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Raising Kids To Trust Themselves Around Food with Nicole Cruz, RD · Self-Schooled

• Heather DiNino (she/they): Welcome to Self-Schooled, a podcast where we explore how to understand our children and ourselves more clearly. I'm Heather, parent, educator, and micro school founder. And every week we talk to someone who gives us a different lens for understanding what it means to be human and parent other humans. Because the more we understand, the more connected we feel to the people who matter most. And the more confidently we can parent and find our family's own path. This is the education that actually matters. Let's dive in together. Hi everyone. I am so beyond excited to have Nicole Cruz here today. Nicole is a registered dietitian, a mom of three, and the founder of Nourish Together. She hosts the Intentional Table podcast, which is so good. And over there, she helps parents take a shame-free, realistic approach to feeding their families. Nicole's mission is to help families raise kids who can eat well and get the nutrition they need while also protecting their relationship with food. So welcome, Nicole. Thank you so much for being here. Nicole Cruz: thank you, Heather. I'm so excited to be here and chat with you and be able to share it with everyone. Heather DiNino (she/they): So can you give me a little background on like How did you end up in the dietitian world and particularly with kids, families, parents, Nicole Cruz: Yeah, absolutely. So I went away to college actually, and I was struggling with some food stuff on myself. And when I got to college my eating disorder really spun out into like a full blown eating disorder. And so I was seeing a therapist and a dietitian myself, and through that process I decided that I really wanted to be able to support others in the same way that they had supported me. I worked in eating disorder treatment centers and then started my own private practice and then I had kids and so once I had my children first of all I found it very stressful to feed them and just I felt so much pressure and tension around wanting to get it right. Like I wanted to get them the nutrition they needed and I would hear it like the mommy and me class to Feed them vegetables before you give them sweets w or before you're giving them fruit when you're starting solids because you don't want them to get used to the sweet taste. It was like all of these little things that I was just like, I wanna do it right. And so I kind of like figured out I read Ellen Satter's work. Again, I had read it way back and I was reading it again, now applying it like actually to my family now that I have kids. And I was, you know, just diving into the research on feeding. I was reading. books on parenting more, just like trying to kind of put it all together on like, where do I go with food here that feels good and aligned for me? And so then I'm feeling much better about it and fast forward a few years and I'm in preschool with my kids and I went to a co-op style preschool. So parents would have to work in class and I would regularly hear parents at the snack table saying things like You need to reat your rainbow food if you want some more crackers, or nope, you know, we can't have any more cookies today. They have too much sugar, and just little things that were planting seeds. And so I had this real desire to share more information with parents because I could tell that they were coming from such a well-meaning, loving place of wanting their kids to eat well, to get the nutrition they need, to not eat. too much quote unquote junk and to, you know, eat their vegetables and all that. And they were trying to navigate this in a way that really resembled the things that I had struggled with in my own eating disorder and the things that I was still hearing the teenagers and adults in my office talk about. You know, the bad food, the good food, the, you know, need to eat my vegetables or I I need to work off the cookie or, you know, all of these things. And so I started literally giving talks at the preschool and started a free online Facebook group and it just started to develop. And so over the past ten years, my primary work, although I still do have some eating disorder clients, is really to support parents of even younger children, more like two to ten or twelve years old, really navigate some of these struggles around food, how they can navigate that in a way that is is going to feel good for them, like they're being that, you know, responsible parent helping their child get nutrition in while also not planting seeds for disordered eating or guilt and shame around food. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, this is so important, Nicole. It's always well intentioned, They're just they're they're they're wanting to make sure that their kid is getting enough nutrients and enough vegetables and trying a lot of foods but unintentionally kind of, you know, creating these inner dialogues that you end up hearing later in in, you know, treating people with eating disorders. And I'm curious, like, do you think that those are things that started when they were much younger? Nicole Cruz: Yeah, a lot of times, and it's really interesting. I've had I've had some interesting moments with people, you know, coming to realize that sometimes, because sometimes we think, it was just like me hating my body as a teenager. And sometimes that is true. A lot of times though, it's like this compilation of yes, that maybe sparked it in your teenage years, but also you had this backlog of things that were being said around food. That made you feel bad about what you were eating. Like you shouldn't be eating things, that you shouldn't want certain things, that you were being good if you ate other things, right? And so oftentimes that is there. I I was actually on somebody else's podcast, this is a few years ago, and we were chatting, and she had this like major realization where she had struggled with an eating disorder, and she had this big aha, and she was like, my gosh, I always thought. It started when I was a teenager, but she's like, there was so much shame around my picky eating when I was younger that I felt so bad and guilty that I was doing food all wrong and that I wasn't good enough for the way that I was eating. And she just had this big like, whoa, you know, that started with this quote unquote like picky eating dynamics around food not being good enough, right? Not that a parent's saying that, but that we're absorbing that about the way that we're we're eating and I've had other clients say, you know, I remember my mom's side eye when I went in the cupboard and she would look at like what was I actually getting out, you know, what was I picking for for my snack, or the side eye at the table when I took another scoop of pasta or another piece of bread. Like they could, they could just feel it and absorb it. and and my story is actually different. I'll just briefly say I didn't have a lot of that around food. my mom pretty much like Let us eat what we wanted. It wasn't that big of a deal. We had family dinners all the time. It wasn't like eat whatever you want. We had some structure around food. But really, I absorbed her relationship with food the whole time and the constant dieting and measuring and weighing and like all of that. And I was just absorbing that, even though it wasn't being said directly to me. I could see the what am I supposed to eat, what am I not supposed to eat? And I was just kind of watching her do it to herself. Heather DiNino (she/they): the absorbing that you talked about, you know, we we know that kids are much more observant with their eyes and with their feelings than they are with their ears. So it's not it's not about what we say. which is why it's so important that we work on our own stuff too, right? So can you talk a little bit about that? Because, you know, parents are busy and exhausted and we're just trying to do all the things right, like how can we how can we do it right? How can we and there is no one right answer, right? But what's like a step towards nutrients and also a healthy relationship with food? Nicole Cruz: Yeah, I think that's so good. Just I think you hit on something really important there though too, like saying there is no right because there isn't this perfect right way. And part of doing this work is you actually starting to think about food different. in your family and what your role is in feeding your kid in your own beliefs around food, uncovering some of those so that you actually can just trust yourself in a moment to make a decision around food. Because so often there is this like is it okay for me to let them have one more cookie or should I say no, we have to stop there. And like there isn't always a perfect answer. I can give you different scenarios and how you're gonna handle it and you know, what you want to be considering and that it also is okay to say we're just having one cookie right now, like that's okay. It's also okay to put out a plate of cookies sometimes and let them have more. Like both things can be true, but if you have so much anxiety and stress around it, they're going to feel that and you're also going to be very reactive to everything that they're asking or doing or saying. So some of it is us just learning to trust ourselves in this process. And often it's really hard to trust ourselves though, because we are trying to balance both of these things around feeling like we're feeding them well, nutritionally speaking, and we're worried about like messing them up or creating tension or we don't want to fight about food or you know, give them a complex about it or any of that. And it's it can be a lot to hold, you know, all at once. So I think one of the things to start with though for parents is actually to start looking at What are your own beliefs around food and about how your child eats? Like we kind of have to have just some awareness there of what is creating our anxiety or our worry or our concerns about it, and what might be driving like our reactions? Because a lot of parents also tell me, I know you told me not to pressure my kid or I shouldn't make them eat something, but like sitting at the table, I it just like comes out of my mouth. Like I I can't help myself but just react and say, but you need to try a bite, right? Or like it doesn't feel good to let them just not eat a vegetable again or something. And so there's so much tied up in that. And so we have to start to uncover a little bit about what's going on for me. Like let's go with that example. Like what am I really worried about if my kid doesn't eat their broccoli tonight? Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah. Nicole Cruz: What's actually coming up? And so often parents haven't even stopped to really think about what is that. And a lot of times it's like, well then they're never gonna like broccoli and they're gonna be unhealthy and it's gonna be this and and then also we have so much shame. Like, why won't my kid eat the broccoli when so-and-so eats kale salad and my kid won't even eat a florette of broccoli? Like there could be these layers and layers of things. So we can talk about more practical aspects around food, but I really think the first place to start is to start examining our own thoughts and beliefs around food or like good food, bad food mentality. Why do I You know, think that this food is good and this food is bad. Where does that actually come from? And is that true that this food is actually good or bad? Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, is that true? And starting with your own beliefs is so important because you said you have to trust yourself in that moment, right? So you giving parents that empowerment is incredible. I would love to see families having a conversation about like what are our shared beliefs about food? you brought up Ellen Satter before, which I think is really important. If, you know, if folks have not heard of her, can you give a quick little intro about Ellen Satter, that would be helpful. Nicole Cruz: Yeah, absolutely. Ellen Satter is she's actually a registered dietitian and licensed clinical social worker both. So she had like the therapeutic aspect and the dietetic aspect. And she is kind of like the guru of family feeding, if you will, has written many books. she developed the concept of the division of responsibility, which is what is the parent's job in the feeding relationship and what is the child's job in the feeding relationship. And so the division of responsibility says that the parents' job is to decide the what, when, and where of food. And then the kids' job is to decide if and how much they want to eat, you know, from what is being provided. So on a basic level, that would be I'm deciding what's for dinner tonight. And I still follow this as an overarching concept. And that's what I say. I think she really gave us the foundations for feeding kids. And I still use this as an overarching concept. So, like for instance, last night I'm driving home from softball practice with my daughter, and she's like, What are we having for din and she stopped mid-sentence and she's like, Ugh, it's taco Tuesday. We always have to have tacos on Tuesday. I don't want tacos. Blah blah blah blah blah. Right? And she's like going on and on. about how she doesn't want tacos. And I'm like, I get it. Okay, you don't want tacos. And this is what we're having for dinner because as the parent, I am deciding what we're having. Now, let me also tell you, 'cause I think this is a really good practical example of how we're feeding our kids, like what you know, what this looks like in practice. So I'm not just like making everybody a taco and putting it on their plate and saying, eat it or don't eat it, good, you know, too bad, you know I decided it's tacos, here you go. And then I'm just letting her eat it if she wants or not, right? What I actually do for something like Taco Night is I have tortillas and I usually have chips and guac out, and I have all of the components of tacos. So last night we did ground meat and we had cheese and we had lettuce and you know, salsa and sour cream, and like all the things that might go on a taco. And so with all of those ingredients, I said to her driving home. That's okay, you don't have to eat tacos. Do you want me to make you a quesadilla out of it? Or do you just want to eat chips and guac? Or I can melt some cheese on the chips and we can do a little nacho plate. But like these are the ingredients of dinner. You're welcome to eat whatever you want from them as much as you want, and you don't have to eat it if you don't want it. But this is what we're having for dinner, right? So Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah. Nicole Cruz: we're giving that. exposure the variety to different foods. I'm not like, well, she doesn't want it. I'll just go make her a box of mac and cheese. Like I'm deciding this is what we're having for dinner. We're having dinner together as a family, which it's okay if you can't have family dinner every night. I'm not trying to put that pressure on parents. Sometimes it doesn't Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah. Nicole Cruz: work out. It is what it is. and this is when we're having it, you know, this is around the time that we're having it together. So that's the kind of what, when and where and then she gets to decide which parts of that she wants to eat, if any. And that's basically like the division of responsibility as a whole. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, that's such a good synopsis. the parents job is What when and where? And then it's the child's job, if and how much. So, you know, it's not unusual for kids when we say this is what's for dinner to get that like, I don't want that. Like, can't you just make me a grilled cheese or can't you just make me chicken nuggets or what would you what would you say? Like it it's not that there's anything wrong with them having chicken nuggets or grilled cheese, but to prevent you from becoming a short order cook and making five different meals, what would you say in that moment? Nicole Cruz: Yeah, and that's exactly it. And I think that's why it's important because okay, you maybe there is a quick night, you know, or a couple nights a week where you do just throw things together. You're like, I'm gonna heat up chicken nuggets, I'm gonna make the mac and cheese, I'm gonna put together a salad over here, whatever. This is just what we're doing for people tonight. Totally get it. And if we end up down that rabbit hole all the time of saying, Okay, you don't, you know, like this meal, you want something else. One, we end up being a short order cook, which can be super stressful for us as parents making five different meals and frustrating and we feel like we're never getting out of the kitchen. two, we aren't exposing our children to those different foods and saying, like, yes, you might like this too. Here it is. This is the meal for everyone. And and we're actually kind of telling them, like, you don't like this, I'll make you something else. Or, you know, you're picky, so I'll make you another meal. Even if, again, we're not Saying those exact words, that's kind of the message that we're sending. It's like, okay, you don't like it, I'll just make you something else instead of maybe you would like it if you tried it. You know, here you go. So what we want to do also in this scenario though, is we do want to create a sense of safety around the food. So if my kids don't like lasagna, I'm not just going to make lasagna and let's say broccoli and put it on the table and just say, too bad. Right? Like we are creating that sense of safety by making sure there's something there that we know they like, even if it's not always their favorite food. For instance, the taco night, right? I'm like, well, I know she likes quesadillas. When my kids were little, so she's nine now, and she actually usually likes to put together a taco or burrito or quesadilla or something. But when they were younger, we had mini meals that all of that food was out, and it was just a pile of shredded cheese being eaten. And some chips being eaten, or a plain flower tortilla being broken into pieces and eaten, because that that was the component that they chose. And that's why this is, you know, for the long game, because now they are regularly eating lots of different foods and putting them together and wanting to try different things. But it doesn't just happen overnight. It's doing the process, right? It's it's trusting the process and going through it night after night and also trusting. it's okay if they don't eat it because the more pressure we put on them to try and eat it, the more they're actually going to resist that. So we need to create that trust and that safe environment and that shame free arena for them. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yes, that's so important. I mean, having safe foods is so important so that they're not walking to a table thinking there's nothing here I wanna eat and that's automatically gonna create resentment and not great feelings about food, right? I love the idea of having like a catered meal night where it's like, you know what? Tonight I am gonna make four different meals that are quick and easy. Let's go for it. But every night, that is not sustainable. I wanna see if Nicole Cruz: Exactly. Heather DiNino (she/they): we could kind of walk through because you have not only a long time working in the field where you worked with a lot of clients, adults and teens with eating disorders, but you also have had kids for 14 years now. Your oldest is 14, 15, yeah. Nicole Cruz: Mm-hmm. Heather DiNino (she/they): So you've had like this long time to kind of see Things change over time with your kids. You've seen them grow up. You've seen, I'm assuming their preferences change over time, right? So can you talk a little bit about like what were your kids like as toddlers? Are there things that they used to not like that now they do? Like some success stories where you're like, I've made broccoli a hundred times and they have not eaten it once. Are they ever going to? And the answer is yes, right? Like they will, with no Pressure, but can you talk about that a little? Nicole Cruz: Yeah, for sure. And I think it's important for us all to remember, even as adults, we all have food preferences. And so your child might not end up liking every food, but with time and exploration, we can often find ways that they do like certain foods, even if they don't want to eat it every single time. And we usually can find foods from every single food group that they will eat as well. And so like I I just started telling my kids a story. I'm like, I remember when I was younger and the neighbor across the street who They know because they're still very good friends with my parents. I was like, I would go there for dinner and she would make taco salad. And her taco salad was all mixed together, and she always put Fritos in it, and that was really fun. And my kids were like, Fritos in salad? I want to try that. And so on Taco Night, we actually built a salad and they put Doritos in theirs, and they tried it, and they were like, This is so good. And so they started eating salad because they put Doritos in it. And then they would eat a little bit of it and maybe not a ton. And like fast forward, that was years ago now, like I don't know, five years ago or something. And now just the other week I did a salad bar dinner, which I don't do often, and I happen to do. And they were like, This is the best thing ever. And they're putting different ingredients in it and dressing and, you know, also like hard-boiled eggs, loving it. And so that went from never touching lettuce, not eating salad or anything like that, too slowly developing. And actually let me say one more thing. My 14-year-old who you mentioned, the first time he ever tried lettuce was we were coming home from a camping trip and we grabbed McDonald's and he's like, I want a Big Mac, but I just want to like get a Big Mac how they make it. Like he didn't want to adjust it or anything. So he got it so that it had lettuce on it. And that was the first time that he ever tried lettuce. And then it developed to him sometimes putting lettuce on his hamburgers. He doesn't all the time, but sometimes he puts lettuce on now, and now he'll also eat salad. So that's just like I feel like there's multiple things in all of that, but to show how wins can kind of happen when we're not demonizing chips, we're not demonizing McDonald's. Mind you, I go to ver McDonald's very rarely. If you go there all the time, I have zero judgment about that. But it doesn't mean I'm just feeding my kids McDonald's all the time. It means I'm not Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah, yeah. Nicole Cruz: demonizing it though. Heather DiNino (she/they): Right. Nicole Cruz: in allowing him to have that experience, which actually created a window into something else because it's a shame free experience for him to try something new. Heather DiNino (she/they): I just am thinking of five hundred other episodes I wanna have you on. But if I could ask you one more question, it would be about intuitive eating. And so you talk about intuitive eating and how you can you can have both, right? We can have nutritious food and also a healthy relationship with food. It's not eating salads and hating it or eating cookies and hating yourself for it. It's like Both. So can you just talk a little bit about intuitive eating and parents or kids or both? Nicole Cruz: So when we're born, we have an intuitive ability to seek out food, right? It's like a survival mechanism. We need that to live. And so we cry because we want milk, right? Whether that's from a bottle, from the breast, it doesn't matter. We are crying because we need food and then we typically pull away when we've had enough, right? Like I'm done, I don't want any more. We have that ability when we're born, and we also typically seek out a variety of foods because again, survival, our body wants to get nutrition, it doesn't just want to survive on fat or just survive on carbohydrates, it wants to get a variety of nutrients as well to feel good. So that's built in. And we have the ability, right, as parents and as we we move along in the society we live to either nurture that ability. And to help our kids stay intact with it and to continue to learn about their body and how it feels and to recognize those signals or to interrupt that ability and to detract from it. And so we have to remember that our kids were born with this ability, and we all were, barring rare medical conditions that are very rare. Sometimes we do have other competing factors that come into play, like sensory sensitivities, where we don't like certain textures or flavors or whatever, and so we might veer away from certain foods, or maybe we you know, I see a lot of kids with ADHD that are looking for more sensory seeking, and so maybe they are using food as a way to kind of meet that that need, you know, or they have lower impulse control and so they're just like seafood, grab food, right? So Sometimes we have some things that interfere with this, with this a little bit, but typically speaking, it's still there and intact to some degree, even if other things are kind of coming in. And so I just think it's really important that we recognize that we have that and we trust that our kids have it too, even if it might be being masked a little bit. So Heather DiNino (she/they): Mm-hmm. Nicole Cruz: when we think about eating intuitively, it's really being able to listen to our body cues around. Hunger and fullness, and taking into account satiety and satisfaction. Like, are we enjoying this food? Does it, you know, have does this meal have a variety of food groups that are going to help me feel full and satisfied? You know, am I noticing the more subtle things about the way that I feel after I eat a meal? And so we often think of intuitive eating as just eat whatever you want whenever you want. And it really isn't. It's actually about attuning and noticing how your body feels with the amount of food you eat, you know, or how long does that last you if you just eat, you know, a couple cookies? Does that feel satisfying over time? you know, just so noticing how we feel in the moment, noticing if we're responding to those cues, and then also being able to make some decisions around food, like okay, you know, cookies sound really good. But also I know that's not going to last me, and I have work meetings all afternoon. So, how could I have something with those cookies that's actually going to feel filling and satisfying and provide me with some more sustainable energy? So it's kind of taking all of these different components to make a decision around what we want to eat. And then being able to also listen to our body to stop when we've had enough and to feel calm enough and trusting enough that. We can stop when we've had enough and that we are allowed to eat those foods again later. Heather DiNino (she/they): Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's super helpful. So Nicole, thank you for being with us today. All of the links to everything we talked about will be in the show notes. And I wanna really encourage parents, especially to go to Instagram. Nicole is pretty active there and you get lots of tips. The taco bar she was talking about, there's a pasta bar idea on there I saw. There's a lot of really good, like practical, tangible tips. And she has this really awesome, free training on her website as well that I will link to. on how to create an empowered eater, which is what we can all hope for. So thank you so much, Nicole, for being here. I can't wait to have you back on.