Thanksgiving tips for happy eating with kids today

Today, I’m so thankful that I have 3 kids (ages 5, 8, and 11) with no conflicts around food and drama free mealtimes. My children are healthy, adventurous eaters (with no cavities!) As a parent, I know how rare this is. I’m also incredibly grateful that I fully recovered from my own eating disorder before I had three daughters. I see my health and my children’s health as inextricably linked. What we did in my family isn’t conventional but it’s worked for us. I used to blog a lot about our process when my kids were younger, but I rarely write about it anymore because food is such a non-issue in our household. In honor of Thanksgiving, I’ve consolidated what we did into 4 tips. I’ll also list Reel Girl’s previous blogs about food at the end. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

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1. Let kids eat what they want, when they want. I don’t tell my kids what to eat or how much to eat. I have always taught them to “listen to their tummies.” I tell them that I am not the boss, nor is the person who put the food on their plate. Only they know when they are full. With my 5 year old (and with all the kids when they were still that little) I may still occasionally put my hand on her stomach and ask her to close her eyes and feel if she is hungry or full. I always have what I consider to be healthy food available (vegetables, fruit, protein, beans, grains etc) but if they don’t like what I’ve prepared, they are allowed to get a bowl of cereal or whatever they feel like eating. They are allowed to eat “dessert” with dinner. They are not “rewarded” or bribed with cookies for eating broccoli. Listen to your tummy, tummy is the boss

2. Focus kids on trying new foods, not eating “healthy.” Watching my kids grow up, I think the most important thing is to train kids to try new foods, to be comfortable with risk-taking. Also, our perception of what is healthy changes all the time. When I started dieting, I was counting calories. Then, I learned to count fat grams. Right now, gluten is “bad” while we’re told chocolate and red wine are good. Trying new foods not only keeps a variety in your diet but stretches you out of your comfort zone and makes going to restaurants and to people’s houses to eat much more fun. I don’t tell my kids what to eat, but I encourage them to try new stuff. I give them positive affirmation when they do. They are allowed to spit it out if they don’t like it. Try something new, it’s fun!

3. Don’t shame kids for wasting food. I try to create pleasant and happy eating experiences for my kids. Having recovered from an eating disorder myself, I know how hard it is to separate shame, guilt, and anxiety from eating, once those emotions are confused with hunger and fullness. I think it’s super important to train kids to be comfortable around food, not worried they won’t be able to finish what is on their plate. Related, don’t get your ego involved in what your kids eat. If you slaved away all day and made a meal, don’t guilt them into eating. I always tell my kids don’t worry about other people’s feelings when they eat. Again, getting feelings involved in eating like this is a recipe for an eating disorder. They need to be polite, but they shouldn’t eat unless they are hungry for it. You don’t have to finish what’s on your plate.

4. Model healthy eating. I’m so grateful I got healthy before I had three daughters. I practice what I preach. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. I never denigrate my body as fat or ugly, not casually, not when I try on clothes, not when I look in the mirror, or look at a photograph of myself. I don’t criticize other women’s bodies or what other women are wearing. I like my body.

Girls and food

More on girls and food

Preventing eating disorders by teaching intuitive eating to kids

Note to the babysitter

Oreos for breakfast? Really?

Post Halloween bliss

Parents, this is about you too

‘How to Disappear Completely’ most insightful eating disorder memoir ever published

You are no better than a fat person, so shut the fuck up

Can’t remember the last time I blogged about kids and food

Telling your kids not to waste food makes them fat

Letter to Vogue mom who put 7 yr old daughter on a diet

In defense of candy

 

Berkeley High students, and their moms, launch campaign to stop school sexual harassment

After male students at Berkeley High started “slut accounts” on Instagram, featuring photos of their female classmates along with misogynistic captions, they were suspended. A group of students felt this punishment was a pretty useless way to deal with the systemic sexism they encounter every day at school. These girls took action, creating T-shirts that read “Stop blaming my body for your harassment” and raising money on a GoFundMe page. So far, they’ve collected over $5,000. They hope to fund education and training for students, teachers, and administrators on sexual harassment and how to stop it.

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Students were pushed into action by clueless administrators who held a series of assemblies on harassment that focused on how female students were dressed. Girls were actually warned to think about whether their mothers would allow them to leave the house wearing a certain outfit. But these Berkeley moms were not the type who schooled their daughters on how not to look “cheap” (as opposed to expensive?) or “fast” or “loose.” Refusing to pass sexism on to their kids, the mothers did get pissed at the school. Two of them, Heidi Goldstein and Rebecca Levenson, who is also policy analyst working to stop sexual violence with the nonprofit Futures Without Violence, wrote an op-ed for the Berkeleyside, laying out their daughters rights. Berkeleyside reports:

The student group plans eventually to challenge what they understand to be violations of Title IX. This includes reactive versus preventive measures, insufficient security, unsatisfactory long-term protection for assault survivors, as well as a lack of staff training.

 

Training is obviously desperately needed. When the slut pages came out, the security guards didn’t seem to get it at all. Sami Kuderna-Reeve, a senior and target of the slut accounts told Berkeleyside:

“It was all male security guards and all male police officers, and to a certain degree they can’t understand or relate,” Kuderna-Reeves said. “They were trying to help but what they kept getting at was, ‘Well is that true? Did you do blank?’”

 

While administrators are still slow to respond, teachers say they would like training on how to handle situations where students are sexually harassed and to give students guidance on how to handle those issues as well. History teacher Hasmig Minassian tells Berkeleyside she’d like to know “how to help adolescents navigate some pretty tumultuous social dynamics.” Right now, teachers at Berkeley High– and most high schools across the country– get no training in how to help kids in this area. It is shocking to me that students and their moms need to be the ones to get funding to teach administrators what to do about sexual harassment in schools. Part of these kids’s motivation for acting now is that they believe the measures finally being taken to stop sexual assaults on college campuses nationally are happening way too late in students’ lives. I could not agree more.

Maya Siskin-Lavine, a junior, tells Berkeleyside: “One of our main goals is to teach people. I know for a fact that a lot of the guys that I respect as my peers just don’t know that a lot of things are sexual harassment. They think catcalling is flattering and that what I wear should affect how guys treat me.”

I am so impressed with these girls and their mothers. I would love to see more moms speak out loudly and publicly for their daughters rights.

I just donated to this awesome campaign, and I hope that you do as well.

If you ‘don’t understand’ what rape culture is, you’re part of the problem

Are you calling your child’s college to speak to administrators about what they’re doing to keep students safe from sexual assault? Are you speaking to your sons and daughters about what rape is and helping them to decide what actions they can take to help to create a safe community? Are you donating time or money to organizations that help to keep women and girls safe? If you know a woman who is a survivor of rape/ violence what are you doing to help her? We look back on history and wonder how the average Joe and Josephina let slavery happen or the Holocaust, but right now, today, in 2014 violence against women goes unchecked. The President of UVA acting as if she had no idea what was going on at the campus she runs all this time, until the Rolling Stone article came out, is now suspending fraternities until– get this– January!  If you’re looking the other way, whoever you are, you’re the problem. Still don’t get it? Really? Try reading this post:

It takes one rapist to commit a rape, but it takes a village to create an environment where it happens over and over and over and over and over with such frequency that ordinary people throw up their hands and treat it as a part of the environment instead of as violations of fundamental human rights.

 

Read the rest here.

Bill Cosby is a serial rapist

I’ve been posting stories about Bill Cosby’s record of rape on Reel Girl’s Facebook page for years. The stories from different women, spanning years back, have always been strikingly similar. Cosby invites them to a private place to help them on their career. He offers them a drink, and the next thing they know, they are half conscious and naked. Why did it take “real” journalists so long to take these allegations seriously? Here is the best and most honest story I’ve read from journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic. Please read it.

If you don’t see the sexism in this ad, imagine a boy in it

Walking in San Francisco today, I saw an ad on the side of a bus that made me cringe.

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“Dancey-pants”? Granted, I’m not one for baby talk, but If you don’t have your cringe-face on, just imagine a boy in this ad. What is disturbing to me is that this is an ad for pediatrics, for children’s health for goodness sake. Don’t these organizations know better than to promote gender stereotypes? Stanford, CPMC, and Sutter Health, please don’t out kids in stupid, sexist boxes. It’s not healthy.

Join the dissent

“The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield.”

Do you agree with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Do something. Don’t stand by and watch women continue to be denied human rights. Tell Washington that the U.S. government is discriminating against women and that is not acceptable in America. Sign the petition from Planned Parenthood and please give money. If we all do something and take action, we can create change.

The letter from Planned Parenthood is pasted here, follow the links at the bottom to sign it and to give money.

Subject: JOIN THE DISSENT

To The Supreme Court:

To the five members of the Supreme Court who have given bosses — based on their own personal beliefs — the power to deny women coverage for birth control:

I dissent. Your ruling is an insult to the generations of women who have fought for control over their own bodies and their own futures. It is a step backward, and a threat to the future of women’s health and rights in America.

To employers like Hobby Lobby, who believe that their personal beliefs are more important than women’s fundamental rights:

I dissent. Religious freedom means that every person should be allowed to follow her own conscience, whether she owns a company or works for an hourly wage. Women earn health care coverage the same way they earn a paycheck — and they shouldn’t have it taken away because of the personal views of their employers.

To the politicians who support the Supreme Court’s decision — and want to go even further to deny more women access to birth control:

I dissent. I will continue to fight for the right of every woman to make her own private medical decisions without interference from anyone — not her boss, not politicians, not the Supreme Court. I call on lawmakers at every level to take immediate action to protect women’s access to health care no matter what their bosses say.

This is about our health and our lives. This is about our fundamental right to have control over our own bodies. This is about justice. And I’m not done fighting back.

Signed,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]

 

Follow this link to sign the petition and to donate funds.

Religious orgs want exemption from LGBT hiring order

The Talking Point Memo reports:

The letter, first reported by The Atlantic, was sent on Tuesday by 14 representatives, including the president of Gordon College, an Erie County, Pa., executive and the national faith vote director for Obama for America 2012, of the faith community.

 

“Without a robust religious exemption,” they wrote, “this expansion of hiring rights will come at an unreasonable cost to the common good, national unity and religious freedom.”

 

The leaders noted that the Senate-passed Employment Non-Discrimination Act included a religious exemption:

 

“Our concern about an executive order without a religious exemption is about more than the direct financial impact on religious organizations. While the nation has undergone incredible social and legal change over the last decade, we still live in a nation with different beliefs about sexuality. We must find a way to respect diversity of opinion on this issue in a way that respects the dignity of all parties to the best of our ability. There is no perfect solution that will make all parties completely happy.”

 

This is exactly what I just blogged about would happen, should and must happen, because it makes no sense to discriminate against one group because of “religious freedom” and not be allowed to discriminate against any group.
Here’s what I wrote a couple days ago:

Pregnancy is a medical condition, birth control is preventative health care

Posted on

Pregnancy is a medical condition. I had an emergency c-section with my first child, not a rare end to a pregnancy in the USA. Pregnancy related diseases include ectopic pregnancies (also life-risking), blood clots, urinary tract infections, thrush, severe back pain, and the list goes on.

How is it that the Supreme Court of the USA decided today that businesses do not have to cover health care for women? Freedom of religion? Seriously? So why do Christian Scientist parents get prosecuted by our courts for not taking their children to get treatment? Why isn’t that “choice” freedom of religion?

Why is it OK for religions to decree that women cannot have health care but it is not OK for them to demand that gay employees or black employees don’t get health care? Female bodies are different than male bodies and require different medical treatment. Why is it OK to deny one gender the medical treatment that their bodies require? Is the reason that sex is optional, therefore the medical condition of pregnancy is optional, therefore preventative health care is not required by law? Putting aside the situation of rape (which is just “rape hysteria” anyway, right) are we saying that medical conditions created by optional behavior should not receive health care? So if I choose to go skiing and break my leg, I shouldn’t get my health care paid for by my employer? If I choose to go on a hike and get bit by a tic, my employer should not be required to pay for treatment for my lyme disease?

I am ashamed to be an American today.

(I’m still wondering about Christian Scientists, by the way. Why should a Christian Scientist business leader be forced to pay medical expenses for any employee? Especially one who would be willing to let her own child die for that belief?)

 

 

Pregnancy is a medical condition, birth control is preventative health care

Pregnancy is a medical condition. I had an emergency c-section with my first child, not a rare end to a pregnancy in the USA. Pregnancy related diseases include ectopic pregnancies (also life-risking), blood clots, urinary tract infections, thrush, severe back pain, and the list goes on.

How is it that the Supreme Court of the USA decided today that businesses do not have to cover health care for women? Freedom of religion? Seriously? So why do Christian Scientist parents get prosecuted by our courts for not taking their children to get treatment? Why isn’t that “choice” freedom of religion?

Why is it OK for religions to decree that women cannot have health care but it is not OK for them to demand that gay employees or black employees don’t get health care? Female bodies are different than male bodies and require different medical treatment. Why is it OK to deny one gender the medical treatment that their bodies require? Is the reason that sex is optional, therefore the medical condition of pregnancy is optional, therefore preventative health care is not required by law? Putting aside the situation of rape (which is just “rape hysteria” anyway, right) are we saying that medical conditions created by optional behavior should not receive health care? So if I choose to go skiing and break my leg, I shouldn’t get my health care paid for by my employer? If I choose to go on a hike and get bit by a tic, my employer should not be required to pay for treatment for my lyme disease?

I am ashamed to be an American today.

 

Pepperidge Farm introduces Princess Goldfish, gendering kids’ food reaches new low

They’re new, they’re pink, and they’re perfect for your daughters! Princess Goldfish are finally here. Just got this Tweet from Josy Daras:

did you know they’ve gendered GOLDFISH? My son wanted them, so here they are.

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I love that her son wanted them. Can you fucking deal with this– gendered goldfish? We have sunk to a new low. Barely. Here’s what I blogged in March 2012:

Hey Goldfish Snack Crackers, girls aren’t a minority

My daughter is home sick today. She’s lying on the couch, watching TV, and eating Parmesan Goldfish. An ad for Goldfish crackers came on. She thought that coincidence was pretty hilarious. She held up one of her crackers and said, “Hi!” to the Goldfish on TV. Then she looked at down at the package. “Who are mine?” she wanted to know.

 

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They are: Xtreme, Gilbert, Brooke, and Finn.

I know what you’re thinking: Xtreme must be female, right? Or maybe Finn? Pepperidge Farm would never put 3 males and 1 female on a package. So, I went to Wikipedia. Check out these character descriptions:

  • Finn– A cheddar flavored goldfish that wears sunglasses (though not in the commercials).
  • Gilbert– A pretzel goldfish that tends to be a worrier.
  • Brooke– The beautiful and intelligent parmesan flavored goldfish and the only female member of the goldfish club until both Candace and Coral showed up.
  • Xtreme– A flavor-blasted fish who enjoys doing crazy stunts. His real (and embarrassing) name is Fumbleton.
  • Swimmington Von Stuffington III Esquire– Xtreme’s snobby older brother.
  • IQ– A honey graham fish who wears eyeglasses lives in the vacuum and befriends Gilbert and helps him escape out of the vacuum.
  • Candace– A pink fish who wears a red bow on her head and has a small blue star on her tail fin. She has a crush on Gilbert. Candace is also the winner of the “Finn’s New Friend” contest.
  • Coral– A chocolate graham and fun-spirited fish with a Southern accent who currently befriends the club. She is possibly somewhat of a tomboy.

When I created this blog, I wrote that I was going to rate kids media and toys. I never considered blogging about sexism in food. Reese’s Puffs, Special K, M & Ms, and Goldfish have, unfortunately, changed my mind.

My daughter and I made up different names and stories for the Goldfish, of course. But don’t start telling me it’s a free country, and we can just make up anything we like. I’m a creative person, and I struggle with this. Give me something to work with here, Pepperidge Farm! I’m also, like most moms, busy. Can’t I just read the damn names off the bag?

It would be so much easier to foster creativity in kids (and the adults that they will become) if we weren’t mired with the same old, same old ridiculous, gender-stereotyped narratives at every turn.

 

A year later, I posted this:

M &Ms, Goldfish, cereal boxes, and the Minority Feisty

Posted on

I know you probably think I’ve gone over the deep end with all the vitriol I’ve expressed towards M & Ms for presenting its female characters as a high heeled, kissy-lipped minority.

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But the problem here is that this same old image and narrative is everywhere in kidworld. Whose kids eat Goldfish? Here’s our package:

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There it is again: Brooke, the Minority Feisty.

And kids cereal? Even Raj of “Big Bang Theory.” Raj said he’d done the research and there are no female cereal box characters at all.

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What happens to kids when they grow up saturated in a world where everywhere they look, girls go missing?

Facebook refuses to take down hate speech page memorializing killer Elliot Rodger

Powerlifters Against Feminism has a Facebook page up right now with hate speech on it that promotes and glorifes violence against women, yet Facebook refuses to take down the page, claiming there is no hate speech.

Here’s a post from the page’s host:

 

Shoutout to my boy elliot rodger. He did the best thing us men could do. And paid the ultimate price. Let his death be a memorial day in which we hate against the subhuman species called women.

 

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RIP in piece brother

 

Yet, after a fan of Reel Girl alerted me to the page and complained to Facebook about it, she messaged me:

By the way, they refused to remove it stating there is no hate speech. I just got a notification.

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Let me ask you this, Facebook: How is there no hate speech in the line “Let his death be a memorial day in which we hate against the subhuman species called women.” (Italics mine)

It is the acceptance of misogynistic communities like this one that helps to create and foster mass murderers like Rodger and violence against women in general. Just like the police who investigated Elliot, Facebook has a history of not taking hate speech against women seriously. We all contribute to it this culture of violence if we take no action stop the hate.  I just reported this page to Facebook. Please do so as well. Do not accept that this page does not promote hate speech. You can go to this link to report it. Here’s the form I got. Check “hate speech or personal attack.”

All reports are strictly confidential. What best describes this?

Update: I received this message from facebook:

Support Dashboard

Here’s the latest status of your reports and inquiries. If we need more information, we’ll let you know here.
History
  • You reported Powerlifters Against Feminism for containing hate speech or symbols.

    Close

    Status This page wasn’t removed
    Details
    • Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.
      Note: If you have an issue with something on the page, be sure to report the content (ex: a photo), not the entire page. That way, your report will be more accurately reviewed.
    Report Date Today
    Owner
    Reason Hate Speech or Symbol

Update:  Many Reel Girl fans reported this hate speech to Facebook and received the same message:

We reviewed the page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn’t violate our Community Standards.

Some people started reporting the specific speech/ post, not the page. The first responses from Facebook were reported as follows:

I reported both the horrible hateful page and the (criminal) violence promoting post. Got two answers from fb, telling “the page does not violate our community standards”…

 

Another Reel Girl fan writes:

I reported the page and the individual post and got the same reply. Ridiculous.

 

And then, finally, one hour ago, a fan writes:

Just got notification that they revised their decision on the post I reported and removed it!

 

And another one received the same revised response:

Me too! I’m glad they wised up and reconsidered.

 

And a third did as well:

Yep! Just got notification it was removed. Woohoo! No luck on taking down the whole page, though

 

I posted all of those because I never got the revised Facebook response, but maybe that’s because I reported the page, not that one post? Still, what is Facebook’s excuse for telling people that first reported the exact post that it did not contain hate speech and then needing to “revise” their decision? It’s insanity. I suppose I’m grateful that Facebook took a tiny step towards coming to its senses and realize “hate against the subhuman species called women” qualifies as hate speech.