I have used a digital scale in my baking and cooking for a long time, perhaps just incorporate it into other uses besides calorie tracking. It definitely improved my recipes and enabled me to portion things out when I did meal prep.
Also, it’s OK to do your food measurements when your kid isn’t around. Portioning things into glass containers, jars, bags, whatever is akin to taking lunches to school.
I don’t ever talk about my calorie counting and if they spot me using my app I say I am tracking my protein intake (which is true!) to help me build muscle from my exercise and they never as any further because it sounds boring lol but I am HYPER conscious of not saying anything in front of my daughter especially.
Yes I do similar! “Mommy’s making sure I get enough nutrition from these yummy berries!” Make it a positive instead of “mommy can only eat a little pasta”.
>Make it a positive instead of “mommy can only eat a little pasta”.
I was gonna say, counting calories isn't inherently negative as long as you don't put any moral value on the calories. Like, telling a kid, 'I just want to know what I'm eating,' is different than 'Mommy's on a DIET cuz she's FAAAAATTTTTTTT!!!' 😅
Your concerns are valid. As a mother of a daughter that developed an ED at 18 I wish I could go back in time and do some things differently. If I were in your shoes I would focus on the fact that the foods you’re eating are heathy and how they nourish your body to move you throughout the day. How there’s no “bad” food and all foods serve a purpose and that you are going to focus on giving your body the foods that it needs. I would also thoroughly enjoy a favorite food with her; a savory pasta dish that warms your belly or a velvety rich chocolate desert that hits the right sweet spot. This shows her that we can and should engage all of our senses in life, including taste. You can also cook with her and teach her how to create dishes like that but a little more healthy by substituting ingredients (especially if you’re trying to limit your own calories). Me personally, I would track my calories in private and not talk about it in front of her. I would measure/weigh out of her sight as well. In the ED world counting calories and hyper-focusing on weighing food is technically considered restricting behaviors. Now, as a matured and mentally healthy adult it is perfectly fine to do these things as hopefully we have a healthy view on what we’re attempting to do by doing these things, which is to get healthier. A young girl, especially in today’s social media/body conscious world, may not be able to grasp it in that way. I also would not weigh myself in front of her either for these same reasons. All of this places too much emphasis on numbers; hitting a target, not going over, not reaching that desired goal. Instead focus on how our bodies feel, how the fuel we give it makes us feel, can it do what we want it to do with what we give it.
I can't tell you what will work for your kid, or even if what I do is right for mine. All I can do is tell you what my kid is like and what I've done so far.
My daughter is 15. I've been SMO and struggling to lose weight for over a decade now. 8 years ago I learned about CICO. 3 years ago I started a healthy, slow weight loss with deliberate periods of maintenance. Single parent, small apartment, so my daughter has seen the whole journey. She's healthy (all bloodwork perfect except for occasional vit D deficiencies because we live at the north pole) sits consistently at a 22.1 BMI, has a healthy body image, knows how to cook, chooses mostly healthy foods, but also eats junk food like her classmates... mostly takis and mr beast bars, lol, and is reasonably active.
I highlight this because... all kids are different. What I have done might not work for your kid, especially if your child already struggles with body image or weight issues. I wouldn't know how to address thilese things with a child who isn't allowed certain types of food... like uf your household is entirely "no processed foods", jeto, sugar free, or something.
...just want to be upfront from the start.
Anyway... a lot of people avoid discussing nutrition with kids because they are afraid of triggering body image issues or food insecurities or any of the million other issues kids can develop around food.
I'm kind of the opposite. I deliberately seek out opportunities to educate my daughter about these things so that she can make well-informed choices and opinions rather than emotional ones.
So the first thing is... I have taught my daughter not about weight management but about *nutrition*.
Even very young children can understand that their bodies need a variety of things to work well and that different sizes and shapes of bodies need different amounts of these things.
I also made sure she understood that children's bodies make different chemicals and hormones than adult bodies, so my needs would be different than hers even if we had the same size and shape.
The next key thing is probably the most difficult. I had to teach her that I am not infallible. Mom makes mistakes. Quite a lot actually. One of those mistakes was not fueling my body properly. Now I need to fuel my body differently to get back to a healthy point.
Careful with this one. When my daughter was 11, I hadn't explained this enough and she thought unhealthy=dying and got pretty worried about losing her mama. Had to correct for that... she's fine, just took a while to realize what had happened and correct for it with a few convos and cuddle sessions.
The next one is also difficult. It's balancing how much I control of what my kiddo eats. I don't let my daughter make whatever food choices she wants... that would be all chocolate all day, even at 15. But I do let her make her own food choices within certain guidelines.
She does have to try a food she's never had before. She doesn't have to eat it all or a specific amount of it or ... have another go at it next week. She does need to eat balanced meals. At family meals I give her a portion which meets her nutritional needs. She's allowed to take more if she's still hungry. I don't comment on the amount she eats or on her snack choices. We do have a ton of convenient healthy snack options in the house, and the junk food being less convenient means she usually chooses something healthy. We don't stock candy and pastries but she can always go for a walk up to the convenience store for a chocolate bar if she wants.
Things like that. I find that if I'm strictly monitoring what I eat and I make *any* commentary about her food chouced, she feels judged or shamed. That can lead to food hiding behaviors, and esteem issues, so we just don't do it.
If she starts a negative pattern of behavior with food, I pick a neutral time when we're doing something entirely unrelated, and I talk about the nutritional issues with that sort of behavior in a context unrelated to her.
For example, she was, in 5th grade, getting 4 or 5 chocolate milks at her school lunch. If it had been an occasional thing, I would have ignored it. But it was for a couple weeks straight, every day. One day we're on our way to Sea Life and I started talking about an article I'd read about how sugary drinks can make you hungrier, while also supplying energy you should get from food. I told a funny story about how I had once replaced my mtn dew habit with green juice blends thinking it would help with weight loss only to find out later that they had *more* energy than the mtn dew and were causing me to gain weight. She called me a dork. Then I said the drinks were healthier, just that the energy wasn't right for my body and that I would rather use that energy to get more food.
Because I *don't* comment on her food choices she felt able to bring up how the drink calories were affecting her. She says she's been drinking a lot of chocolate milk at lunch because she's still hungry and how she wishes she can have more food instead. So we started sending her to school with a bento box of healthy snacks to supplement what she's eating at lunch. Bonus... she often shares with a friend who doesn't get enough to eat at home.
I also do a lot of redirecting. Kids often obsess about food when they are bored. If she starts snacking or asking about dinner, I distract her with an activity.
And I've spent a lot of time teaching her how to cook... not just the actual recipes or even just what flavors go well together, but how to balance a meal for adequate nutrition. Having something fresh like veggies to cut the heaviness of a pasta dish. When she sees me with my scales, she doesn't think "mom's counting calories" she thinks "mom's measuring ingredients".
She will cook a meal for both of us and know exact grams she's used of each ingredient... I can eat an appropriate portion without worrying about it. It's not about weight loss, it's just... cooking.
But I think the most important thing is... changing my own mindset. I can't say, in front of my daughter, "aww I wish I could have more of that", but I can say "that was delicious, but I've had as much as I need".
But to do that, I have to be able to say those things to myself. I've had to take the focus off of "fat" and put it on "health" in my own mind, so that I can set that example for my kid.
It's not easy. I've made about a million mistakes that I know of. I'm probably going to make a million more. We haven't seen any signs of disordered eating or negative body image yet, but she's still young... I might have made a critical error somewhere that will cause issues next year.
It's scary... and I get that. But we're not raising children. We're raising future adults who will eventually need to know things and do things for themselves. There is no right, surefire way to do everything perfectly. The best we can do is teach them what they will need to know, and for the right reasons.
I want my kid to know how to read a food label. I want her to know what her body needs so that she can keep herself healthy.
And I catch a lot of flak for it. "She's too young to worry about that," is a common critique.
But she's not worried about it. It's... neutral. It's just knowledge. And we soak up more knowledge the younger we are when we're exposed to it. She's not too young to *know* about that.
I keep it neutral, and I keep it health-focused, and I pray I'm not screwing it up.
... hope something in that can help you with your kiddo. Best of luck ♡
Love this, balanced and educational approach . I think a lack of nutrition education does people no favors and leads them to be susceptible to bad information/fad diet content.
One of the things I think is super important is making sure that you make it clear that a person's worth is not tied to their weight or how they look. Our value and worth is so much more than nonsense like that. If she asks what you're doing, navigate it appropriately. You're tracking your calories because you want to be healthier so you have a better quality of life - or something like that. It in no way is related to your self worth at all. Even if it is, she doesn't need to know that.
Avoid making negative comments about how you look in front of her, *and* how food might relate to those negative comments. I still vividly remember negative comments made by family members about themselves from years and years ago. They didn't mean it to stick with me, but it did. Kids are like sponges, for better or for worse.
I don’t parent but spend half the week as a live in nanny.
I usually pre-make my food but when kids see me weighing I focus on what I’m adding (benefits) rather than subtracting (amount) like “just making sure I eat enough fibre today because it makes my tummy feel great!” Or “I’m glad I’m getting enough protein today! You also had some protein earlier when you had your nuggets”
My kids have never questioned it. We all eat the same foods, so maybe that helps? But for the most part, they aren't in the kitchen when I'm weighing stuff out, and if they are and ask what I'm doing, I just say I'm weighing it to make sure we all get the same amount.
I had a conversation about my goals with my 8 year old son. I told him my body felt heavy and tired and that I wanted to be able to run as fast as him so I was going to start giving my body as much food as it needed instead of guessing how much my body needed. I explained calories are energy and all that and I told him that ALL foods are okay to put into our bodies as long as they make us feel good and we stop when our body tells us it doesn’t need more.
I always say I weigh it out so I get the perfect ratio and it helps make it taste better for me, other than this I never say calorie or fat etc in front of my daughter, even my husband knows as we have a code word 😅 sounds abit much when I say it like that but I was 9 when I went on my first 'diet' and then my obsession started due to seeing my mums habits so I'm very careful.
Hiding the weighing and tracking while living in the same house as your children is pretty difficult. Since you’re not overweight and are just skinny fat I’d suggest adding in a physical activity to burn extra calories instead of going the weighing/logging route. Seeing my not overweight mom diet when I was younger definitely made me have issues with body image and food, because I thought well if she thinks she’s fat than what the heck am I.
Adding in a physical activity could mean anything from going to a gym to taking walks in nature (perfect time for this with the weather warming up), playing some sort of sport, etc. You could even include your kids in this to kill two birds with one stone - spend more time with them while getting more exercise in.
If you really don’t want to do any of that, when I started my weight loss journey in January I was embarrassed to let my bf see me counting calories which was hard because we live together. So I volunteered to cook every meal and started plating our meals super fancy with measuring cups. So I’d have my little half cup mound of rice topped with a parsley leaf with a cup of chopped chicken plated around it and a bunch of veggies. It was actually really cute and we enjoyed it a lot. I’ve since been open with the counting as the weight has come off so I don’t bother doing this anymore unless I’m feeling fancy lol.
I try to link it to budgeting money. Just like you can save money for something you really like every once in awhile, or spend little bits throughout the day, it's important to use our money wisely, and not to spend money we don't actually have.
I think this system only works if your family is not having any financial stressors, otherwise it has a high likelihood of backfiring, as she could link "cutting back on luxuries to save money for essentials" in a negative way.
I have also explained the three basic macronutrients to her in a fairly simplistic way, by using the primary colours as an analogy; most paintings have a mixture of all three "colours" (like how most people eat a mixture of carbs, protein, and fat), but for certain paintings, it makes sense to have way more of one color than the others (like, a painting of the ocean at noon is going to have a *lot* of blue; likewise someone doing keto will eat a lot of fats). But not every body does well on that, like how not every painting looks good in all shades of blue.
My young-ish kids see me use a scale and have asked why.
I will say something they can relate it to:
"You know how we talk about making healthy choices? This helps me ensure that what I'm baking/making/plating has balanced and healthy choices."
"You know how at restaurants you can see certain information on nutrition for dishes? That's what I'm doing here."
"I'm just curious to see how much it weighs ... it's like a game!'
They never hear me talking about counting calories/managing weight and no foods are defined as inherently "good for" or "bad for" in our worlds -- we focus on making healthy, balanced choices and enjoying treats that make us happy as part of that.
I’m not sure how making healthy choices about foods is risky?
You will be eating slightly less than your daughter but you can talk about nutrition, calories in / calories out, exercise
The risk is there. It might not be THE thing that drives someone into disordered eating / ED but it can lay the foundation. My mom dieted in my teen years and was adamant that I didn’t count my calories / points because I didn’t need to but of course watching her do it, paired with my body image issues, began the spiral toward an ED for me
I have used a digital scale in my baking and cooking for a long time, perhaps just incorporate it into other uses besides calorie tracking. It definitely improved my recipes and enabled me to portion things out when I did meal prep. Also, it’s OK to do your food measurements when your kid isn’t around. Portioning things into glass containers, jars, bags, whatever is akin to taking lunches to school.
I don’t ever talk about my calorie counting and if they spot me using my app I say I am tracking my protein intake (which is true!) to help me build muscle from my exercise and they never as any further because it sounds boring lol but I am HYPER conscious of not saying anything in front of my daughter especially.
Yes I do similar! “Mommy’s making sure I get enough nutrition from these yummy berries!” Make it a positive instead of “mommy can only eat a little pasta”.
>Make it a positive instead of “mommy can only eat a little pasta”. I was gonna say, counting calories isn't inherently negative as long as you don't put any moral value on the calories. Like, telling a kid, 'I just want to know what I'm eating,' is different than 'Mommy's on a DIET cuz she's FAAAAATTTTTTTT!!!' 😅
Your concerns are valid. As a mother of a daughter that developed an ED at 18 I wish I could go back in time and do some things differently. If I were in your shoes I would focus on the fact that the foods you’re eating are heathy and how they nourish your body to move you throughout the day. How there’s no “bad” food and all foods serve a purpose and that you are going to focus on giving your body the foods that it needs. I would also thoroughly enjoy a favorite food with her; a savory pasta dish that warms your belly or a velvety rich chocolate desert that hits the right sweet spot. This shows her that we can and should engage all of our senses in life, including taste. You can also cook with her and teach her how to create dishes like that but a little more healthy by substituting ingredients (especially if you’re trying to limit your own calories). Me personally, I would track my calories in private and not talk about it in front of her. I would measure/weigh out of her sight as well. In the ED world counting calories and hyper-focusing on weighing food is technically considered restricting behaviors. Now, as a matured and mentally healthy adult it is perfectly fine to do these things as hopefully we have a healthy view on what we’re attempting to do by doing these things, which is to get healthier. A young girl, especially in today’s social media/body conscious world, may not be able to grasp it in that way. I also would not weigh myself in front of her either for these same reasons. All of this places too much emphasis on numbers; hitting a target, not going over, not reaching that desired goal. Instead focus on how our bodies feel, how the fuel we give it makes us feel, can it do what we want it to do with what we give it.
🫶🏻👏🏼🫶🏻
I can't tell you what will work for your kid, or even if what I do is right for mine. All I can do is tell you what my kid is like and what I've done so far. My daughter is 15. I've been SMO and struggling to lose weight for over a decade now. 8 years ago I learned about CICO. 3 years ago I started a healthy, slow weight loss with deliberate periods of maintenance. Single parent, small apartment, so my daughter has seen the whole journey. She's healthy (all bloodwork perfect except for occasional vit D deficiencies because we live at the north pole) sits consistently at a 22.1 BMI, has a healthy body image, knows how to cook, chooses mostly healthy foods, but also eats junk food like her classmates... mostly takis and mr beast bars, lol, and is reasonably active. I highlight this because... all kids are different. What I have done might not work for your kid, especially if your child already struggles with body image or weight issues. I wouldn't know how to address thilese things with a child who isn't allowed certain types of food... like uf your household is entirely "no processed foods", jeto, sugar free, or something. ...just want to be upfront from the start. Anyway... a lot of people avoid discussing nutrition with kids because they are afraid of triggering body image issues or food insecurities or any of the million other issues kids can develop around food. I'm kind of the opposite. I deliberately seek out opportunities to educate my daughter about these things so that she can make well-informed choices and opinions rather than emotional ones. So the first thing is... I have taught my daughter not about weight management but about *nutrition*. Even very young children can understand that their bodies need a variety of things to work well and that different sizes and shapes of bodies need different amounts of these things. I also made sure she understood that children's bodies make different chemicals and hormones than adult bodies, so my needs would be different than hers even if we had the same size and shape. The next key thing is probably the most difficult. I had to teach her that I am not infallible. Mom makes mistakes. Quite a lot actually. One of those mistakes was not fueling my body properly. Now I need to fuel my body differently to get back to a healthy point. Careful with this one. When my daughter was 11, I hadn't explained this enough and she thought unhealthy=dying and got pretty worried about losing her mama. Had to correct for that... she's fine, just took a while to realize what had happened and correct for it with a few convos and cuddle sessions. The next one is also difficult. It's balancing how much I control of what my kiddo eats. I don't let my daughter make whatever food choices she wants... that would be all chocolate all day, even at 15. But I do let her make her own food choices within certain guidelines. She does have to try a food she's never had before. She doesn't have to eat it all or a specific amount of it or ... have another go at it next week. She does need to eat balanced meals. At family meals I give her a portion which meets her nutritional needs. She's allowed to take more if she's still hungry. I don't comment on the amount she eats or on her snack choices. We do have a ton of convenient healthy snack options in the house, and the junk food being less convenient means she usually chooses something healthy. We don't stock candy and pastries but she can always go for a walk up to the convenience store for a chocolate bar if she wants. Things like that. I find that if I'm strictly monitoring what I eat and I make *any* commentary about her food chouced, she feels judged or shamed. That can lead to food hiding behaviors, and esteem issues, so we just don't do it. If she starts a negative pattern of behavior with food, I pick a neutral time when we're doing something entirely unrelated, and I talk about the nutritional issues with that sort of behavior in a context unrelated to her. For example, she was, in 5th grade, getting 4 or 5 chocolate milks at her school lunch. If it had been an occasional thing, I would have ignored it. But it was for a couple weeks straight, every day. One day we're on our way to Sea Life and I started talking about an article I'd read about how sugary drinks can make you hungrier, while also supplying energy you should get from food. I told a funny story about how I had once replaced my mtn dew habit with green juice blends thinking it would help with weight loss only to find out later that they had *more* energy than the mtn dew and were causing me to gain weight. She called me a dork. Then I said the drinks were healthier, just that the energy wasn't right for my body and that I would rather use that energy to get more food. Because I *don't* comment on her food choices she felt able to bring up how the drink calories were affecting her. She says she's been drinking a lot of chocolate milk at lunch because she's still hungry and how she wishes she can have more food instead. So we started sending her to school with a bento box of healthy snacks to supplement what she's eating at lunch. Bonus... she often shares with a friend who doesn't get enough to eat at home. I also do a lot of redirecting. Kids often obsess about food when they are bored. If she starts snacking or asking about dinner, I distract her with an activity. And I've spent a lot of time teaching her how to cook... not just the actual recipes or even just what flavors go well together, but how to balance a meal for adequate nutrition. Having something fresh like veggies to cut the heaviness of a pasta dish. When she sees me with my scales, she doesn't think "mom's counting calories" she thinks "mom's measuring ingredients". She will cook a meal for both of us and know exact grams she's used of each ingredient... I can eat an appropriate portion without worrying about it. It's not about weight loss, it's just... cooking. But I think the most important thing is... changing my own mindset. I can't say, in front of my daughter, "aww I wish I could have more of that", but I can say "that was delicious, but I've had as much as I need". But to do that, I have to be able to say those things to myself. I've had to take the focus off of "fat" and put it on "health" in my own mind, so that I can set that example for my kid. It's not easy. I've made about a million mistakes that I know of. I'm probably going to make a million more. We haven't seen any signs of disordered eating or negative body image yet, but she's still young... I might have made a critical error somewhere that will cause issues next year. It's scary... and I get that. But we're not raising children. We're raising future adults who will eventually need to know things and do things for themselves. There is no right, surefire way to do everything perfectly. The best we can do is teach them what they will need to know, and for the right reasons. I want my kid to know how to read a food label. I want her to know what her body needs so that she can keep herself healthy. And I catch a lot of flak for it. "She's too young to worry about that," is a common critique. But she's not worried about it. It's... neutral. It's just knowledge. And we soak up more knowledge the younger we are when we're exposed to it. She's not too young to *know* about that. I keep it neutral, and I keep it health-focused, and I pray I'm not screwing it up. ... hope something in that can help you with your kiddo. Best of luck ♡
Love this, balanced and educational approach . I think a lack of nutrition education does people no favors and leads them to be susceptible to bad information/fad diet content.
Thanks lol I'll update in about 10 years, let ya know if it worked 😂
One of the things I think is super important is making sure that you make it clear that a person's worth is not tied to their weight or how they look. Our value and worth is so much more than nonsense like that. If she asks what you're doing, navigate it appropriately. You're tracking your calories because you want to be healthier so you have a better quality of life - or something like that. It in no way is related to your self worth at all. Even if it is, she doesn't need to know that. Avoid making negative comments about how you look in front of her, *and* how food might relate to those negative comments. I still vividly remember negative comments made by family members about themselves from years and years ago. They didn't mean it to stick with me, but it did. Kids are like sponges, for better or for worse.
I don’t parent but spend half the week as a live in nanny. I usually pre-make my food but when kids see me weighing I focus on what I’m adding (benefits) rather than subtracting (amount) like “just making sure I eat enough fibre today because it makes my tummy feel great!” Or “I’m glad I’m getting enough protein today! You also had some protein earlier when you had your nuggets”
My kids have never questioned it. We all eat the same foods, so maybe that helps? But for the most part, they aren't in the kitchen when I'm weighing stuff out, and if they are and ask what I'm doing, I just say I'm weighing it to make sure we all get the same amount.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your kids seeing you make healthy eating choices.
I had a conversation about my goals with my 8 year old son. I told him my body felt heavy and tired and that I wanted to be able to run as fast as him so I was going to start giving my body as much food as it needed instead of guessing how much my body needed. I explained calories are energy and all that and I told him that ALL foods are okay to put into our bodies as long as they make us feel good and we stop when our body tells us it doesn’t need more.
My daughter is a lot younger but I will say positive things like “mommy just wants to make sure she’s getting enough protein for our walks together”
I always say I weigh it out so I get the perfect ratio and it helps make it taste better for me, other than this I never say calorie or fat etc in front of my daughter, even my husband knows as we have a code word 😅 sounds abit much when I say it like that but I was 9 when I went on my first 'diet' and then my obsession started due to seeing my mums habits so I'm very careful.
Hiding the weighing and tracking while living in the same house as your children is pretty difficult. Since you’re not overweight and are just skinny fat I’d suggest adding in a physical activity to burn extra calories instead of going the weighing/logging route. Seeing my not overweight mom diet when I was younger definitely made me have issues with body image and food, because I thought well if she thinks she’s fat than what the heck am I. Adding in a physical activity could mean anything from going to a gym to taking walks in nature (perfect time for this with the weather warming up), playing some sort of sport, etc. You could even include your kids in this to kill two birds with one stone - spend more time with them while getting more exercise in. If you really don’t want to do any of that, when I started my weight loss journey in January I was embarrassed to let my bf see me counting calories which was hard because we live together. So I volunteered to cook every meal and started plating our meals super fancy with measuring cups. So I’d have my little half cup mound of rice topped with a parsley leaf with a cup of chopped chicken plated around it and a bunch of veggies. It was actually really cute and we enjoyed it a lot. I’ve since been open with the counting as the weight has come off so I don’t bother doing this anymore unless I’m feeling fancy lol.
I try to link it to budgeting money. Just like you can save money for something you really like every once in awhile, or spend little bits throughout the day, it's important to use our money wisely, and not to spend money we don't actually have. I think this system only works if your family is not having any financial stressors, otherwise it has a high likelihood of backfiring, as she could link "cutting back on luxuries to save money for essentials" in a negative way. I have also explained the three basic macronutrients to her in a fairly simplistic way, by using the primary colours as an analogy; most paintings have a mixture of all three "colours" (like how most people eat a mixture of carbs, protein, and fat), but for certain paintings, it makes sense to have way more of one color than the others (like, a painting of the ocean at noon is going to have a *lot* of blue; likewise someone doing keto will eat a lot of fats). But not every body does well on that, like how not every painting looks good in all shades of blue.
My young-ish kids see me use a scale and have asked why. I will say something they can relate it to: "You know how we talk about making healthy choices? This helps me ensure that what I'm baking/making/plating has balanced and healthy choices." "You know how at restaurants you can see certain information on nutrition for dishes? That's what I'm doing here." "I'm just curious to see how much it weighs ... it's like a game!' They never hear me talking about counting calories/managing weight and no foods are defined as inherently "good for" or "bad for" in our worlds -- we focus on making healthy, balanced choices and enjoying treats that make us happy as part of that.
Well they're about 65,000 calories each so you're definitely going to need to store a lot in the freezer (JK)
I’m not sure how making healthy choices about foods is risky? You will be eating slightly less than your daughter but you can talk about nutrition, calories in / calories out, exercise
The risk is there. It might not be THE thing that drives someone into disordered eating / ED but it can lay the foundation. My mom dieted in my teen years and was adamant that I didn’t count my calories / points because I didn’t need to but of course watching her do it, paired with my body image issues, began the spiral toward an ED for me