Oct. 7, 2025
Preventing our kids from developing eating disorders, with food psychologist Dr Anna Colton. 162
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What do you think of this episode? Do you have any topics you'd like me to cover? Whatever food fears we've inherited, or learned, will be passed on to our kids unless we understand and challenge our beliefs, according to food psychologist, Dr Anna Colton. As she rightly points out, fear-mongering about killer bars or toxic foods is way more dangerous, long-term, than the food itself. In this episode we talk openly about my own struggles with my family's attitude to food, and Dr Colton...
What do you think of this episode? Do you have any topics you'd like me to cover?
Whatever food fears we've inherited, or learned, will be passed on to our kids unless we understand and challenge our beliefs, according to food psychologist, Dr Anna Colton.
As she rightly points out, fear-mongering about killer bars or toxic foods is way more dangerous, long-term, than the food itself.
In this episode we talk openly about my own struggles with my family's attitude to food, and Dr Colton explains in detail why it's way better to prevent our kids developing issues than it is to deal with the terrifying results of an eating disorder.
As she says: 'Eating disorders really do kill.'
She wants to help us parents raise a generation that trusts their bodies and enjoys food without guilt, fear or shame.
In tomorrow's episode we talk about how to:
- Recognize early signs of disordered eating
- Speak neutrally about food and body image
- Protect your children from harmful diet culture messaging
- Understand the complex factors behind eating disorders
- Create a supportive home environment that promotes healthy eating habits
- The shocking study that proved anorexia is cause by weight loss.
Whether you're parenting teens, tweens, or younger children, this episode offers practical strategies to help your kids develop a positive relationship with food and their bodies. Dr. Colton's expert advice will empower you to break generational cycles of unhealthy attitudes about eating and self-image.
Dr Anna Colton
https://www.dranna.co.uk
https://www.instagram.com/the_food_psychologist/
BOOKS:
- How to Talk to Children about Food by Dr Anna Colton
- Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders: How to Help Your Child Eat Well and be Well by Eva Musby
- Good Girl by Hadley Freeman
EPISODES:
Body image:
https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/body-image-and-chores-helping-teenagers-to-develop-a-positive-body-image-also-getting-your-teena/
Bigorexia:
https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/feeding-your-teen-control-issues-and-bigorexia/
Does my teen need to lose weight:
https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/diet-does-my-teen-need-to-lose-weight-how-to-navigate-diet-culture-with-elyse-resch/
Eating Disorders:
https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/eating-disorders-an-interview-with-beat-representative-umairah-malik-what-we-parents-need-to-know/
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message.
I don't have medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
My email is teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
And my website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me:
www.teenagersuntangled.com
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Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/teenagersuntangled/
You can reach Susie at www.amindful-life.co.uk
00:00 - Personal Background and Introduction Rachel's childhood experiences with diet culture Introduction of Dr. Anna Colton
01:15 - urrent Landscape of Eating and Body Image : Discussion of weight loss medications Impact of diet culture on teenagers
04:31 - Parents' Role in Shaping Food Relationships Understanding personal food issues Impact of parental language and attitudes Importance of neutral food messaging
09:21 - Social Media and Peer Influence How social environments impact eating behaviors Small comments' potential long-term effects
31:39 - Understanding Anorexia Minnesota Starvation Experiment insights Physiological changes during food restriction Treatment challenges
45:58 - Neurodivergence and Eating Different eating patterns in ADHD and ASD Strategies for supporting neurodivergent children
49:40 - Practical Parenting Strategies Healthy snacking approaches Breaking generational food trauma
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Hello and welcome to teenagersuntangled the big hug for parents going through the teen and tween years, where we use research from experts and our own experience to calm our fears about whether we're getting everything wrong, and to trust our values to parent our own kids. I was brought up in an era of pretty toxic body messages.
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My whole family were very overweight, and we all talked about food and dieting all the time. My parents were constantly talking about the new diets that they were following, and I grew up feeling like food was a massive issue I had to conquer.
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What I love about the world today is that we are much more open about the problems with this approach and the need to stop forcing people to try and look a certain way, which is great, but of course, we all have our hang ups from our own upbringing, and there's still this obsession with being thin.
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It hasn't gone away, and you could argue it's getting worse with the introduction of weight loss drugs. So I'm fascinated with how we can help children develop and nurture a healthy relationship with food, which is why I'm very excited about today's guest, who is clinical psychologist and eating disorder specialist, Dr Anna Colton, and her new book how to talk to children about food has been described as a book every parent should read.
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So Anna, welcome. Oh, thank you so great to be here,
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yeah, great to have you here. I've done a few episodes where I've looked at eating disorders. I have parents, and I've actually supported a parent who's gone through the really horrific situation of her daughter being anorexic and, you know, having to be admitted to hospitals, you know, at least two times. And I've also got parents, I mean, one who just emailed me just the other day saying she's got a son who is, you know, he's taking, drinking the hyper monster type drinks because he's a real gamer. And he's also getting into, you know, worrying about bodybuilding and and supplementing that. And so I think there's an awful lot of this around, isn't there?
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There is.
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There's so much around, and we have been through a period where it's been getting better. But as you mentioned just now, of course, with the explosion of the weight loss medications, I think we're seeing a massive step backwards.
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Are you seeing that in your office, or has that not yet really pushed? Oh no.
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Touched you? Oh, no, no, absolutely. I have conversations every day. And, you know, I have a it used to be that I specialize mainly in anorexia and adolescent anorexia, particularly now I do a more a more varied range of eating so, you know, I do all of eating disorders and go into adulthood as well, and some child but, but even my clients who are suffering from anorexia are really tempted by the weight loss medications. They're completely non weight specific, and because we know that the effect on the hormones that they target happens, irrespective of your starting weight. They are incredibly dangerous for my clients, I would argue that that off prescription, that not I say prescription, but unless they are kind, unless you're meeting nice criteria or medically need them, they are pretty dangerous.
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Nice criteria being the criteria they use in the English NHS for Yes, deciding whether you should be having that treatment. No, that's fine. We've just got lots
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of internet. It stands for the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, which is the body in the UK that recommends around evidence based treatment for all healthcare and medicines.
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Now what? Yeah, I want to come back to the I want to talk about anorexia in a bit more detail, but I'd like to start the way I always like to start, which is with ourselves, because I think us parents are the keystone to all of this. And of course, if we grew up in a household or just even a society that had a very, you could say, toxic or just unpleasant attitude towards dieting. I mean, dieting was everything when I was younger. That's going to make it really hard as parents, isn't it? And I know you've devoted quite a bit in your book to our own relationship with food and how we talk to our kids. What? What sort of things? What? What can we do to make sure that our own personal food issues don't unconscious, unconsciously affect the way that we feed or talk to our own children?
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So we have to be aware of them. And I know that sounds obvious, but many of us because it's because diet culture is really so huge, because we've all grown up surrounded by messaging around thin, being better and bigger being worse. We're often, we often just think it's normal.
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This is the way more, of course, of course, you don't want to have a child in a bigger body.
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You take that for granted, and not only just a bigger one, but but you'd really like them to be the skinnier end, because that looks better. They'll. Have more friends. You had more friends, or you had fewer friends, depending on your experience, and that's just you haven't challenged it. And unless you know there's something to challenge, or unless you know that you grew up as you have described in a household, indeed, as I grew up in a household with all sorts of unusual eating and and it is impossible to ignore that and avoid it, because it's at least three times a day, and the messaging is everywhere. So if you don't recognize that there might be something to unpick for yourself, you're destined, I think, to pass it on, because the way you talk about food, the way you talk about yourself the way you respond to yourself when you look in the mirror, the kind of the kind of the off the cuff comments that we all make just because we do. I know I don't want to wear that dress so you can see every lump and bump, right? Okay, but actually, what does that communicate to your kids? Lumps and bumps shouldn't be seen. That's not a good body.
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You need to be completely flat stomached. Or, you know, whatever it may be, or, you know, this is actually gender irrespective, you know, or any I need to know. I don't want to show my arms. They're too scrawny. You know, we are immediately communicating that the esthetic is so important. So I think we have to just take a step back and go, hang on a minute. What am I? What am I?
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What is my stuff? And do I the questions to ask yourself, are, what is my stuff? And then, do I mind whether my kids get that?
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Is it going to be harmful in any way? Is it going to be a problem? Because sometimes I talk to a lot of parents, good, but I want my children to understand. I want them to understand that, that, you know, it is not good if they're fat or that sugar is poison. And I have a lot of conversations, which may not surprise you around, but sugar is like cocaine. And I'm like, Really, if your child were offered a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of cocaine, which would you prefer they took? It's very extreme.
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And it's interesting, isn't it? Lucy Dr Lucy Fuchs, when she came on the program, she said, we've got this, this, this real fear of addiction. And we started to talk about things as addictive, which aren't that's like misunderstanding the nature of addiction. When we talk like that,
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completely misunderstanding. And you know, there is some overlap, dare I say, between anorexia and addiction. There are overlaps. I often work with an addiction lens when I'm working in anorexia for various neurobiological reasons. What do you mean by that? So when you are in a state of semi starvation, when you fast, or you don't eat, or you're in a massive calorie deficit, your brain biology changes, and it becomes you get the endorphin highs, and then the crashes. But the endorphin highs are caused by restriction, so then you want that endorphin high again, you become addicted to the feeling, and they're called starvation highs. And a starvation high is a very powerful thing. It's, it's, it's, you know, it's like the feeling you get after you've done a fabulous piece of dancing or great exercise or sex or anything, you know, you just feel fabulous. And starvation brings that on. And within 10 to 12 Days of significant under eating, our thoughts change so that we're not we think about food and our bodies in a different way. Our feelings change. So we forget, we forget the feelings that we had that are normally distressing, and actually it becomes increasingly weight, shape, size focused, and our whole brain changes. So with anorexia, we there is a lot of overlap, but it's because of the changes in physiology, and because of the impact that has on the thoughts and the feelings and the difficulty in changing behaviors once your brain has changed and become and become a starvation brain.
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Wow, that sounds quite scary as a parent, yeah. Because quite often, I mean, I've spoken to people in schools who said that they particularly in girls schools, because it's very prominent in girls schools that they try to monitor the kids eating, they try to get on top of it as quickly as possible, because it sounds like if it sets in, then it's actually so much harder to tackle.
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Oh, my goodness.
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Oh my goodness. And that was why I wanted to write the book I wrote, excuse me, it. You know, I could have written a here's how you get over anorexia, here's how you get over bulimia, but there's plenty of great stuff, but, but always I'm, I'm up for prevention wherever possible. Let's not write the treatment manual. Let's try and think through the prevention.
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And that starts really, really young. Now, right? That's multifactorial. Any eating disorders. The emergence of any eating disorder is multifactorial. So there might be, you know, there might be family factors, there might be genetic factors, there might be emotional factors, there might be. Generational transition, which is when, when the beliefs get passed down through the generations, which is where you started your question, actually.
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So it's not just one factor, but again, unless you're aware, unless you know what you might be looking at, unless you know what to recognize, you end up in a clinic, and you come and see someone like me, and then it takes, it takes a long time to recover anorexia, more than anything else, but all of the eating disorders are incredibly difficult to treat, because you have to interact with food three to six times a day. You can't survive without it. So unlike any other you know, if we're going back to the kind of the kind of comparison with addiction, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, you just you can. It is possible to cut it out of your life and never interact with it again. Food is completely the opposite, and so it's profoundly challenging. So you want to get in there and stop it. You don't, you don't want to wait till you're sure you've got a problem.
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So as you said, it's multi factorial. I read Hadley Freeman's brilliant book, good girl, and that really gave a much more sort of rounded picture of some of the reasons why this can actually happen.
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And she said it was like a bomb was ready to go off. It wasn't that someone did anything particular for me, one of the reasons I started being utterly focused on my weight. Was a girl had come to stay with me, who was my old friend, who said, Oh, you used to be the thin one and I was the fat one. Now you're the fat one. And it can just be, it can be small comments, like she didn't mean it in a horrible way, but it can be other, other comments that people make. So as a parent, there's only so much we can do to protect our kids, but what can we what sort of things are we saying in our homes or doing when it comes to food that you think might be impacting the possibility of things going wrong,
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comments like that? Actually, what such? And they start from, I mean, they start from the very beginning.
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It starts at pregnancy, really, but, but they start, you know, oh, you've got such lovely, lovely, chunky, chubby thighs.
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They're just good, gorgeous. And phrases like puppy fat, or when, when, you know, you'll use all that puppy fat. Excuse me, labeling foods as good or bad, healthy unhealthy, because healthy is code for good and unhealthy is code for bad. So you want to be neutral in the way you you you talk about food, you want to be neutral in the way you talk about body size.
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That doesn't mean that you're permissive. It doesn't mean there are no boundaries. This is something that I, I have a extremely frequent conversations about, because, you know, there's a bit of a understandable misunderstanding that when you talk about food neutrality, parents will say, Well, I can't just let them eat, you know exactly, cake and Crisps all day long. I'm like, No, it's not about that. You can have boundaries, but it's the way you refer to the food. So instead of going, that's crap, that's shit, that's junk, yes, poison, that's toxic, that's none of that is neutral. It will create an emotional response.
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And every child will will respond to whatever they feel emotionally about that differently. On the whole, it sets up a food hierarchy, where the very food you don't want your kids to eat is the very food they desire cos it's forbidden. Oh, that's a good point. Yes, yeah. So on the whole, it does that, but for other children, it creates massive anxiety, and they're like, Well, why is my best friend's mommy giving her bad food? I can't go around there, you know? And the most mortifying one of all is when, of course, you know, as as young kids, do they turn up for a play date so can't eat that. Do you know why it's poison, why you I'm not allowed. It's just it's mortifying. And then you go and you pick up from a play date and somebody because it's repeated from home. So we have to be neutral in the language. We can say, Look, if you just eat sweets and you haven't had anything else, you'll probably feel you'll get lots of energy, and then it'll crash and you might not feel well. Or we need to have a whole variety of foods, or say whatever you want.
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It can be factual. You can have boundaries, but we just mustn't use pejorative language around it. And also you need, you need to language is so important. You need to set your kids up to kind of appreciate more about themselves and other people than the way they look. So most of us are not friends with our friends because of our body size. Most of us are friends with our friends, right?
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But you actually keep noticing as soon as you get to know someone
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because, because you're attracted to their humor or their vibrance or their intelligence or their kind of, you know, warmth and generosity and love and compassion and all these things and their size and shape is, is really not why you want to be a friend with someone so but if you looked at all the messaging in society, and If you look at all the messages we give ourselves and often our children, you would think the opposite was true. So yeah, and that's sorry I was just actually gonna say that's also how you build their self esteem and their self worth. Is that you know, you say, Well, you've got this, you know, you. Or whatever it is, you know you're you're really warm, and you're caring and you're loving, and you support your friends, and you know you're funny and you're quirky, and you all these interests and and then children, and particularly teens, because, of course, in the teenage years or it's just a raft of hormonal, emotional, physiological chaos, brain rewiring, neuro redevelopment. It's amazing.
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It's wonderful. I love it, but it's a very tumultuous time. So you really want your kids going into their adolescence with a sense of self that is not based on appearance, and that's hugely protective against the eating disorders.
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Yes, I absolutely agree, and I've read that a lot of times, that actually giving your kid a sense that they're really they're good at this, or they they're good because of this, which has got nothing to do with their appearance, or whatever can is like having a suit of armor when they go into school. And it's very interesting, when I've talked to my daughter about her experience of becoming a senior, there are a couple of things she said. One of them was, she said, You know, when, when you're giving your kids food, telling them that they can only have pudding if they finish their main course, will just force them to override their their sense of society, just because they're desperate for that one little sweet. And she said it would have just been so much better if you said, just give me, you know, oh, you're full.
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Just have that little, you know, small, a small sweet. Because sometimes that's just where they just want a little treat, which we all do, and
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actually, we all do, right? It's so common. I mean, I certainly often finish dinner and think I'm quite full, but I'd like it. I'd like a bit of chocolate, or, you know, I'd like, and that's really normal.
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It kind of completes the meal.
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And it also, as your daughter described, one, yes, it teaches you to override your, your your satiety cues. But also there is the food hierarchy, because the communication is, main course, not so desirable. Pudding. Gotta work, yes, of course, right?
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Of course.
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Yeah. So and then, and then, and then, if you really want a quick hit, then you'll have the sugar thing, you know, when you get the chance. Because you've now been programmed to think that's the only thing that you really would Yeah, that you really desire
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absolutely where. And there are so many different ways to do it, and often parents feel very fearful of the different ways. So, you know, there's quite a lot of education when kids are young. I will sometimes say, give, give, you know, you get to portion the food. So give pudding and main course at the same time, and don't differentiate. And they'll, you know, they'll just move between the two. Yeah, have a mouth, mouth and of
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interesting approach.
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Yeah, it really does, yeah. And they do. But if you've set them up where this is the most desired food. This is the treat. This is the reward.
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They won't but if you want kids who can leave half a dessert, you either give it at the same time and you watch them flip flop between the two and then leave half the dessert because it's not so filling, or you just say, Today's not today. We don't have crumble. But you know, next tomorrow, I've got some ice cream. It's just like today. We don't have broccoli. Tomorrow, I've got potatoes. Oh, interesting.
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So, so, so the scenario I've got for you is when my daughter went to senior school, she said that she there was a wall of girls who had suddenly stopped, well, she had only started looking at social media at that time. She didn't have a phone before that, and she was just beginning to find her way around it. But there were so many girls who were absolutely fixated on following accounts where it was about what they look like, and it became quite a group thing. So they were and she said, Mommy, you because I actually clamped down on her. I saw that she was losing too much weight. I had conversations with her about it, and said, you know, we need to talk about this. So not clamped down isn't probably the right word. We I really engage quickly. But she said, You have no idea how many all the other girls have disordered eating.
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It's just that they're not losing weight. All they're doing is they are they will eat huge amounts, like a pizza, and then sugary, sugary, the snack, snacks, snacks, and then they'll eat nothing, because they'll be so shamed about it, and then they'll be starving, and then they'll restart the cycle again.
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So what can we do? What can we do when our kids get to this age where we are much less in control? So we've done the whole you know, they're the two foods are equal, or whatever. We've done all that. But they get to this age where they're getting influencers outside of the home, and they start, you know, they can make choices that we don't have any control over. What sort of things can you suggest to parents to help us to ensure that our kids don't, don't go down a disordered eating path.
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You are completely right in how you describe jumping on it with your daughter. You know, absolutely immediately, I always feel as someone in the parenting space, I always feel, I have to say, you know, I have four children of my own. It is not. Easy, even doing what I do right, doing what I do, I've done it for 25 years with the knowledge I have and the experience I have, I too, have screwed it up and said the wrong thing and made a hash of it. So I say that before I launch into advice, because I just I think, you know, it is food is really hard. Food and eating are really hard because of the society in which we live.
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But and I have, you know, come down like a ton of bricks on mine, if I've, they get about half a day before I start saying, No, you don't get to mess with food. Sorry if there's, if there's something you want to talk about, we can talk about it, but you're not managing it through food, whatever it may be, we're just like, I don't that's not in this house, and that's quite hardcore, and it may not work in in every house, but I think with every family, I think because they've always known what I do, and because they are really aware, we've had too much food chat because of what I do, because I read a book, and all of that, you know, had more than is ideal. I have touch wood so far. Got away with that when I've seen it. Ideally, if you have created a culture at home where family meals are enjoyable, they remain throughout adolescence, right?
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You come to dinner, that's it.
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You don't eat it on your own.
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You don't say no, thank you.
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I've got too much work to do dinner and and whatever other meal on whatever day. It's a family affair, and that's hugely protective, because you get to see how they're eating. They feel connected. They feel really connected with you. You hopefully produce something that is nourishing and nice and you you don't lose that contact and you don't they don't sit there through the hour of dinner or half an hour even scrolling through all of social media being bombarded, because the algorithm will feed it if they look at it with what I eat in a day, how I lost 15 kilos In three weeks, and and all of that content, plus you can have the conversations. So I think family meals, wherever possible, are unbelievably protective. If you don't have them, you don't see what your kids are doing, you don't have that opportunity to connect. So family meals challenge, challenge, all the narratives head on. Okay, so they're all disorder. You know that your friends have got very disordered eating. Are they happy? Do they feel good? You've just talked about shame. I don't think that sounds like a great place to be. Would you like to feel shame about that? No, so let's just not. You know, here's how you avoid it. You know what balance is really important. You know all that all of the education around dieting leads to binging, because you described it so beautifully when you said, you know, they pizza and chips or whatever, and then they feel shame, so they don't eat, but then they get really too hungry, so there's no you know, and so then they go for it again. That's why dieting is causal for both binging and diet. Dieting is the number one cause of binging. Restriction is the number one cause of binging, and that's also why dieting?
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Yeah, yeah. Dieting is directly causal for eating.
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How? So if your child actually starts saying, No, I'm out on a diet. I'm doing this, then that's, that's a signal that actually, that's something you should be tuning in on and saying, I
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don't think tune in on if they, if they, if they're cutting out food groups, no, just know, okay. I mean, I would say, if they're allergic, of course they must cut out food groups. If they genuinely feel unwell, of course they must cut out food groups. But on the whole No, their body is going through and their brain is going through profound change in the teenage years and in the adolescent process, it's, it's unbelievably tricky to regulate for them, starting to mess around with food. On top of that, it's so very difficult. It won't help. It just won't help.
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As a parent, you have to kind of white knuckle that roller coaster until they're at the other side of adolescence.
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Because particularly for girls, you have got to gain enough weight and enough body fat to be able to have periods. You can't have periods, you know, if you're underweight or if you're at an okay weight, but you've got literally no body fat, your periods won't start. So, you know, that's something that I don't know. Why it's not taught in primary school, because parents get very distressed by it, but my daughter's gained so much weight. Yeah, it's fine.
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It'll come off, you know, she'll right, you know, she'll come off, but she has to to go through proper puberty.
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Yes, I mean my, my old my the daughter who's about to go to university, when she before she hit puberty, she gained weight. And she looks back and she says, Oh, it was really fat, and she is a bean pole now, and it was, and actually, yeah, and it was, it was just an opportunity to shoot up, yeah, because, because again, and even she didn't, it doesn't matter,
00:24:56.380 --> 00:24:58.779
yes, exactly.
00:24:56.380 --> 00:25:29.299
And we can't grow without a bit of weight. You know, weight means grow. So this fear of weight gain is also troubling, because, of course, weight gain means growth. You know, teenage boys, they might go shooting up, but they gain weight. And that's a good thing. You know, you don't want a child who doesn't gain weight. It is, it is frightening. It means they're not going to progress through their healthy development. And the other thing is, you know, it's that conversation about, are you using food? And I say using in a in a really very direct way, are you using food to manage your feelings?
00:25:30.078 --> 00:25:35.538
Because it's Wow, you would just come out with that. You would just say, is this, is this a thing?
00:25:36.200 --> 00:25:38.480
Is this a thing?
00:25:36.200 --> 00:25:41.619
I would I would come out with it, partly because I am me, and I just tend to come out with it.
00:25:41.619 --> 00:26:08.759
No, I'm quite direct too, but I come out with it also because I think it's actually a useful, a useful concept. You know, do you use exercise to manage your feelings? Nobody, nobody bats an eyelid at that question. I mean, I do use exercise to help my mood, absolutely. Are you using food to help your mood? Are you using food to kind of quell your anxiety. Are you? Are you not eating? Because actually, you're very anxious, and so you've got nausea that's coming from the anxiety. Are you feeling low?
00:26:08.759 --> 00:26:13.859
And that's becoming associated with your body image, and so you're trying to use food to manage those feelings.
00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:15.059
Absolutely, I would always
00:26:15.059 --> 00:26:34.400
ask it. I love that, and it's not something that occurred to me. And I think that normalizing that, that we do things to manage our feelings, and there are really healthy things we can do, and some less healthy, as in, you know, these are good habits to set up for life is a very interesting thing to open up at that age.
00:26:34.940 --> 00:27:09.359
And it's a way of, you know, what we want our kids to be able to do is learn to self regulate with food, with mood, with feelings, they have the language to say to us, I feel this. And we can go, oh, let's, let's think about that together, not to suppress the feelings through starvation or to binge them away or to eat them and, you know, suffocate them. We don't want our kids to do that. So learning to regulate our emotion is a massive you know, and in adulthood, we never stop learning to regulate, because we we're going to be buffeted by storms in life. So we need to have strategies better that food isn't one.
00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:30.079
Now I want to just look specifically at anorexia, because it's such a such a tricky thing. And I have had parents email me about about what, what starts it, how kids get into it, how they get out of it. And I know it's incredibly complex, but do you have any any information you can give us that we can understand this problem a bit better?
00:27:31.038 --> 00:29:22.878
Yes. So one of the key things is that we have to understand that dieting and food restriction causes anorexia. It is not a consequence of anorexia. So in the Yeah, we have one study, because it's not ethical to replicate it. But in the 1940s during the Second World War, a very famous doctor called Ancel Keys took a bunch of very fit, very healthy young men who wanted to do something to help the war, but would didn't want to fight, and for three months, he observed them. He tracked their food, he tracked their exercise, he tracked their kind of emotional regulation and their psychological health and their physical health. None of them had prior psychiatric history, none of them had prior medical history. After three months of tracking, he halved their calorie intake from 3000 to about 1500 a day. And every single one of that cohort of very fit, healthy young men developed anorexia, every single one. That is incredible. It's It's an unbelievable piece of research, not only did they develop what we think of as anorexia, but they exhibited all of the behaviors and the emotions that we think come with anorexia. So for example, they became, they became, they all developed body dysmorphia. So they looked in the mirror and saw thought they were bigger than they actually were. Yeah, yeah. It causes it. It's terrible. They they became obsessed by cookbooks, by recipes. They became obsessed by planning meals. Could not focus because they wanted to know when the next meal was. They they cut their food up into tiny, tiny, tiny pieces. Couldn't talk while they were eating because they were so fixated on their plate.
00:29:20.159 --> 00:29:22.878
Some of them played with it.
00:29:22.878 --> 00:29:25.699
Some of them make really slowly.
00:29:22.878 --> 00:29:25.699
So the speed of eating changed.
00:29:26.719 --> 00:29:37.759
They they their thoughts and feelings changed and became what we call starvation, emotions and starvation cognitions. All of them were linked to eating, shape and weight comparisons.
00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:59.499
They developed a very fine downy hair over their body, which, which is called lanugo. It's like, if you think about a baby duckling that has the fine downy hair before they develop feathers. It's a type of it's for insulation. And when you've lost too much weight, we do that as humans too. All of them, they develop nugo. They lost their sex drive, they lost their libido. They became depressed, they became highly anxious, and.
00:29:59.999 --> 00:30:04.378
Um, they couldn't really work.
00:29:59.999 --> 00:30:14.278
They wanted to exercise even more than they had, so an uptick in exercise. Incredible. It is incredible. It's really worth reading. There's the called the Minnesota starvation experiment.
00:30:11.219 --> 00:30:28.338
Ancel Keys. Put that into Google. You'll get it. But it is the it's just extraordinary, because it is how, how people like me in my field, will categorically tell you that restriction causes anorexia. It is not the other way round.
00:30:25.159 --> 00:30:41.118
Anorexia doesn't cause restriction. Restriction causes anorexia, and the only way out, the only way out was refeeding, so to up the calorie intake, but you have to do it slowly, because it can be quite harmful.
00:30:41.118 --> 00:31:39.378
But if you've been very starved for a very long time, so they had to be refed to get to at least 85% of the weight they ought to be for their height, then their thoughts and feelings started to change. But this is what we know. Is one of the problems with doing recovery from anorexia is that trying to get people who are terrified of eating to eat six times a day is is like a form of torture. It's deeply, deeply traumatic. And it's only when you get past that weight and your brain biology starts to go back to what it was before that it feels worth it, and that parents will say to me, oh, oh, I've got, oh, I just saw a glimmer of the old, the old him, or the old her, Oh, they're coming back. And it's like, yeah, you're at 85 86% weight for height. We know, we know categorically, this is the most valuable piece of research. But as I say, because, because we know what happened, it can never be done again, because it's unethical, no?
00:31:39.798 --> 00:32:20.778
And that makes it really clear why it's so very, very difficult if your parent and your child has actually ended up starting down this route trying to arrest that, that that fall, that you've really got to get in there quickly and be trying to refeed them, get them up to weight. But I mean, how would you tackle that as a parent? I mean, obviously there were professionals, but so many of us struggle to get professional help with anything. You know, I've spoken to people with who've got kids with self harm, and there's just nobody that can help them. You know, if you can't necessarily access a specialist straight away, what sort of things can a parent do to help their their child if they started going down that route.
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:43.660
So you need to be really transparent and say, look, I think what I've noticed is you seem to be going down this route. And here are the facts. You know, I spend a lot of time doing what's called psycho education at every age and stage, in clinic with parents, with young people, with adults. Doesn't matter because, because the kid we don't know, most people don't know, right?
00:32:40.480 --> 00:33:29.420
What happens to the brain or the body, right? And so you need to really equip yourself. There's a wonderful book which Eva must be guide for parents on anorexia, if you have, if it's anorexia focused, Eva must be, is your one. I can send you the link, but, but you need to view food in that circumstance. I always say to parents, if your child had you know, let's imagine meningitis, very frightening, life threatening, absolutely terrifying. You wouldn't say, Don't worry, darling. You don't need to have the banana flavor antibiotic because it doesn't taste nice. You would say, sorry, but this is a very serious illness, and you gonna just have to suck it up and have the banana flavored antibiotic, and that is what the food is.
00:33:25.160 --> 00:34:05.039
It's just like the medicine. And so it's really tough. And as a parent, you need support around you, whether that's you know, a partner or your friends or a medical team. To base it, you have to feed your child. You have to that that food is their medicine. It's the antibiotic, it's the way out there is not going to be a switch if the weight keeps coming off and it gets harder and harder. So you literally say, right, we're going to do breakfast snack, lunch snack, meal snack, breakfast snack, lunch snack, dinner snack. May not have the dinner snack and and, you know, we'll just, we'll just go through this together. But I'm afraid, no, we are not negotiating on food. Sorry. And I
00:34:05.038 --> 00:34:34.398
know that people who've had children with anorexia have had that food thrown at them. They've had massive fights over it's very, very, very upsetting, because for the person with anorexia, that's that's also a sort of life or death situation in their minds. So what you said before we started talking was no parent who actually has been through the process of dealing with a child who's got anorexia would ever want to go down that path if they knew it is involved.
00:34:35.300 --> 00:34:55.000
It's, it truly horrendous. It's it's horrendous. It's, it's terrifying, you know, and depending on how poorly your child is, you are worried your child is going to die or they might die. You know, as a parent, we're primarily wired.
00:34:51.400 --> 00:35:02.219
Our primal wiring is to keep our children safe on this safe on Earth. But, but anorexia is the complete opposite. So it's.
00:34:58.780 --> 00:35:23.539
Absolutely terrifying. It's all consuming, and the treatment is really traumatic. So often I do a lot of work with with people trying to clear treatment trauma. So that's why prevention really, yes, it's terrible. You know, hospital inpatient treatment for anorexia is it can be amazing, but it's brutal.
00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:46.059
Don't, because they're not going to take any prisoners on whether you eat, you are going to eat, and if you don't, it's going to be through a tube. So, you know, it's, it's absolutely brutal. So that's why I'm so keen on prevention or early intervention. I know it sounds crass, right to be or to be keen on it, but, but I, again, it's why, it's why I wrote the book.
00:35:41.440 --> 00:36:17.519
I wrote because we need to know, we need to be more skilled up on on all of this stuff, so that we can one make sure that whatever we do at home is protective. We can't guarantee we live in the wrong culture. So we can't guarantee we can prevent, but we can protect against we can we can change the odds, and so that we recognize early signs and symptoms, so that we can intervene, and so that we can help our children name their emotions have a really broad vocabulary, so that they are able to articulate what's going on, rather than act it out
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:20.840
through food.
00:36:17.519 --> 00:36:32.179
And when it comes to boys, I have actually done an entire episode on that kind of bodybuilding gym, bigorexia.
00:36:24.500 --> 00:37:01.440
They it's been coined. And this this parent who emailed in saying, Look, I'm really worried because my son is using any drinks he's he's getting into the body building, and I'm worried he's going to be taking steroids and things. Because, of course, again, we can try and control our kids, but there's a level to which they're going to be influenced by the people around them. And you know, if all their friends are doing these things and they're saying, Well, I can stay up gaming for however long because I'm using this, then they're going to want to use it. What are your thoughts about how parents can manage some situation like that,
00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:13.619
it is okay to have boundaries. You know, teenagers, their job is to push against the boundaries. Our job is to as parents through the teenage years is to hold them.
00:37:14.219 --> 00:38:04.980
Now, I have a real belief. I don't believe in things like grounding. I just don't I don't think it works. I have a belief that you can have quite, quite, quite large boundaries that they don't come up against that often. But if you've set a boundary, you need to stick to a boundary, and the consequences, or whatever you want to call it, need to be completely logical, because, and you see this really in younger kids, right? You know when, when you know, you've been naughty, no chocolate. That's just totally illogical. It's got to be logical. So, you know, if you've got a child staying up gaming all night, you might say, Look, I'm going to have to turn the Wi Fi off, and I'm going to have to take your phone. I know that might feel annoying, but we've tried to talk about how you can manage this, so that you can still get off and go to school, so that you're healthy, so that you're well, so that you're not completely distracted. It's not working.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:36.079
We're going to have to do something else, and I'm afraid, until you can show me that you can manage it, these are the things I'm going to have to do now. You might have to, if you might have a Fallout, that's okay. You can repair it. It's all about repair. You know, ruptures are part of life. It's that's fine. It's about the repair. So they can be upset with you. That's absolutely fine. I think one of the difficulties we get into as parents is that we become quite frightened of our children being really cross with us. We do inevitably, yeah, yeah, but, but we don't need to be frightened.
00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:59.800
Ideally, if you've got, if you've got a decent relationship, then you need to remember through the teenage years, they are meant to push the boundaries, and you are meant to hold them. There's nothing worse. And I'm sure anyone who's listening, if I if I said, think of a time when there were no boundaries, when you were growing up, you could make any decision you wanted at any time of night or day. Did it feel good? Everyone will say, No. It's completely uncontaining.
00:39:00.940 --> 00:39:25.699
It's horrible, yeah, and it's interesting. It's interesting, isn't it, because the whole using these caffeinated drinks in order to be able to game for longer. I think about that, and I think about how when I was a presenter, I knew there were people using cocaine to make themselves look alive, because we were having to start work at three in the morning. And you know, it's very, very tiring.
00:39:26.179 --> 00:39:48.400
And you know, I never did any of that because I kept thinking, well, if I can't do a job without taking something that is bad for me, then maybe I shouldn't be doing that job. And I guess if we talk to our kids and we say, well, if you if you can't actually perform well in the game without putting stuff in your body, that's not good for your body, then maybe that the problems the gaming Not, not you know, the fact that you're not taking the thing
00:39:50.139 --> 00:40:09.478
absolutely but also you would want to do, wouldn't you a little bit of Hang on, let's just look at, let's look at what happens when we game so much. Let's what look what happens in the brain and all. Also, are you gaming because you're enjoying the gaming, or are you gaming because you don't want to feel left out? So what is the reason I'm a big fan of what is the reason that you're doing this?
00:40:09.719 --> 00:40:18.418
Let's understand it, because how you respond to it changes completely, with a different understanding or a different motivation of why they're doing it.
00:40:19.019 --> 00:41:23.780
Yes, yes, I love that. And are there things, Are there signs that we can look for boys and girls that would tell us? Now, you've said eating meals together, I love that, and I speak about it quite a lot, and I'm often surprised by how many people don't actually eat together. And I even if it's just once a week, I think one of the other things about eating together is try and make it fun, obviously, because if it's if it's just like ripping teeth out, nobody's going to want to do it. But the thing is, it's also that your kids learn how to take turns chatting with other people from other generations, listening to each other, resolving thing, I don't know, I just and how to have fun together. And I just think it, it actually does so many things, not just the food that I could totally I'm on your I'm on your path, but also other other things that we can be looking for where we think that doesn't look quite right. You know, whether it's the food the boy and them trying to body build too much, or with girls, have you? Are there things that you, when you when you when you when you have people coming to you, you can, like, Ah, that was one of the
00:41:24.440 --> 00:41:34.820
things, yes. So I absolutely hate, I always try and not use hate, but I really do hate the term clean eating.
00:41:35.179 --> 00:42:01.860
So for me, that's a massive red flag, because I don't even understand what it is. It's code for cutting it's code for cutting out, right? And we know that orthorexia, which is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating, slips straight into anorexia, boys and girls, irrespective. And actually boys often more because it's not picked up. They're going to the gym a lot. They're working out.
00:41:58.840 --> 00:44:04.559
You know, they might be, they might be doing PE GCSE, so might the girls. But you know, they don't have the weight spurt that girls have. They just, often, just go up and you're like, Where does all that food go? You know, suddenly not eating outside of meals with teenage boys. But any teenager, actually, I think what's happening there, because the biology that drives eating through adolescence is a biology that is a hungry biology. They need a lot, a lot, a lot. I don't like the calories, but here we go just once. They need 1000s a day, many more than us, right? So they ought to be eating more than us. It's really normal. Don't ever happen in your house. But I have boys. I have, you know, I have three boys and a girl and and, you know, we I would make significant amounts, and I've always just put the food on the table for them to serve themselves, because I think that's a really useful skill throughout life, is learning to portion, learning to and it helps with, you know, trying new foods, because it's not put on your plate for you. You can kind of watch and model, and you can learn, and you can take a teeny weeny bit and and then say, No, I don't like, Oh yes, I do. So it's a great way to get kids and teens to eat a little bit more diversely. So I've always done that, and I've always made quite a lot, because three teenage boys in very close succession, there's a lot of food, and then a teenage girl in very close succession too. And you know, there's a lot of food. But, you know, my sons would finish a meal, one in particular, and go, right, right? I mean, I finished startup. Can I now have the cereal? Is it all right? You know, am I going to upset you if I now get the cereal out? And it was so sweet, because it's so respectful to me, to ask me, and so very normal, you know, to come down, okay, toast, half a life, half a loaf of bread or eat three bowls of cereal. It's just normal. And again, I just wish more people knew if your child is not doing any of that ever through their growth spurts. I am a bit concerned about it. I'm worried about the messaging in the family, or the permission if they are if you find sweet wrappers hidden and you have no idea when they're coming from. It's a red flag, yeah.
00:44:05.219 --> 00:44:07.739
So you mean, like, oh yes,
00:44:08.099 --> 00:44:33.260
go on. But if, if you're finding empty Cris packets, empty, you know, I don't know, Snickers and empty Snickers here, or whatever it may be, but they're stuffed at the bottom of a school bag, or they're kind of falling out of pockets, but you never see your kids eating them. There's a conversation to be had. Again, you know, if your child seems to eat all right, but be dropping a lot of weight, or vice versa, these are conversations. They're just Conversations. I'm really curious what's going on.
00:44:34.280 --> 00:44:44.019
Not Yeah, no, I love the technique of just saying I notice, and then just waiting, like, rather than judging or anything, just say, I've noticed
00:44:44.019 --> 00:45:24.079
this. I've noticed and you can be, I'm really curious about this, and I kind of, I think, you know, if we could do more, and it's not always easy, I don't always do it. It's another one of those moments where I have to fess up that I sometimes screw up. If you. Can approach them always with curiosity and compassion, rather than criticism and control. Life will be so much better. Your relationship will be better. You'll find out more about their lives. They'll allow you into their lives. More. The more they let you in, the more you can help them if you spot something's not right. So how you approach them, particularly if you're not happy with something you've seen, is so important.
00:45:24.739 --> 00:45:55.358
I love this. I think it's really, really important. I have a teenager who is neurodivergent, and I I think her eating is different, and I think there's an element of needing a dopamine kick and that they and so how would you talk to kids who are coming at this from a different angle, or have different needs? And yeah, supporting them. Do you have a different way of dealing with it?
00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:25.760
That's it. I mean, in short, yes and no. So what you see with more of an ADHD profile is the dopamine hit seeking, the kind of I need sugar I need it now. That's, that's the ADHD profile, which will be more of a food seeking profile. Within an autistic spectrum profile, you'll likely to see more restriction, broad brush, you know, more control, more restriction, sensory difficulties with certain foods.
00:46:25.760 --> 00:46:52.239
It's where you see things like arfid is in ADHD. You see much more binge eating in it. I'm sorry, arfid in ASD, and much more binge eating in ADHD. But fundamentally, you still need a food neutral environment, because as a parent, and I don't know if you'd agree, but my view is, as a as a parent, my job is to teach, is to get my kids to a place where, whenever it is that they leave home, they are able to self regulate around food.
00:46:52.780 --> 00:47:24.139
Yeah, I can't do it. I can't do it for them for their whole lives. Therefore I mustn't control it for their whole adolescence and childhood, because they need to learn. So I think when you've got some neurodivergence in there as well, you need to kind of name it and say, Look, we know with ADHD, this is what happens. Or we know that, you know, because you've got some ASD, when you've got ASD, the sensory issues, the fear and anxiety around food.
00:47:19.800 --> 00:47:27.559
The control is a thing, however, and so you help them through it.
00:47:24.260 --> 00:48:07.019
And yes, you have that lens, but the strategies of you need connection, you need openness, you need curiosity and compassion, rather criticism and control. Family meals. They are all. They stand. Your language matters. It all stands whatever issue you're facing. It's just the kind of the factors that you're going to put into your conversations and that you might think about. You know what this one will need? More snacks. We know that in ADHD, snacking can be very helpful, particularly towards adulthood, because towards adulthood, many, many, many young people, and indeed, adults with ADHD won't take the time to cook a full meal.
00:48:07.019 --> 00:48:12.840
So actually, yes, yes, it's just exactly, with adults, exactly.
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:40.760
So then you don't want to be setting them up to kind of excuse the phraseology, but to fail, you don't want to do that. So then you need to say, right? So how are we going to get you to a place where you go off to university, or you you go to work, and you live independently and and you eat a properly, balanced, healthy diet? You're going to have some sugar and some questions and this in there because you love it or you like it. But how are we going to what do you need in your fridge to make sure, you know, might be tubs of hummus and and cut up carrots if they like that.
00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:57.340
Great. But then you make sure they have it in the fridge, and you talk them through it. You help them through it. You help them understand what happens to their body, their mind, their mood, their energy when they eat certain foods. There's nothing wrong with any of that. At any age, with any profile, we don't need to be scared of saying that.
00:48:58.239 --> 00:49:40.099
And I think that it's that amindfulness, isn't it of just helping them to say or how did that feel? And that I'm one thing I've started doing is I've reverted back to what I used to do when my kids were very little and they would come out of school really, really hungry. I now just have lots of seeds and chopped up, carrot, cucumber, anything like that, Apple all sitting out on the table ready so that if one of my kids gets hungry, there's something that they come and snack on, so that if they're waiting for supper, they're not then trying to grab something that isn't particularly going to make them feel good or that's going to fill them up and they won't enjoy a proper meal with me. That's very helpful. Really helped.
00:49:40.579 --> 00:49:44.920
Really helpful.
00:49:40.579 --> 00:50:06.300
I always had, I always had a and I now get told off a bit older that I don't do it all the time, but I used to always keep a veg, a box of cut up veg, also cucumber, carrots, peppers, in the fridge was the veg box and and it would just come out whenever they wanted. They just take it out. They'd help themselves, sometimes with a tub of hummus, sometimes with peanut butter, sometimes a cream cheese. It didn't really matter.
00:50:04.019 --> 00:50:53.800
But depending, you know, sometimes I go, hang on a minute. We've got 20 minutes till dinner. You can sit tight, you know. But on the whole, if they're snacking on veg and hummus, I mean, who am I to complain? It's great. No, so it's about, it's about, it's again, it's about, you know. But if you've got a child at any age who you know won't manage a meal. If they've had a snack, well, then you're gonna have to say, you know, what could you hold off? Could we do something differently? How can we get you through this? Because the meal that's coming is really great, and you need to be there anyway, because that's what we do in this house, is sit down together. So how do I help you through this little hump? In fairness, that's that table. I am the person I am, I am the snacker, and I am the person who never wants to eat a meal, really, despite making them all but I still do, and I have to, I have to do that work on myself.
00:50:53.800 --> 00:51:04.440
Because really, if I have my way, I would probably graze at the fridge and never have a meal. But I don't. And you know, it's I remain on that, you know, remain working on that probably forever.
00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:20.659
It's funny because my husband, my husband's a real snacker, and he'd always have these really awful, unhealthy snacks. And I am literally, if the food is there, I will eat it, crisps, chocolates, anything. If I open a cupboard is there, I'm going to eat it. Because I don't really have that self restraint.
00:51:17.820 --> 00:51:52.000
So I told him, he needs to keep it all in his I just said, Please don't buy it. So what he did was he started buying this stuff, and he keeps it in his car. And so that's like the mobile, sort of tuck box. And I see him going out to the car. He keeps, he keeps bars of Toblerone in a sort of fridge at the back that nobody sees. And I just it's, you know, at least it's not in my way. But that's my friend said, oh, you should, you should get all the kids to go and sit in the car with him, and they can all eat snacks, and you can have a nice, peaceful house.
00:51:54.699 --> 00:51:56.918
You know, there are different types of hunger.
00:51:57.518 --> 00:52:48.039
You know, there are really different types of hunger. So it's not just whether you're biologically hungry because you're ready for your next meal, but you know, have you gone too far? Is it extreme hunger, which you are very unlikely to be able to control, that's when the binging comes in, or is it kind of practical hunger? You know, you're recording a podcast at 12, another one at one, another one at two. When are you going to do lunch? So you might put it at 11, or you might put it at three. That's a very practical thing. You may not be hungry, but when are you going to do you going to do it? And then the one that I fall for, that that really sums me up is taste hunger. I If I like the taste of me too, right? I just can eat it, even if don't want it. For me, toasted Marmite. If someone makes some toasted Marmite that that is me, any day, yeah, it doesn't matter if I get all gonna have a bite. I've had my own breakfast or my own lunch on my inside I can have a bite of your toast because I love it.
00:52:44.739 --> 00:53:11.458
And I'm incredibly lucky. I don't like really chocolate or ice cream. I really don't like ice cream, so I feel, you know, but I genuinely don't like it, and never have. So the fact that my kids don't really see me eat, it doesn't matter, because I would eat all sorts of other stuff. You don't have to like everything. You just mustn't tie you're not eating something to your weight or your shape or your size, or the kind of bad of any particular values, your values exactly.
00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:21.440
So whatever, is there any one thing you'd like to leave parents with, one message you'd like to say, you know, this is really, really important, or, and something we haven't covered even, my
00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:22.340
goodness, just one.
00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:26.480
So, oh, well, any, any as many as you want, as many
00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:28.579
as I want. Okay, well, then as many as you want.
00:53:29.599 --> 00:53:38.059
Do? Please, do? Please take the time to interrogate yourself and sort out your stuff. There's literally no shame or no blame.
00:53:38.059 --> 00:54:10.019
It's the greatest gift you can give your kid to break the cycle. It really is, but the cycle is ingrained in all of us, and we are destined to pass our baggage on to our kids, just like our parents did to us and their parents before them. If we do not understand it and try and challenge our beliefs, even if you need professional help, it really doesn't matter. It's a great gift. Do it? It's because, because because a bad relationship with food will do so much more harm throughout life than the odd packet of crisps or bar of chocolate.
00:54:10.019 --> 00:54:23.659
Already, so true. I love Oh gosh, that's absolutely 100% I love that. I absolutely love that. Dr Anna Colton, how do people find you and your book and any other information about you.
00:54:24.619 --> 00:54:34.219
So my book is available Amazon, Waterstones, all major bookstores in the US, in Australia, in New Zealand.
00:54:34.219 --> 00:54:45.039
It's just been translated into Turkish and Slovakian and polish. So it's everywhere. It's worldwide. Release on Audible, and then Instagram and Tiktok.
00:54:41.019 --> 00:54:52.539
I'm at the food psychologist, the at the underscore food underscore psychologist, but probably my name will get you there. And I'm eminently Google.
00:54:54.760 --> 00:54:59.920
Well, I put the links to everything in the podcast notes. So please go there. I'll put also some links.
00:55:00.000 --> 00:56:07.559
To other episodes that I have done, just where Susie and I chat. I've done all lots of research behind it, but this is brilliant. Thank you so much. I absolutely love what you're saying. If you found this at all useful, please just send it to one person who you think might benefit right now, even if it's just your parents to say, Can you back on and you can send me a review. You can email at teenagersuntangled@gmail.com, my website has just about everything on it. You can find the episodes and other episodes on there. I also have a sub stack now, and one of the key things that I like to push on that sub stack is my my one section where I talk about values, and I think values absolutely underpin everything about our parenting. If you can figure out what your values are, you've you've made such massive progress, and you can start as a family problem solving anything that you're struggling with. So go on there. Try and work out your values. If you even if you don't use my crib sheet, try and do it wherever you can find something. And that's it. Have a great week. Big hug from me, bye, bye. That's it. Great. You.
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