ZOE Science & Nutrition - Recap: The healthy way to feed your kids | Rhiannon Lambert and Dr. Federica Amati

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Today, we’re tackling the challenge of feeding our children. Getting kids to eat a balanced meal can often feel like an uphill battle, especially when they’re surrounded by eye-catching marketing campaigns that aim to lure them into unhealthy habits. So, how can busy parents help their children build a better relationship with food? In this episode, nutrition experts Rhiannon Lambert and Dr. Federica Amati share straightforward strategies to guide your children away from processed foods and towards a lifelong love of healthy eating. 🌱 Try our new plant based wholefood supplement - Daily30+ *Naturally high in copper which contributes to normal energy yielding metabolism and the normal function of the immune system 📚 Books from our ZOE Scientists: The Food For Life Cookbook by Prof. Tim Spector Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati Free resources from ZOE: Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition  Gut Guide - for a healthier microbiome in weeks Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here Listen to the full episode here

Hello and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Today we're tackling the challenge of feeding our children. Getting kids to eat a balanced meal can often feel like an uphill battle, especially when they're surrounded by eye-catching marketing campaigns that aim to lure them into unhealthy habits. So how can busy parents help their children build a better relationship with food? In this episode, nutrition experts Rianne Lambert and Dr. Federica Ramati share straightforward strategies to guide your children away from processed foods and towards a lifelong love of healthy eating. What's the problem with children's food? The first thing is that there is this relentless food advertising aimed at children that is of unhealthy foods. So there was a report that was recently published by Byteback 2030 who are this charity trying to help reduce

the amount of adverts aimed at children for unhealthy foods. And they found that on average, UK children are exposed to 15 billion junk food adverts per year. And the US is presumably even higher. Yes. And so the US, we haven't got the number, but is presumably even higher. And the issue here is that we are surrounded by foods that we know don't support children's health. So it's much easy to access those, but they're also being heavily advertised. And anyone who has kids, if you watch TV with adverts in it, so they will want the thing. My kids the other day happened to find a channel that had an advert for a chicken roasting pot. Oh, gosh. And they were like, Mommy, can we have one of those? That is literally the example of advertising

working its magic, right? So the problem is that we're not protecting our kids in the UK and the US. And so they're exposed to these adverts. They're exposed to a lot of ultra-processed foods and frankly, junk food. And it's actually a really precious time in life, as we'll get into, where we can have a massive impact on their health and well-being and happiness with their daily food choices. So it's just not set up for us to succeed at the moment. I mean, it's also where parents are going to for the information because we're bombarded by this media storm of packaged goods, really, that are appealing, they're visual, they're bright, they're colorful. It's everything a child would want. Why would they not want something with a cartoon image? And I know

there's some legislation now that's cracking down on that sort of display and how you display foods to children. But let's be honest, I think there's a stat 24% of adults now go to social media for health advice. They're going for their kids advice, how to build lunchboxes, how to tackle everything. And less than 2% of nutrition information on TikTok, for example, is accurate. Less than 2%. Less than 2%. That's rather terrifying. It is, isn't it? And talk a little bit about ultra-processed food within this, because I think that's one of the things that we've touched on on a lot of podcasts here about this sort of general growth in ultra-processed food, but we've always been talking about adults. What's been happening with children? Well, unfortunately, the numbers are a bit worse for children. So we know that over half of calories in the UK and the US come from ultra-processed foods.

It's really crept up. It's roughly about 65% for most adults now. And when we look at children, we see that it's up to 72%. And what's really quite scary is that it's the very young infant, so like under the age of 2.3 and then teens who are bringing these numbers up. So it's a really scary statistic. But it's also not hard to see why when you go to the supermarket and the children's food aisles, the shelves are stacked with these ultra-processed pre-packaged snacks and foods.

That as Rihanna said, they're marketed as being ideal for weaning, ideal for learning how to feed yourself, like contains a piece of kale, whatever. The way they're advertised actually makes them sound like they've been designed to help parents on the weaning journey with their children to create like a healthy relationship with food. but they are actually just ultra-processed foods that have been nicely packaged for convenience. We're living in a world right now where children are more used to opening a pouch or a packet of crisps than they are peeling a banana. That's where we are. And it's been really recent that this flood of ultra-process foods has arrived for children. It's been in the past five to ten years, and we absolutely

need to reverse that. And there's a lot of nuance to add to even that conversation, because if you look at the gender divide of roles in the household. If you look at the way that the workforce has changed, child care support systems, the time, you know, parents are time poor. I've got a two-year-old, a four-year-old. I'm a nutritionist and sometimes I struggle to find the time. And if I'm the educated person that struggles, how is somebody that does not have access to what is nutritionally correct doesn't have the time? They're struggling. They're trying to work all hours because women are expected now. There's a huge, huge conversation and an almost overwhelming system that's in place now

that isn't helping people make better choices. I suspect both of you have very well-trained children who are used to eating really good diet and have been through this and lots of people will be listening. And I feel it's a bit similar to the situation with my son a few years ago who'd been, you know, fed an excellent diet of ultra-processed food for a decade. And then I started to realize, actually, this food thing is. apparently is really important. And not only that, but I think I was thinking about the fact that actually, even five years ago, I wasn't really thinking about ultra-processed food. So that's

sort of been quite recently in the Zoe journey. So if someone's listening to this and say, well, that's fine, but like my children basically are used to, only these packaged food, they're used to like white bread with a piece of processed meat. That's the only thing they're willing to eat. And if I give them any of this, they're just going to starve and they won't be able to function at school, so I can't do this. Are there solutions? I think this is a good place to say that it's different with different age groups. You're totally right, Jonathan. So I think I've worked with teenagers as well and it's trickier when it's been a longer time and also when obviously teenagers have way more autonomy than children who are younger. So how do we help this change?

I think Rianan's example of starting with one thing at the time is really good, but I like to take a different approach in the home. So the way I think about it is if we could be our own health architects, right, we can't really do anything quickly about our food environment. The UK and the US both need to have massive overhaul of policy, of political will. There's a lot to do and that will take time, but let's keep doing it. In the meantime, what we do have control over is what we bring into our homes. So at a very simple level, children at some point will spend time in the home, but before school, after school, on the weekends in the evenings. So I always encourage people to make their home the best possible food environment that it can be, but that includes a healthy

relationship with food. So this does not mean that you'll catch me making my own homemade butter and banning all ultra-processed foods in my home. That is not healthy. The other side of this coin is that I've seen some influences online really create fear amongst children. You know, you will never eat that because it contains XYZ. And there's one influencer who actually gets his child involved in the videos to say why she doesn't buy. I mean, it's awful, to be honest. That is a very fast track to disordered eating.

We have to create a healthy food environment in the home, including understanding the difference between certain foods and why we eat some foods more often and why we eat some less often. This is more about adding in more good things rather than demonising the idea of any amount of bad things. Saying what feeds the belly bugs. Yes, my kids love it.

Yeah, yeah. I'll say, you know, they'll say, it's, yeah, there's such a good book. So they literally, they'll know, mommy, I'm going to have my chicken, and that's going to make me strong. My muscles are going to be strong. And then they'll, they'll, like, eat, I don't know, I'll give them some ice cream. And they'll be like, this ice cream is giving me energy and it tastes good. You know, so it's about. But they know more than maybe one or one a day or whatever, because they know it's a lot of sugar.

They know. Because you told them. You've told them that there's, for the food, the most important food is there for their belly bugs, their muscles, their growth, their happiness. children understand from a very young age what food can do for them. So, for example, my youngest does love chocolate. Like, in a way, it's hilarious because my eldest doesn't touch it. And so I was like, wow, I've really got away with that. And then the second one arrived and she was literally like, chocolate.

So she will sometimes say to me, first thing in the morning, mommy, can I have some chocolate? I'm like, darling, no, what do we need to have first? She's like, breakfast first. And she's only four, right? They do understand. If you explain it to them with love and you don't demonize food and say it's bad, They understand, but build that home environment where the majority of the food is especially at eye level. Children will open the fridge. Teenagers will see everything.

They will open cupboards. They will open drawers. What is the easiest food to find in your home? Is it nuts and seeds? Is it fresh fruit? Is it a fruit bowl? Is it yogurt? Is it eggs? Or do you have, I've seen drawers of snacks? The treat cupboards, yeah. There's always a treat drawer. It's a huge psychological thing. It's really odd. People grew up with it. Every Friday night was their takeaway night or every Saturday, these habitual habits, you have to reshape your home to combat those habitual habits. And you could try half-half, like if you've got a particularly difficult child that will only have that white bread sandwich, one side is the brown bread, one side is the white bread, this is what you're getting today, this is what I've made, just look at the white side

when you eat it. And do you know what, it's going to take a little bit of tough love, but equally like you say, if there's nothing to grab, that chocolate bar they always have isn't in the drawer and it's replaced with a healthier, well, still high in sugar, but cereal bar version, that's one switch that you've made, they will then start eating, because you've brought it. My personal experience has been, it's this understanding about their microbiome that has been by far the most transformational, and that's true, you know, for both my kids, also my son is very grown up, he's, you know, he really controls what his diet is, he's got much more interested in his own physique, he's now bigger than me, like he's going to the gym, and so I think he is

now much more interested in food as a way that it supports him getting stronger and all the rest of it. What's interesting is that, you know, both he and my little girl have really brought into this idea that I need to eat this food that is for my good bucks. And I think that is something that is totally different from the way that I thought about food as a child because it has this idea that it's like, it's not just like what my parents are bothering me about. It's this idea. I've got all of these like little things inside me and it's a bit like having a dog or something, right? like, I've got to feed it. That's been by far the sort of strongest argument for eating things that sort of matches up and that they seem to buy into rather than just as yet another thing

where your parents are forcing you to do something and you just want to resist. And I think that when we think about meal times, Jonathan, so creating that space to share a family meal, I know that now it's much rarer. So when we look at research of how often people share family meals, it's like slightly falling off a cliff. I can't do it during the week. You know, there's no way with my husband's job, my job and my family dynamic, we can do it in the week. So we have to, we make a time on the weekends. So it's nice to create that time. If it's once a week, that's still better than nothing. But in that family meal setting, giving children the choice to pick what they want to put on their plate. So actually just saying, like, here's some vegetables, here's some

chicken or some whatever meat you're having or fish. So my household is a big salmon household. They love salmon. My kids, so do I. So put it out and let them serve themselves and just see what happens because quite often what they do is dictated by us you're wearing this you're going to school you're seeing this friend today this is you know they don't have much choice in life and so often their want for independence comes through their choices with their food you know i work with people and they'll say my child would never eat broccoli or they would never eat sweet corn or i've never seen them eat a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce before but then you put them in a setting where they're sharing a meal with their friends they've got a choice of what to

eat and they have a variety of foods to choose from and they're eating everything and you can pin them up right like pizzas if you put them on the table you can add extra toppings to a pizza oh creating food together is wonderful that's like a next layer yeah i think if you've listed chocolate as a good example but crisps or potato chips or you know however you address it you cannot say to a child we're just not going to have those again you know some the psychology like you said of those particular items but there are lesser of two evils in those camps when you look at the ingredient lists on the back. And actually you should say, right, well, we're going to have this particular brand, your favorite one, maybe once every week, instead of having it in the house

every day. So you don't need to go cold turkey and be like, I'm never going to have this in the house ever again. Just be strategic. It's the weekend. You can have this. But actually, for the rest of the week, this isn't going to be in our cupboards now this week. This is the option instead. And slowly, you are the, I think it's really empowering parents and giving them confidence, you know, really holding their hand and just saying like you just said, put it down on the table. Yeah. They will come back because they will be hungry.

I mean, our job is to provide the best food environment we can and their job is to exercise their freedom to choose what to eat. But if we're creating a healthy food environment, then the choices they have are healthier, as simple as that. Thank you for listening to today's recap episode. I want to take 30 seconds to talk about something that's not talked about enough. Menopause.

Over half the people on the planet experience perimenopause and menopause. Yet symptoms are often misunderstood or dismissed. At Zoe, we're moving menopause research forward. We recently conducted the largest study of menopause and nutrition in the world, and our study showed that two-thirds of perimenopause and women reported experiencing over 12 symptoms.

Symptoms like weight gain, memory problems and fatigue. The good news is, the results also show that changing our food habits may reduce the chance of having a particular menopause symptom by up to 37% for some women. We know how important it is for you to be able to take control of your own health journey. So we've created the menoscale calculator to help you score the frequency and impact of your menopause symptoms. Go to zoe.com slash menoscale to get your score.

The calculator is free and only take you. takes a couple of minutes. And by the way, we've spoken about perimenopause and menopause many times since starting the Zoe Science and Nutrition podcast. To find these episodes, simply search Zoe Menopause in your favourite podcast player.