Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 137 | gymnastics and body image

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

This episode touches on a topic we feel is very important - body image. After we had our daughter, Drew, we felt a sense of responsibility for the way we teach our kids about different aspects of life, and this was a big one! If you have children and aren’t sure how to start the conversation about body image or want to know when to start laying the foundation for body positivity- this one is for you and we hope you leave encouraged! And if you don't have kids but are struggling with body image- we hope you can take something away from this episode :) This episode is sponsored by AG1 ▶ Athletic Greens Is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit http://www.athleticgreens.com/eastfam to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance! Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My TikTok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok! ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. what's up everybody welcome back to couple things with Sean and Andrew podcast all about couples and the things they go through so this is something we have gone through we're very passionate

about it and it consumes maybe every ounce of my day every day this yeah now I'm concerned not in a bad way in a good way it is all about body image and how I want to raise our kids, but more, like, more specifically, our daughter drew around this topic. Here's what I'll say. Before marrying you, I had no appreciation or perspective on this topic. But you've really helped me understand this world, understand your experiences with it. And then I am so thankful for your perspective. Since we have a daughter now, I think it's going to be such a crucial topic.

And body image obviously affects a lot of other areas of life or it can. Girls, boys in every age group from the time they're very, very little to the time they're, you know, grandparents. It can affect, like, affect anybody. That's right. And I just want to start off before we hit the script with kind of a worst case scenario story. Okay. That's really been humbling for me to think about and has increased. the urgency for us in thinking about this subject seriously and that's one of our dear friends

growing up um i went to school with them had negative body image issues starting in middle school and that turned into eating disorders which has now turned into her potentially losing her life because of the severity of the eating disorders and her not being able to come back from that so obviously that's a tough story and not every poor body image story ends that way but this is an important subject absolutely absolutely and uh to give you guys hopefully a short-winded little insight into why this is a topic we're talking about why we're so passionate about it uh if you haven't seen the video on youtube that i have posted it's from a few years ago where I kind of dive into the history of it but I've been very open and sharing that I've

struggled with eating disorders my whole life I thankfully feel great now I feel like I'm in the the recovery side of that and I feel like I have things under control but because of my professional gymnastics career I really struggled with body image and it started out as this very insignificant thought and kind of I idea that as a gymnast when I was little, I just understood the like math equation of it where if I showed up to gymnastics and I weighed less, it was easier to flip. That was general physics. If I didn't have a full stomach, I could fold easier into a double back position and it would feel easier to do my job. I kind of took that little thought and it grew over time into this

obsession of I want to flip more and higher and faster and I took that obsession into the subjectivity of gymnastics where you're scored not only on your performance but on the subjective opinion a judge has of your overall appearance and at the time in gymnastics when I was competing at the peak of my career that subjectivity favored a more nausea lukin vibe if you guys know what that is, which is my teammate, who's just longer and leaner and more flexible. And I was very muscular and stocky. And so without the knowledge and the help of a nutritionist or a psychologist when I was

little, I developed very poor eating habits and eating disorders around depriving myself of nutrition so that I could be lighter, thinner, and hopefully do better my career. Because of that, I struggled very, for a very, very long time, even outside of, of the sport because I lost that control and I felt like I gained people's respect based off of my physical performance. Fast forward a little bit more when I was 19. I kind of hit an all-time low and I knew I needed help. And with the help of people around me, I hired a nutritionist and dietitian who also played a role as a psychologist and I worked with her and I still work with her and she is single-handedly the person who brought me out of a very, very unhealthy lifestyle.

it was great but because of that now when we got pregnant my worst fear and my worst fear in general in raising a daughter is I see myself in her so much I relate to her so much just being a little girl that I fear she will struggle from the same things I did and I obsess over this topic so much on a daily basis when it comes to feeding her breakfast lunch and dinner and snacks and the conversations we have about candy and sodas and when she's trying on clothes and looking in a mirror everything that I see her do I notice I almost like forecast to these thoughts that she might have when she's 20 years old like I did and so I'm trying and we are working so hard and researching the psychology side of it and the childhood development side of it and getting trying

to get ahead of it to where we can raise a daughter who is very confident and able to to handle what all life throws at her, the standards, the unfair societal flaws and everything that she's going to go through. I'm so thankful that you've taken your negative experiences with this and have now really turned it around, flip the script, and are like, all right, I know that using this word and this context can pan out and end with these negative connotations. And that's going to positively affect our daughter yeah taking a negative and turned into a positive i wanted to share my perspective on how you i've seen you evolve with this which has been pretty amazing i feel like and i've been so proud of you and the pride just continues to grow but when we first started dating

first of all i missed your whole competitive career it's probably for the best probably i was a different person yeah you're still intense i can't i can't imagine back then you would have wanted that i'm not that intense but you are uh when we first started dating the one thing you would do is work out you probably worked out for four or five hours a day and i don't know how much of that is body image related how much that is just like habit but like um i know there's probably some overlap but it was very much so like a like a hurdle that you needed to jump in order to like move on to any other part of your day which i i like exercise as well but i view it more as like a hey that you know this is important for long-term health and I enjoy doing it

not like a I have to do it in order to feel like good enough to just operate you know um anyway then we got married and I feel like your belief in yourself grew and your perspective grew and you realize that man Sean is more than a gymnast she's more than just a fit chick she's like super talented super ambitious you have so many skills which has been a benefit the benefit of like youtube and us starting that journey um and so then that kind of lessened that necessity to work out as much as you were and then a huge turning point and i'll never forget sitting on the couch when you told me this uh was when you got pregnant and you said to me that you feel like your body is no longer just for yourself it's for the purpose of raising healthy

kids and that's both through pregnancy and also like as they're growing as kids like you want to take care of your body not to get a lower freaking body fat percentage or to gain muscle here or lose muscle here is like I want my body to just create a healthy human which was awesome and it was like from my perspective the Sean that was just worried about working out was thinking so small and like it prevents you from seeing the bigger picture of like okay well what's a body for in the first place like we just got back from mexico building a house for a family and it's like you were an animal you you were an animal putting the roof up you did the whole freaking thing dang there but it's like but it's like but he said that a couple times but it's like there is there is

this aspect of of moving past just thinking about yourself because body image like you need to have a positive self image you need to be confident in yourself but I think that the purpose of that is so that you can think about stuff bigger than yourself whether that's your career your family or serving others or like the impact like think about your progression through that like the the woman that I'm looking at today is an absolute force of nature and I'm not talking physically I'm talking like the things that you can do to make tomorrow better than today and I'm not trying to be cheesy but I do feel passionately about this and I said that the reason we started

YouTube was because I feel like the Sean that I know if she was shared with the world can make a difference and I feel that same way about freaking every human out here to be honest but this process of like having you blossom and like just gain perspective has been just the joy of a lifetime so thank you and I'm excited to see more of it thank you

that was a tangent not on our script but this episode is brought to you by Defender with its 626 horsepower twin turbo engine, the defender, Octa, is taking on the Dakar rally. The ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca. I had so many thoughts going through all of that. First, thank you.

Get ready for a lot of tangents, guys, because I have so many thoughts on this. And I do feel very passionately about this because it was the forefront of my life for so long. But kind of speaking to what Andrew said, I feel like the purpose of life kind of shifted for me a little bit, because I went from obsessing so much about myself and obsessing about what people thought of me

that I've kind of shifted as a human and going from being so selfish and I don't mean that in like a bad way. I knew when I was struggling that selfishness was something that it was an illness. I didn't know how to get out of that cycle. But the better every year that goes by that I heal more and more from my eating disorders,

I feel more and more like I can enjoy people and I can enjoy my surroundings and my family and I can just enjoy life so much more and these are again little tangents but I distinctly remember going on vacation to Italy with Andrew in 2017 and this was a huge moment for us because I had been thinking about this moment for a very long time we had talked about going to Italy and I had these dreams of like being able to go to Italy and eat pasta and pizza and stuff and not think about it and we did and it was like a huge huge success for me and a really big fear that I had for many many years and I spoke to my dietitian about this for many years was I feared getting pregnant someday because that is a lot of weight gain and it's a lot of body

changing it's your body changing constantly all day every day and I didn't know how my mind was going to handle that, especially since I had kind of been working so hard for so many years to heal my mind. I was afraid that pregnancy might trigger me to go backwards. This happens differently for everyone. So I know people within the eating disorder world or the mental illness world don't handle pregnancy the same way. But for me, it was a blessing because that day that I found out I was pregnant, something switched completely. And it went from, I've abused my body for so long. I have done all of it. I've tried all of it because for whatever reason, for control. And at that moment, my body was no longer mine. Whatever I did to my body affected my kid, our baby. And that's

something that changed my foundational belief in idea and how bodies work. And from that day forward since we got pregnant the very first time that ended into miscarriage to now our two babies how I look at my body every single thing that I eat how I act how I look at it how I talk to it how I talk about it affects our children and I almost obsess in such a celebratory way now not in an unhealthy way and I truly mean that it's no longer negative voices but it's like this how can I celebrate myself and you and bodies in general of every shape way shape and kind to positively impact our children because and this now goes dives into what we're trying to do and what we're we're trying to do for our kids I distinctly remember growing up in an era

where that was never the case I grew up around people who constantly were asking each other do I look fat and does this make me look skinny and the whole concept of working out a generation ago was to work out to lose weight that was all people did at least that's all women did this the marketing world around exercise was so women could be thinner and there was never this concept of exercises healthy It was always exercise or diet or fad for a materialistic way. And I think generationally it made it a little harder for our generation to be healthy because there were so many people serving up this idea that in order to be accepted by society, you had to be thinner.

I think we now live in a world that is a little bit better. I still think we have major flaws in body image and acceptance of different body styles but I do think we live in a world that favors more health over fats which I think is great but because of the way I was raised um it's now a conversation on a daily basis of how often do we celebrate our daughter's clothes yeah how often do we celebrate her little naked body running around the house we had people over last night we had like 10 people over last night and she at one point she had an Elsa dress on next time I look over at her she's running around the house but naked yeah I was so proud of her to I was oh that's my little that's my little girl

but there's such a fine balance and um Andrew and I have had many many conversations about how what words were allowed to use in the house and what words were not um A very simple thing that I feel very, very strongly about is when speaking about anybody's body, your own for fun, comedically, social media-wise, on a TV show or to our kids, we never use the word fat ever because fat is objective and it's a bad word. It's a curse word and it's derogatory. And I think the idea of being planted into a little kid's head, whether they're hearing it, saying it being told it is it's a direct result of someone's subjective opinion and it's

unfair so that's one thing we've kind of instilled in our home that that word can't be used there there is thanks to you a high level of intentionality around how we are speaking about things and how people in our kids lives are speaking about body image related things so the fat thing the how often are we talking like praising her clothes it's like actually touching on the more important qualities of drew your smile is beautiful or the way you interact with people and are thoughtful and like welcoming the people like this sounds cheesy but I actually think it's super important to think about the power of your words and and where they'll result in what they'll result in. I'm curious, could you have reached this point in your body image journey

before getting pregnant? Like, what would you tell someone who isn't pregnant? Like, how could they have the revelation? I would tell someone to get help. And we've talked about this with, like, better help and therapy and marriage counseling and that I think there is a systemic flaw in our entire world around asking for help because people think you have to have a problem before you go seek help. And I think it should be the other way around. We've talked about this with marriage counseling. It should be considered maintenance and education before it's ever considered like a lifeline. And I think there are a lot of people out there who are struggling deeply with some sort of relationship to food that's negative that need like emergency help

or a lifeline when it comes to like a dietitian or a nutritionist or a psychologist or a psychiatrist, whatever it is. But I truly think for anybody out there, the more education you have around nutrition and diet and psychology, the better. So whether it's doing a session a year with someone who is very educated in that area, I would say is a huge benefit that you can. like it's a it's a gift you could give to your children someday in being able to help educate them

as well as educate you or realize that kind of epiphany summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats what do we mean by almost well you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered

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daily nutritional insurance. What percentage of your body image issues were stemmed from gymnastics? I think all of them. I think all of them. Well, there's certainly a lot of non-gymines. who struggle with this as well. So, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think mine came from, started in gymnastics and then evolved and fed off of my surroundings. So whether that was newspapers, magazine, reality TV, being on Dancing with the Stars,

high school, peer pressure, whatever that was, it was just surroundings. And I think we live in a world where our kids are exposed to so many more opinions at such a young age that these conversations are really, really important to have with your spouse or your other parent or you're with yourself or with your kids very, very early on. It is crazy. I've talked about this example before, but I remember seeing a headline from Yahoo News

about Sean Johnson gaining X amount of pounds and how terrible the side effects of that could have or were on you, could have been or were on you. And like, now I think about there's no shortage of people throwing shade that probably has the same level of impact, like in the comments or DMs, just random average Joe's. It's not Yahoo News, but it's still like you see these comments that are unwarranted and can have negative impact so it's like dang it's a different world you know i unfortunately think that's just the world we live in that has so many voices so accessible at any second of the day and i think body image is probably the first topic as a parent that made me realize more than anything else in

the world that what you do as parents is the greatest influence you'll have on your kid ever um even though there are millions and millions of voices that they will hear every single day what you do at home how you act how you talk to each other how you talk about yourself when you think no one's watching or listening is truly the foundation that your children will build their self-esteem off of. And I am so grateful for what I have gone through because I now have that realization. I feel like one of the most important things we can realize as a parent. I feel like so many people live their life regretting decisions that they made or things that they went through or mistakes that they made. But I actually think it's a gift as a parent because then you can

then turn it around and say, well, I learned this the hard way so that I can now teach my kid to be better or hopefully be equipped with the tools to walk into that situation and be able to handle it differently. Wisdom. Wisdom. I got some stats I want to share. So studies show that more than 50% of adults from the U.S., UK, Australia, France, and Germany reported experiencing a weight stigma or an idea of what they should weigh.

50%. Next, research has shown that around 50% of young 13-year-old American girls reported being unhappy with their body. This number grew to nearly 80% by the time girls reached 17 years of age. Dang, 80% of 17-year-olds said that they're unhappy with their body. Next, nearly 80% of young teenage girls report fears of becoming overweight. In more than five, sorry, in more than 50,000 adults, 60% of women thought they were too heavy and were self-conscious about their weight. 30% reported being too uncomfortable in a swimsuit and 20% thought that they were unattractive.

I have a lot of thoughts after reading these stats. First, let me say that we can't control the media, but we can control how our child feels in our home, as you were just saying. and my takeaway from those stats are it's kind of a cultural issue like there's there's a lot of things going against females in general obviously body image issues look different in a lot of different ways but like you know males I know people who really had body image issues because they couldn't gain muscle mass and that was like a thing for them a male but the swimsuit incident I'm like dang well the expectation is that people are going to be wearing bikinis who the frick feels comfortable on a bikini

freaking nobody you know what I'm saying why is that the standard of what people are wearing out like you know if I'm going to show up to the pool and wear a one piece swimsuit you're going to feel uncomfortable because of cultural standards that's a bummer yeah so then I'm forced pressured into wearing bikinis

and now I feel uncomfortable in that like yeah so that's one thing is kind of like these expectations of style even well and that's why I get so saddened by all of this and overwhelmed at the idea of being a parent to kids in today's world is like we don't have the power to change that cultural standard in the next few years the world's just not going to go into wearing baggy t-shirt swimsuits in five years they're just not um so i feel pressure as a parent to work overtime in being such the obnoxious opposite end of that in saying you are so beautiful in every situation from the time you wake up with gross breath and crazy hair like you are still just as beautiful as you will ever

ever be and I think the hard part is it's so easy for a parent to say that to a kid and not reflect that in the mirror and that's why I think about it every single day it seems like you've adopted this role of being like a role model and trying to get your own body image issues in order so that you can show drew the way as you were just talking about what Do you view as, like, healthy body image? Like, what's the gold standard? I would say, I don't know if I have an answer for that, except for I think the gold standard of body image

is just acceptance and happiness. Our bodies are going to change over time, and they're going to go up and weight and down in weight and up in size and down in size, and they're going to, everything's going to be perkier and droopy. and whatever it is. And I think if you can celebrate your body

in some way, shape, or form in every phase of life that is the gold standard. What's like the differentiation? Because you're saying celebrate your body in my mind, I'm like, well, the less you just generally think about it, the better. Like, almost like ignorance is bliss.

I think the difference there is the difference. of past and of history, I am incapable of not thinking about my body just because of what I've gone through. That's interesting. And that was 99% of what I worked on with my dietitians and psychologists was changing those voices in my head. I used to struggle and I used to be asked this question every single time I'd have a phone call or a session for therapy.

It would be what are those voices saying and what are the weights of them? So are you hearing more negative? What percentage is that versus the positive? And we would just work and work and work and work to slowly build that positive strength of thought so that I could like have enough strength to push out the negative when it started to creep in. And I just, I remember this. My dietitian, Courtney, every call, she'd be like, how are the voices today? And that might sound funny and silly and crazy, but I'd be like, you know what?

I've had, I've really struggled with those voices this past week. I can't tune them out. And I remember calling Courtney when I first found out I was pregnant the very first time. I'll never forget this moment because it felt like, it didn't feel like crossing a finish line, but it felt like Olympic gold medal to me. I remember telling her, I was like, Courtney, I'm pregnant. And I remember her being so excited. everything. She's like, okay, tell me what you're thinking. Where are you at? Because this was something

we had talked about for years, just that fear of that moment. And I said, you know what? For the first time of my life, I'm afraid I'm not going to eat enough. And that might sound weird and that might sound hard to digest, but you have to understand that for 10 years of my life, my fear was eating too much. And I was incapable of eating enough. And for the first time in my life that had switched and all I could think about was I'm not going to feed my baby enough food and how like how can I consume so much and so like enough things to make sure my baby is protected I remember Courtney just started crying and she's like can you hear yourself right now like it's the first time you've had these positive thoughts outweigh so much negative that it was

it was just a really cool thing and so I think with our kids no matter what weight of distribution and percentage those positive negative thoughts are, I think it's my duty and job as a parent to voice all of the positive. So it's almost like I'm building Drew and Jett's positive side as much as possible. So you're saying you can't get rid of the voices, but make sure the voices, train the voices to say the right thing. Train, train your children to only acknowledge. the good ones

because I think there will still be times that our kids look down on themselves or say something and I think it's our job as a parent to be like, you know what? I think that sometimes too but it's not worth your time. Find the positive.

The conjuring last rites on September 5th I come down here, I need you help. Array! Array! Array! Array!

Array! The Conjuring Last Rites, only in theater September 5th. This is reshaping my perspective as we're talking about this. Because even when we're talking about Drew and complimenting her, hey, Drew, you're so pretty. or that's such a beautiful dress like part of me is like all right well i don't even want her thinking about her looks like i want her to know that there are way more important things than like a freaking lipstick you know what i'm saying yeah so do you do that by

by complimenting all the things like it's it's a hard you got to teach her what's important you got to teach her what her priorities are and now I'm being challenged to not fully rescind all of my compliments of like hey because that's kind of been what I've been doing the last few weeks is saying to her less of you have such a beautiful dress

and more of like a hey I love how you were so welcoming to your new friend but I think maybe both are merited I think it's both I think you have to take into consideration your kid so let's talk about Drew specifically Drew, and this is not by nature. We did not instill this in her, but this is just who she is.

Before she was one. She is just a glamour queen. She lives for dresses and princesses and dressing up and role playing. And this is just her. Honestly, Jet kind of is too. A little bit. Less so, but still. Less so.

Yeah. But Drew lives for that. And I think because that's how she is wired, then our job is to, within those situations, don't let her dress up into a princess costume, costume, and look in the mirror and say, oh, that's ugly. That's not something we would ever teach her. But we can teach her to dress up in every single thing and be like, oh, I feel so pretty. Or I feel whatever it is. And if she says she doesn't like it, she cannot like it.

But we are not going to instill that vocabulary of derogatory or negative thoughts. But I also think it's just as important to, like you said, praise her for her kindness and teach her kindness and teach her how to take all of those positive things we're saying to her and put those on other people. So when her little friend Brooklyn comes over to be like, oh, Brooklyn, you look so pretty. like or whatever it is teach her those compliments are are the only option for what she's speaking yeah one interesting dynamic has been meal time I feel like it's been a struggle for you to strike the balance because if you know anything about toddlers they don't necessarily cookies yeah mom I want she wants she either doesn't want to eat or she wants to cookies and it's been a struggle for you to like all right you are so health focused and you want

Drew to eat all the good things but you also want her to eat it's like as opposed to not anything so I think and you've noticed this and we've talked about this the the direction we have taken with food because I have thought about this too much and that's just because of my that I've thought of it so much. But when it comes to food, the direction and the path that I have taken is teaching her the consequences of foods

as it pertains to how she feels. So not the consequences of weight or how she looks in a mirror. But, oh, you ate broccoli tonight? with your chicken and your rice and she'll be happy and she'll be playing and all these things and the next day she'll eat a ton of cookies and we'll get like a milkshake or something

and she'll complain of an upset belly and for example we're talking about Halloween and we were talking about it last night and I was like she was talking about getting all the candy and I said Drew we are going to go to every house and get every piece of candy that we can and we're going to eat so much and it's probably going to hurt our belly,

but it'll be worth it, you know? And I think showing that there aren't limitations, but teaching them that if you do do this and you have an upset belly, it's because maybe candy hurts our belly because it doesn't help our body. And that's okay to eat, but you have to know that that's how that,

like how you're going to react to it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Am I, can you evaluate this strategy I've had with this? Drew really loves the swing set. She loves monkey bars. She loves climbing on stuff, running.

And so I remember I was making my athletic greens smoothie. And she was like, Daddy, what's that? Is that a Daddy Baba? Freaking cute. And I was like, yes. She was like, why? And I was like, well, it has vitamins and minerals. And she's like, why?

And I was like, well, it's good for your muscles. And so then, like, ever since then over the past couple weeks, she's been doing the monkey bars and she's, like, been slipping, like, her grip fails. And I'll be like, hey, remember the vitamins and minerals we were we talking about? like eating those foods like broccoli or whatever helps your muscles grow and get stronger so you can hang on the monkey bars better is that a good strategy i think that's a phenomenal i personally again i am not a dietitian i'm not a child psychologist but i think that is great because what you're associating to food is strength or an upset belly or whatever versus oh

that dress is a little tight on you tomorrow let's not eat our gummies let's not have dessert I think it's when you start teaching kids that restriction can give a result of whatever it is that's bad

I think if you like you even heard it in Drew last night when we were talking about Halloween and candy she came to the bellyache conclusion on her own and she's like mommy I might not eat all of it because it gives me bellyache

well but that's trained the part of that's trained and that's where it's hard to decipher like jet i think part of his interest in fashion is trained because his older sister loves it but that's good we have trained that we have trained we have trained this this understanding that a cookie or an entire gallon of ice cream might not make her feel good and she's already understanding that her belly feeling better, does that make sense? But I also don't want her to have negative connotations to cake. So she's sitting at her friend's birthday party and like, you know what I'm saying? It's such a fine freaking lie.

I don't think she is. I don't think she is because what we have taught her is like, we did it last night. You can have cookies. She actually ate three of those like or like a handful of those like baby cookies, you know, the baby Oreos or whatever. Yeah. And she felt great. But then when she kept coming back asking for more,

I was like, okay, you can have more of it. It might give you a bellyache, you know? And I think it's just teaching a kid moderation. You're totally, like, she's totally welcome to go to a birthday party and we're going to celebrate that kid and we're going to have cake. But when she starts coming back asking for a second piece

and a third piece, I'm going to remind her that. Oh, it's so hard. Because I'm like, we have niece and nephews who just go into the pantry and feed themselves pretty much. All our stuff is locked because Jets are like wild and just clears the shelves. But like my take on it is I don't even want Drew thinking about what food does partially. Like that's kind of that's maybe the easy way out.

But it's like I don't want her thinking cookie and associating that to bellyache. I don't want her thinking too much food and associating that with bellyache. I just want her thinking like I'm hungry eat. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but that's not fair because you also, as a child, you need to teach them about nutrition because if a kid naturally, like a kid is going to like sugar better than they like broccoli. If you just set out food and they taste broccoli and they taste a cookie at the same time,

they're going to naturally go for a cookie. But if you teach them the importance of like playing on the playground and the muscle side of that, that's, again, all of this I think is the better. direction, then going down the direction of I'm looking in the mirror and I'm saying, oh, I can't fit in this dress. So I'm going to go on a diet and I'm going to stop eating cookies. That is the direction by influence that will lead a child down the wrong path. Because then what you're doing is you're associating a visual change in your body that you want,

that you are associating with food. and I think that is wrong Here's what I would like to share That people get locked in on these bikini bodies Kind of like we were talking earlier Like I need to have a body that looks good in a bikini And that's kind of missing the point It's like all right, freaking not everybody looks the same

And not everybody's body's going to do the same thing You were an Olympic gymnast you're also four foot eleven you got Tamika catching's who's six foot whatever she's not an Olympic gymnast but you know what she's a freaking great basketball player dial into the benefits and the positive

side of things of your body type but that is a direct parallel to what we are just saying about food instead of teaching kids that their food is a direct result of what they look like. Their food is a direct result of how their body is used. And what they need.

Exactly. So if you're running 5Ks as an 8 year old, you're going to need different things than if you're like power lifting. Absolutely. And I think if your kid turns 8 and they're wanting to play soccer and they're getting tired and they go into the pantry and they're still grabbing the Oreos,

it's kind of like, okay, you can totally have that. You can totally have Oreos. but remember when you were tired at soccer if you want to be able to run a little faster maybe some eat some chicken on the side of your Oreos because chicken actually helps your muscles and Oreos don't how do you do that and not have that reinforce

their identity being so attached to soccer though in that example like what it what let me let me rephrase this I know what's freaking I don't think that's attaching their identity to soccer. I think that I think the difference there is content like it needs to be contextual. So if your eight year old is at a soccer match and they're exhausted and they're on the side of the you know it's break time and they have a snack and they're asking for Oreos instead of an apple, it's like okay the apple might make you feel better for the rest of this match but the Oreos might make your belly hurt. What do you want?

I don't think every day throughout the day you're supposed to be like oh if you want to be the greatest soccer player in the world but I think having those little teaching lessons within there kind of like you were saying the muscles are going to help Drew or daddy's baba with the vitamins and minerals might help Drew actually go across the monkey bars longer oh this is it the day you finally ask for that big promotion You're in front of your mirror

With your Starbucks coffee Be confident Assertive Remember eye contact But also remember to blink Smile but not too much That's weird What if you aren't any good at your job

What if they dim out you instead Okay Don't be silly You're smart, you're driven You're gonna be late if you keep talking to the mirror This promotion is yours Go get them Starbucks, it's never just coffee

At the end of the day though We're in agreement that we want we're an agreement about a lot of things oh all of it and i actually this is a a realm that i fully defer to your expertise on i frankly don't have the experience to like provide meaningful input really when it comes to our daughter's body image so i'm thankful for your your input there but we want drew to feel like she has a safe place to share struggles anything she's she's going through

and I think that also is an important thing to keep in mind where it's like you know this needs to be a conversation and her body image issues at five are going to look different than her body image issues in middle school versus high school versus like college like it's an ever-evolving thing that the issues change the priorities change culture changes so how can we just like again

we say this with a lot of things but use this as an opportunity to grow closer to her to grow closer to each other and work through it as a team. And I also think, too, creating a safe space for your child is the most important. So when your kid is growing up and they're evolving and they're changing and they're going through different emotional milestones and roller coasters, it's important not to like shut down your child's feelings. Make sure you validate them. And if they need correcting, like get them there, but don't shut them down. So if you're, in this instance, if your kid says, I, you know, don't like this about myself,

don't say, no, you're wrong. You need to love it. You say, why do you feel that way? Let's talk through that. And I felt that way before, too. But those little negative feelings in your head, like, let's not feed them. Let's, like, work towards the end goal. Actually, this is something I'm worried about because a lot of times if I hear, like, nonsense,

which like body image issues in my mind I'm like I'm like don't even go there like let's try to cut it off which is not the right approach but I looked up response and it was this quote I hear that you don't like this about yourself I'm sorry you feel that way I'm sorry you feel that way may I tell you why I disagree with you so it's like she's being heard you're empathizing and then you have the opportunity to reinforce well and I will say from experience when I was in the the heat in the lowest points of my eating disorders that's what I needed I needed I had all of these negative thoughts and when you told me I was wrong I stopped listening to you because even if I was wrong I wasn't able to

turn those voices off so it did nothing for me if you just said stop thinking that stop doing that stop not eating, whatever, that invalidated everything that I was going through. And I would tune you out. But if you said, like, I'm really sorry you feel that way. Can I tell you why I disagree with that? It's almost like you're saying, I hear you and I'm seeing you. But let me give you another, like another voice that maybe you can keep in the back of your head. And if our kids are constantly surrounded by those voices, the positive one,

if they can, like, build an army inside their head of positive thoughts that can build up enough strength to kick the negative ones down when they come up, I think that's the best possible outcome for our kids. And it needs to be truthful and honest and, like, flattering someone unnecessarily doesn't really help the issue, right? It needs to be like, hey, your foot, 4 foot 11,

like you can play basketball. That's not probably realistic, but it's like, your foot 11, 4 foot 11, and you have so many wonderful things you could do with your body or whatever that looks like. But like flattery and over exaggeration and being dishonest is not the route. But I would love for there to be a world where you're sitting at Thanksgiving and no one's thinking about how their plate has too many calories on it or how those sweet potatoes are going to bloat them for their beach vacation.

And it's more focused. on we're sitting at the table with the family that we never get to be with and we get to share this meal yeah you know what I'm saying like there's there's more to life but I also think in getting there it takes a lot of help from a lot of people we might need to do a whole other episode on this there's a lot of questions that I have for you and honestly way different experiences freaking way different so thank you babe though yeah thank you for sharing yours yeah I'll talk about this any day I love you love you I think you're beautiful but more importantly I like your heart thank you I love your heart too thank you are you waiting with that that's how we got

I'm shot why did that make you uncomfortable because I was gonna make a joke and be like but do you actually think I'm beautiful, but then I knew people would hear that and probably like, well, that's not healthy. And I was like, oh, I didn't mean like that. You have to know our relationship and know that I'm actually in a good spot. By the way, we get some comments every now and then about, oh, man, you and Sean overthink everything. Well, maybe.

But we kind of enjoy this adventure of working through each other's experiences, what we've learned from them, sharing them with you. And then I'll use the word intentionality again. If our overthinking helps one person listening to this be more intentional about how they do dating, marriage, parenting, interact with their kids, athletics, then mission accomplished. But we'll in there. Thank you. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean.

We're the East fam. Out.