If you have ever been told to focus on your child’s BMI, weight, or eating habits and felt like something wasn’t adding up, this episode is for you.

In this episode of Family in Focus, I unpack the truth about BMI, pediatric weight guidance, and why the traditional “eat less, move more” approach often fails families.

Because it is not your child who is failing.

It may be the system.

We explore how BMI became a standard tool in healthcare, despite never being designed for individual health, and how diet culture, fitness culture, and medicine have merged into a single message focused on controlling bodies.

This episode also introduces a new way to think about children’s health, one that shifts away from numbers and toward relationships with food, body, and connection.

In this episode:

• Why BMI is a flawed measure of individual health
• How weight-focused messaging impacts kids and families
• The problem with “eat less, move more”
• How diet culture shows up in medical care
• A healthier, more sustainable approach to supporting your child

Watch the full video episode on YouTube.

New episodes every Wednesday.

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Books & Resources Mentioned:

If you want to go deeper into understanding diet culture, weight stigma, and how these messages impact families, these are powerful places to start:

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison
A deep dive into how diet culture became embedded in our society, healthcare, and beliefs about health and body size.

Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith
A practical and eye-opening guide for parents navigating body image, food, and weight conversations with their kids.

Starfish by Lisa Fipps
A middle-grade novel that offers a powerful look at how weight stigma affects kids and how they experience messages about their bodies from the world around them.

While I am a doctor, I am not your doctor. This podcast is for education, not medical advice.