isn’t really what it looks like for someone else. We’re trying to create some sort of shared language with our kids and our kids eat through their eyes, they eat through textures, they eat through colors, they eat through play. They explore the world through play. And so if we start thinking about introducing foods and experimenting with foods more about play than about mealtime, I’m just curious your thoughts.

(20:46):

Maybe we could talk a little bit about your take on that. Yes, we want our kids to eat. Maybe we have a particular need or agenda or something, but if that’s our end goal, we don’t necessarily have to start with mealtime. We can start with play and work our way towards that.

Jennifer Anderson (21:07):

Yeah. And I think you can bring play to the table. And to the point of making cute little lunches and these sorts of things, if you have a picky eater, you know that you’re going to do anything possible to get your kid to eat and you might find yourself doing something you said you would never do like I did, which is cut my kid’s food into shapes. But when you have a kid who’s not saying on the growth chart and needs to eat and you need to get them to eat a piece of cheese because it has a hundred calories and three bites, you might find yourself cutting it into a star. And I’m always here for the parent who’s having a hard time. The parents who are not having a hard time, they are the ones who are like, “I would never cut food into a shape.” And you don’t have to.

(21:58):

Like you said, you never have to do anything that you don’t want to, but you might find yourself in a position where you’re going to do anything to get your kid to eat or to have whatever happens. You’re going to put in the extra effort because you need to. When it comes to play, kids learn through play. They learn the fastest through play. And it’s also the least. I mean, it takes effort on a parent’s part to play, but it’s also much less miserable than making your child eat food. I mean, it’s one thing to say, “You have to eat your peas and I’ll give you a cookie. If you eat your peas, you can’t have your cookie until then.” And then you have a kid who’s pouting, who’s slashed in their seat, who’s playing with their peas, maybe throwing it to their brother, silently dropping them off the table to dry out under the chair and get stuck.

(22:56):

That can happen, or you can be like, “Oh my gosh, can you hop your peas across your plate? Can you count your peas? Can I have your peas? Oh my gosh, these peas taste so good. I did such a good job cooking these. I think I’m going to try mine with butter.” When we add in that playful element and we just take the pressure off of eating and we don’t tie it to a cookie, which basically tells them the peas are not that great and the cookie is super great, they’re already going to figure out the cookie is great. Their taste is going to figure that out for them, but we don’t need to add to that. So when we’re just bringing in play, especially in those younger years, it just changes the vibe, totally changes the vibe and also changes their ability to learn because if a kid is anxious when they’re sitting down at the table, what happens when you’re anxious, your mouth gets dry, your throat tightens up, you maybe feel nauseous, you get a stomach ache, you don’t feel good and you definitely don’t feel like eating.

(24:02):

And so when we can help kids calm down and bring some fun and tell jokes and play little games at the table, all of a sudden their mouth is not dry and they can chew food. Their throat doesn’t hurt and they can swallow food. Their stomach isn’t feeling bad or weird and they can actually eat their dinner. So the play is not just this thing that we’re saying, “Oh, now you got to play with your kid to get them to eat,” because it can kind of feel like why don’t they just eat their dinner, right?

Dr. Sarah Bren (24:42):

No, there’s like a little bit of the neuroscience to it.

Jennifer Anderson (24:44):

Right. But the reality is if your kid is having a hard time, I wish it wasn’t that way for you and for me, but it’s just kind of the reality, they’re coming to the table anxious and so we’re going to have to work a little bit harder. We’re going to have to do things that other people don’t have to do. And that might mean pretending like you’re a dinosaur or eating food very dramatically in front of your kid or making a game out of it or having to bring your creativity to the table. And that can be hard after a long day for sure, but it might be worth it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (25:18):

Right. And just to kind of like you describing when a kid is feeling anxious, their system, because we were talking about regulation earlier and realistically what we’re describing is fight or flight. And that’s when our systems move into fight or flight, we are literally moving out of our digestive system. The opposite of fight or flight. So if fight or flight is the sympathetic arousal system, the opposite of that, the down regulator is the parasympathetic nervous system, that’s often referred to as rest digest. The opposite of fight or flight is rest digest, which means if we want our kids’ bodies to be receptive to having those internal awareness and body hunger fullness cues and even just the physiological, they’re salivating and they’re able to swallow and easily digest food and be oriented to food, they have to quite literally be in parasympathetic arousal. They have to be in their rest digest system. That is a playful, connected system that is the opposite of fight or flight. So if you have a kid who’s anxious and every time we’re going to the table, there’s this agita or dread that we all carry because we’re going to have another fight or it’s going to be this power struggle or it’s just going to feel or they’re going to be having to do something that makes them stressed or we’re going to be doing something that makes us stressed.

(26:55):

It’s neuro-biologically the antithesis of the state that we need to be in to eat. So we’re creating a very big uphill battle. We’re moving in the wrong direction with the body. So I just think it is really important if you understand the neuroscience of why play primes the body for eating, it might make it a little bit more palatable, no pun intended, to be willing to kind of bring in more play when it comes to eating.

Jennifer Anderson (27:32):

And it can also feel better. Sometimes when we come in, we can all of a sudden get really uptight like, oh my gosh, did I put my kid in a fight or flight or whatever. Do your best. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Your kid can eat a little bit anxious and so can you, right? You can still connect and also have a disagreement at the table. We had a couple weeks ago, it was just like mass chaos, trying to get my kids to dinner, drama, one kid, we finally get them to the table and they start fighting. I mean, once there’s a sibling, that is a wild card as far as whether you’re going to have any sort of peace at dinner because who knows what they’re bringing to the table? So they start fighting one. I mean, the parents haven’t even got back to the table yet and one has stormed off to his room and slammed the door. I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is just the worst meal.” So we just let him hang out in his room, doing whatever he’s doing to calm down and the three of us start eating. And next thing I know, I don’t know, 15, 20 minutes later, the other kid comes down, starts eating, and now we’re having this really amazing moment where everybody is laughing and we’re having a good time and everybody’s eating their dinner. And I was like, “How is it that we have gotten here after this meal could not have started any worse?” And sometimes we just had to stick it out.

(29:17):

The meals, they may not all be nice, but look for that moment of happiness or joy or peace or whatever it is. Often there’s going to be some moment and it may only be one moment that meal ended with the two siblings fighting again, but we still had that bonding moment in the middle. And even amid the sibling, whatever was going on that day, we still were able to bond. So don’t hold yourself to some sort of level of perfectionism with this because you have real kids, so nothing’s ever going to be perfect.

Dr. Sarah Bren (29:55):

Yes. I think that is a very good reminder.

(29:57):

I want to take a quick pause here because one of the themes that keeps coming up in this conversation is that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to helping children eat. What works beautifully for one child may not work at all for another, and that doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It simply means your child needs a different approach. If feeding has become a daily source of stress in your home, whether you’re navigating picky eating, ARFID, or other feeding challenges, you don’t have to figure this out on your own. At our practice, Upshur Bren Psychology Group, we offer parent coaching designed to help you better understand what’s driving your child’s eating, reduce mealtime stress, and develop practical evidence-based strategies that are tailored to your child’s unique needs and your family’s values and priorities. Because the goal isn’t to follow someone else’s perfect feeding plan.

(30:50):

It’s to find an approach that actually works for your child. Our coaching is available virtually worldwide, making it easy to access support wherever you live. To learn more or schedule a free 30 minute consultation with a member of our concierge care team, visit upshurbren.com. That’s U-P-S-H-U-R-B-R-E-N.com or simply click the link in the episode description. Okay, now let’s get back to my conversation with Jennifer Anderson.

(31:23):

You talk about impact tiers and can you explain a little bit about what that means in terms of triaging?

Jennifer Anderson (31:34):

Yes, yes. Okay. So you open your social media app or your news app or whatever, and inevitably there’s going to be a like, “Oh my gosh, spinach is toxic. Strawberries are poison.” There’s going to be some headlines somewhere, “Baby carrots are poisonous because they’re in chlorine.” And you’re like, “What do I believe? What do I not believe?” And I’m not going to get into all the questions, but I have these five questions in the book that are kind of like, ask yourself these to even decide whether something is important to you. Because if it’s sensational, I guarantee you it’s not right. If it’s sensational, just pass it by and assume probably, I don’t know, this is not scientific, but probably 90% of what they’re saying is off and they’ve taken it totally out of context. So when you see those big scary headlines, keep scrolling and don’t lose sleep over it. There’s going to be some little tiny. Now, if you see something like, “Hey, there’s an explosive diarrhea outbreak happening in the summer.” Yeah, pay attention to that.

Dr. Sarah Bren (32:48):

Right. Or if there’s a recall on this particular food. You can appreciate that. But I think when you right off entire…

Jennifer Anderson (32:56):

But the question is also where people are like, “Oh my gosh, what about food dye? What about organic versus not?” Here’s the thing. When we’re thinking about food, I wanted to give people a framework for understanding how to make decisions. And so what I did is I developed some tiers so that you can understand what is going to have the broadest impact on your child. If your child has a serious food allergy, that’s tier one because if they eat the wrong thing, that’s life threatening potentially.

(33:28):

If your child isn’t getting enough calories, whether it’s because they have avoidant restrictive food intake disorder or extreme piggy eating or food insecurity, that is tier one. We have to make sure kids are getting enough calories. And so we take care of the things that are going to keep our kids from getting very ill or worse. Then we start to look at, okay, what’s tier two? What is also going to have the broadest impact on my child’s health? That’s when we start talking about protein where it’s like, yeah, your kid actually really does need protein. It’s a really good idea to serve a solid protein food at every meal and most, if not all snacks. So we talk about the things that are tier two. We go down to tier three. Now we’re talking about fiber because fiber is really, really important. These are things that carry down into all the other things.

(34:26):

If you start really focusing on getting your kid enough high fiber food, guess what’s going to happen? They’re automatically going to start eating less food with dye in it. They’re automatically going to start eating little less food that has a ton of added sugars or a ton of added sodium. And so often what makes for the best headline starts around tier four, where we are talking about food dyes. Doesn’t mean it’s not important or it’s not interesting, but it does mean we are really focusing on the things that are going to have a very narrow impact on your child’s health while we’re neglecting the things that are going to have a very broad impact and are going to trickle down to the other tiers. So we’re missing those. And I think that’s what’s missing from the larger conversation these days is what’s actually going to move the needle on your child’s health a lot?

(35:21):

Guess what? For the vast majority of children, it’s not going to be artificial food dye. For some children, they are very sensitive to food dye. And my guess is if your child is, you have already figured that out. But if you’re reading things and you’re like, “I don’t know, do I need to be worried about this?” Your child probably isn’t one of the ones that has it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (35:42):

Or it’s like if you’ve been really knocking out tier one, tier two, tier three, you already have checked those boxes and you’re looking to really dial in the next level of whatever supporting your child health.

Jennifer Anderson (35:56):

I’m ready for it. I’m here. We’re having a great year. We are on top of our tiers. And yeah, maybe you want to do a food dye test. And so that’s why I put that in there. If you are concerned about food dye rather than just being afraid of it, let’s figure out if your kid is sensitive to it. Let’s actually do a little test here. And so we’re going to take it out. We’re going to put it back in. We’re going to ask people what they’re observing. So you can care about the things in the lower tiers. You just have to keep in mind they’re more narrow. They’re going to have a more narrow effect on your child. Taking food dye out of the food system, while that could be great, especially for those families who do have a child who’s sensitive to food dye, it’s not going to solve the child health crisis that we’re seeing.

(36:46):

It’s not because that’s not the core of what’s affecting kids. It’s not having the broadest impact. It’s having a very narrow impact and only on a specific group of children. I mean, it’s interesting. There’s some interesting research on diet and ADHD and there’s some research looking at food diet because it actually can increase behavior problems and kind of symptom like hyperactivity symptoms in some children. And what they found is yes, removing food dye can be effective, but it never cures a kid’s ADHD or it rarely will take all their symptoms away. And there’s also research around doing really restrictive diets where we find what are the foods that are causing reactions and sensitivities and all this sort of stuff. But the other intervention that’s been really great for ADHD is what they call a healthy diet pattern. It’s where they are eating fruits and vegetables, eating less foods with added sugars, it’s where they’re eating protein, making sure they’re getting enough protein at all meals and snacks. It’s literally just what people would think of as a healthy diet.

(38:12):

That’s all it is where we’re really reducing those foods that they’re getting too much of and we’re bumping up those other foods. And it falls right into the health impact tiers framework because really those things that have the broadest impact are truly going to have the broadest impact. If we really focus on building those up as best as we can, your child’s body is going to respond to that. You don’t necessarily have to get into the nitty gritty almost at all.

Dr. Sarah Bren (38:41):

In some ways, that’s very relieving to me because it’s like, okay, permission to not get freaked out about every little new news headline about a toxic thing and to focus more on these more accessible interventions, like adding more fiber, adding more protein, or not even necessarily adding, just being aware of, oriented to like, oh, when I look at a plate, what am I scanning for to know what else do I have to toss into this lunchbox or plate or whatever? You know the lunch boxes that tell you what goes in each box? It’s like a little bit of that. It’s like, okay, do I have the protein? Do I have the fiber? Do I have something colorful? Cool. Chill. I can relax. I can breathe. I’m doing a good enough job.

Jennifer Anderson (39:37):

Yes. Oh, for sure. And a lot of kids are eating too much, what I like to call hyperpalatable food, which is that food with the added sugars and the added sodiums and all that. Sodiums. So when we think of that, yeah, we do need to be working on reducing those items, but if we’ve already started pushing these other items and making them, having some meals where there isn’t a hyperpalatable option because we’re really focused on getting the fiber foods there and the protein foods and the fruits and the veggie, the color, I like to call it color, whether it’s fruits or veggies doesn’t really, that’s not the big thing is are you kind of adding in that color? And when we focus on those, the other foods generally can reduce a little bit without making a huge deal about it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (40:36):

Yes. I think that that is really where your attention goes, your energy flows kind of thing. If we put our attention on expanding some of these. And the nice thing about it is there isn’t just one way to do more protein or one way to do more fiber. There’s a lot of things in that because you were saying it’s a broad tier. There’s a lot of places you can go. Again, this goes to that idea of individualizing it to your kid. If your kid doesn’t like beans, cool. Move to something else that has fiber and protein. Cool. Move to this. Try this. You got a lot of things.

Jennifer Anderson (41:12):

There’s also so many different kinds of beans. My kids for the longest time wouldn’t touch edmami, which it’s got a different texture from other beans or they won’t eat mashed beans, but they will eat whole beans. It’s like you never know with kids what might work. And fiber isn’t the only thing in the tier and protein isn’t the only thing in the tier because there’s so many issues that parents need to know about. But there’s so many options. There’s so many options for these things.

Dr. Sarah Bren (41:46):

Right. Which is I think that to me feels more abundant than being like, don’t do this one thing because it will ruin everything.

Jennifer Anderson (41:53):

It’s just not true. Kids are not that easy to ruin.

Dr. Sarah Bren (41:58):

Yes. I love that. It’s true. And I wanted to ask you too, because you talk a lot about, at the end of the day, you already said it today in our conversation, but at the end of the day, really our ultimate goal is to help our kid have a good relationship with food, with eating as a social and cultural experience, relational experience and their body. And so yes, obviously sometimes that comes down to focusing on what’s on a plate, but in the long run, I think it is so much more about actually a relational and environmental, what’s the vibe around food in our house and modeling that. And not all parents grew up and have developed a healthy relationship to eating, to food, to their body. And just curious how you help parents who, this is really new to me, this idea of foods being neutral and foods being safe and not scary and being able to give their kids a different experience than maybe they had around food. It’s hard to do that if you don’t have a framework for it.

Jennifer Anderson (43:21):

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I think it’s something that you kind of explore for your family and your child over time. When I think about, I think a good starting place that can be kind of easier to ease into is talking about food factually, right? I used to talk a lot more. Food is two things. It’s morally neutral in most cases, unless food is part of your religious code or a cultural thing or something like that, then food may have a moral element to it. But outside of that, whether your kid is eating a lot of cookies or a lot of hyper palatable food or not, that doesn’t make you a good or bad parent and it doesn’t make your child a good or a bad kid. It’s just what they eat. And the other thing is that we can talk about food in a factual way.

(44:19):

And my favorite way to do that is to just call food by its name. This is a cookie, this is a sandwich, this is your chicken, this is your candy. We are not saying, oh, these are sometimes foods. These are always foods. We’re not categorizing them for kids into healthy or unhealthy or good or bad. We’re staying away from that moralization of it. And we’re also staying away from a black and white mindset around food. When we get into this black and white mindset, it’s not something that’s going to cause disordered eating. There’s no evidence that we have at this time that suggests that. But we do have some research that suggests that if a child is already kind of predisposed to a kind of eating disorders or something like that, be it personality, genetics, there’s a group of things that kind of increase a child’s risk for an eating disorder.

(45:19):

Black and white thinking about food is not one of them, but that is a, especially in restrictive eating disorders, it’s something that’s very common among kids with these eating disorders is they think about the world in black and white terms. And because of that, when they hear foods are good or bad, that becomes part of their restrictive thinking. And it is not exercising their flexible thinking. When we think about eating, we don’t usually think, oh, you need a lot of flexibility to eat. We don’t think that, but you think about you got a carton of blueberries and as an adult, you’re going to get those blueberries and you’re going to play the blueberry lottery. You know there’s some in there that are going to be so delicious and you’re going to go for it. You also know there’s going to be some in there that are sour, you might get a moldy one. There’s all sorts of things that can happen if you eat blueberries.

Dr. Sarah Bren (46:14):

It’s so funny because the blueberry lottery is so real in my house. My kids have very specific blueberry preferences.

Jennifer Anderson (46:20):

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And they’re very different. But kids are going to go in, especially a picky eater is going to go in and to them, this is a nightmare. They don’t know what’s coming. They don’t know what’s going to happen and they’re not going to play the blueberry lottery. That is just too upsetting for them. And the more inflexible a child’s thinking, and this is an executive function the kids have, but the more inflexible they’re thinking, the less likely they are to want to play that blueberry lottery. It’s really, really disorienting and really upsetting to have this experience of expecting a sweet blueberry and then getting a sour one. They may never eat a bluerberry again for years.

Dr. Sarah Bren (46:59):

Or getting a firm one and getting a mushy one because it’s texture too even beyond taste.

Jennifer Anderson (47:03):

So many things can happen with blueberries.

Dr. Sarah Bren (47:06):

Oh my God.

Jennifer Anderson (47:07):

But that’s true of tomatoes. That’s true of any berry. That’s true of any food.

Dr. Sarah Bren (47:12):

Exactly.

Jennifer Anderson (47:12):

Especially fruits and vegetables, especially anything that’s homemade. You’re just not going to make the broccoli the same every time. It’s always going to be a little different. There might be times when you burn it. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve burned broccoli in the past six months. And so when we’re thinking about kids, they need that flexibility and that can start with just how we’re talking, where we’re talking about foods individually, maybe we’re describing foods. We’re not contributing to this inflexible thinking by talking about foods being good or bad. We also are not contributing to demoralizing, which is something that a kid with disordered eating is also going to hold onto. I’m good. I’m bad if I don’t eat these things. So it’s an easy entry point, even if there’s no disordered eating in your home, even if your kid never even comes close to it, it doesn’t hurt to talk about food flexibly.

(48:09):

I was thinking about the other day, my kids, there was an ice cream truck in the neighborhood and I never buy ice cream from the ice cream truck. It’s just, I didn’t grow up with that. And I’m also like, I can spend the same amount of money and get a whole half a gallon of ice cream at the store that’s not very far away. But my kids love to take their money that they’ve earned, go out, flag down the ice cream truck. It’s this just amazing independence building, courage building experience. And they’re so proud of themselves for getting these ice cream. And one of them came back, I have no idea how much blue dye this ice cream had in it. I was like, wow, that is a crazy color. And I though, what if my kid went up to the ice cream truck and was scared to get something with food dye?

(48:59):

What if that was the first thing he thought about ice cream was, ooh, I don’t know if this is going to be good for me. Oh, this might be poison. Oh, I got to make sure I get the right color so it doesn’t have dye in it. I don’t want that to be their first thought. I want them to maintain this joy of being able to choose and getting something delicious and enjoying it thoroughly as only kids can because they don’t have all this baggage that they’re hearing. And I don’t want them to look at their friend’s lunch that’s maybe healthier than theirs or maybe unhealthier than theirs and be assessing their friend’s lunch. I just don’t want that for my kids. I want them to be able to be like, oh, what are you eating? Oh, that’s interesting.

Dr. Sarah Bren (49:43):

Right. Well, I also think that speaks too to some of the developmental kind of, a little bit of how kids work developmentally, how literal they are and how concrete they are sometimes. Like you were saying, black and white thinking and highly rigid thinking, yes, it can be associated with anxiety, eating disorders, not like chicken or egg, right? It’s not actually that we are making them anxious by doing this, by talking in a particular way. It’s that kids who are sort of their wiring is like predisposed to go to those rigid places and get stuck in those rigid black and white ways of making sense of things are more vulnerable to having anxiety disorders and eating disorders. But little kids

(50:36):

Look like that just because they’re little. All young kids are more rigid and more black and white in their thinking and much more literal. And so when you say we forget as adults that our language is highly flexible and nuanced and we have shorthands for things like, oh, that’s good or that’s bad. But for a kid or like, oh, that bread food dies, that’s going to kill you. And we don’t actually really literally think that or mean that. And a kid might really think that and get stuck on that. And so I think I hear so much in what you were saying about like, oh man, if my kid goes to the food truck and I don’t want them to have that be their first though. And it’s like we don’t realize sometimes that the things we say maybe hyperbolically or truthfully just in our own natural learned judgment of something can be taken so concretely and extreme by a child and internalized as like, oh my God, I’m scared of this. And it kind of steers into their mind in a way that it doesn’t for us. So we have to kind of remember that too.

Jennifer Anderson (51:51):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think sometimes we can kind of look at how are we looking at food? Are we attracted to this black and white thinking? Are we being kind of pulled into this idea that foods are poison or not? We might have trouble thinking about food flexibly. And I think sometimes when I kind of tell parents, there’s not really good or bad foods. It’s all like good or bad for who? There’s going to be people who broccoli is just not good for their digestive system and other people where broccoli is just like the best thing that ever happened to them. The same is going to be true for candy. The same is going to be true for literally any food. And so I think sometimes we have to look and say, can I be flexible about food or is this inflexibility actually interfering with how I’m explaining things to my kid?

(52:53):

Is it interfering with my ability to enjoy food? Often us taking care of our own relationship with food is going to be the most effective thing for helping our kids with their relationship with food. And so that can really determine what we prioritize in terms of talking to our kids, whether we’re working on picky eating or we’re working on relationship with food or flexibility or literally anything. If you find yourself having a hard time with something and you’re like, I don’t want to pass this on to my kid, what do I do? Take care of yourself, do it. There’s so much power in you being like, it’s really scary for me to try this new food. I’m going to do it anyway. When you’re modeling, changing your language like, you know what? I used to call these foods good or bad, but I changed my mind. I changed my mind. I can actually talk about foods just by their name. And guys, I’m going to do that. And if you catch me saying they’re good or bad, let me know. Kids love to catch your parents.

Dr. Sarah Bren (54:04):

Oh, I love that too, that permission to take it back, to walk something back if you’ve learned something new, how to just incorporate it.

Jennifer Anderson (54:15):

I mean, what a great example of my mom, I was married in my 20s and I remember my mom saying, “You know what? I’ve just learned that one of the great things about being human is we can change our minds.” And that was a new thing. It was something that she was learning in her, I guess, 40s and now she’s passing that on to me as somebody in my 20s. She still had such a huge impact on me. It’s never too late to learn things and to try new things and to kind of model them for your kids. And now it’s something that is in my mind, right? So I can pass that on to my kids earlier. I look at some of the social emotional skills that my kids have and I’m like, “Wow, I didn’t get those until I was like 20 or 30.”

Dr. Sarah Bren (55:11):

Yeah. We’re learning. I feel like every generation’s learning more. I do think there’s like a pendulum swing of like too much information. We’ve learned too much. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It’s overwhelming, but I think that that’s part of why I like following your work because it feels like, again, you share good information, but you also teach people how to discern what information is worth listening to and what is not, how to tune into their own intuition and their own relationships in their house, in their home, in their kitchen. So I really appreciate that you bring that to the conversation.

Jennifer Anderson (55:53):

I personally cannot contribute and I cannot. I feel you. I feel you. I do not need food to make the food noise to make me neurotic. It just keeps getting amped up and up. Yes. I don’t want to contribute.

Dr. Sarah Bren (56:10):

Well, you are a voice of sanity in lot of chaos.

Jennifer Anderson (56:13):

I’m like the boring voice. I feel like the voices that are just kind of like, “Hey, let’s be chill about this. Let’s be moderate about this. Let’s find the middle ground.” That just doesn’t get picked up as much in the news because it doesn’t freak people out. And so that’s something that you can actually protect yourself against. You can choose not to be in the know about the latest toxic food. I usually wait until people inform me about their questions about these foods. I don’t seek out this information because I’m like, it’s anxiety provoking even if I know it’s bogus. So yeah, protect your feeds.

Dr. Sarah Bren (56:58):

Yes. Literally and socially. Right. Right. If people want to get your book that is now out today or they want to follow your work, they want to stay connected to things that you are doing, where can they connect with you?

Jennifer Anderson (57:14):

You can connect with me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.

Dr. Sarah Bren (57:21):

@kidseatincolor.

Jennifer Anderson (57:23):

@kidseatincolor. And also kidseatincolor.com has a ton of resources.That’s where the programming is. That’s where you’re going to find just tons of good common sense, nonsensational stuff. Yes. And you can get the book anywhere that you like to get books.

Dr. Sarah Bren (57:44):

Yes. All right. Well, we’ll link everything in the show notes so people can find it very easily. I am so, so grateful that you came on today. It’s been really lovely talking with you and I’m so excited that you have this out in the universe.

Jennifer Anderson (57:58):

Thank you so much. It’s been such a great conversation.

Dr. Sarah Bren (58:07):

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