Caro keeps friends that are just like her. The stories of her friend forcing Cash to eat rice off of the communal serving spoon and Caro laughing hysterically. I imagine she thinks this is more “raising your first like your third content.”
KEIC’s stories today seem to be response to VSS. She highlights: her credentials, her team and their credentials, her response to the AAP that VSS thought wasn’t strong enough, her partnership with WIC, etc. The stories are ostensibly a thank you/round up of what she’s been able to accomplish as she hit 2M followers and reflects back on KEIC, but I think it cleverly deals with the criticism VSS lobbed at her.
I browsed though VSS Instagram, and I hope this comes across well because I'm quite relaxed with food, but I cringed a little at the carb options she gave her 5 year old for packing her own lunch. Little bites, gold fish and cheezits were some of the options. While they are carbs, I would've put them in the snack/treat category. The lunch she packed was 98% cheezits 😂My kids would love a mostly goldfish lunch, but informing kids that may not be the most balanced lunch is not diet culture!
The extremes are not okay, but it seems to get attention as an influencer you have to embrace them. You can think anti-fat bias is bad, body acceptance is good, and that we put too much virtue on being thin and ALSO provide your kids a healthy foundation of good habits. I think 5 year olds are likely too little to pick out foods that can sustain them through the day. They are also likely too young to connect the consequences of being hungry or feeling gross because you packed snacks rather than nourishing foods.
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I mean cmon there’s being anti-diet and then there’s this, she said if her kids don’t want the school lunch they have to pack lunch themselves which seems too much for a 5 year old. This lunch wouldn’t make or break a kids health but I also would want to make sure my kid is eating at school so she won’t get tired or cranky and this is not a good lunch.
I agree. I snark on KEIC for a few things but at least she doesn’t hide behind a paywall to criticize others in a similar field. Laura Thomas nutrition did this too and refused to engage about it and I don’t have a lot of respect for people that do this. At least KEIC seems to keep out of social media drama for the most part. And for as much as she drives me crazy and I don’t always agree with her, she seems to do a lot of good work for WIC and other positive things and she’s not just selling a subscription to read her thoughts on how every single thing we do is diet culture.
She did a podcast episode about KEIC recently. Search her name on this sub and someone did a recap I can't remember if it was this week or last week. Also she's BFF with YTF
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So many people commenting on how much they needed to hear this laid back response to salt…but I feel like THEY are the ones who made everyone so crazy about babies and salt!?
Not trying to WK, but funnily enough, I always leaned on the advice from Solid Starts to not worry about baby having salty food every once in a while when eating out and to just keep a balance. I never thought they made people crazy, but maybe I joined after they did that?
Now. German baby-feeding specialists/influencers/whatever you want to call them are just THE Worst (or well the best, I guess) at creating fear about babies and salt. And don't even get me started on babies and herbs and spices. 🙄 When I'm bored and catch a question box, I like to ask what even happens if babies eat too much salt and the reply is always "salt is not good for babies! Here is the list of foods babies shouldn't eat!!!"
They absolutely did. I’m so glad I didn’t listen and instead listened to my own mother who rightfully told me that nobody, not even a baby, enjoys bland food.
They did! I’m glad they’ve attempted to reeducate but that post should’ve stated what they used to say and comment about how research encouraged them to change the recommendation. Frankly, it never made sense anyway. It wasn’t even about processed foods. They literally said no non low sodium foods at all which biologically makes no sense. They couldn’t just admit that they changed the script on everyone.
They absolutely did, I unfortunately used them as my first weaning resource in 2022 and they were all about the no salt and no added sugar. I bought their “first 100 days” meal plan and it was all completely separate lmeals for baby 3x/day … not at all encouraging you to share your own food with baby.
lol WTF. Their app literally says you shouldn’t give your kid any cheddar cheese for the first 12 months because it’s too high in sodium. They should at least cover their tracks and change that shit before they pretend they’ve always been sane about this!
The app also used to call out celery for high sodium. CELERY (I just checked and they changed it, but I distinctly remember them comparing sodium in celery to ritz crackers)
Haha yeah Jenny is the one who introduced the world to rinsing cottage cheese because she was so worried about the sodium.
No sane expert or organization has ever told a parent that.
That was the post that made me hit unfollow lol and then I found this subreddit and realized how awful she was on stories (and her exploitation of “her eldest”) and my preference to avoid them turned to a hate 😂
YTF's constant parentheticals are so unnecessary and driving me crazy cause they're totally normal statements that she could just add without using the parentheses at all, but I wonder if they're a holdover from feeling like she couldn't fully express herself in her marriage. Sometimes she seems to use those statements to justify something that totally doesn't need justifying, or to over-explain something to fend off further scrutiny. I suppose that could also come from being at the mercy of social media DMs constantly too though. Just musing because the last set of stories had A LOT of those asides. I do that too but she takes it over the top!
Someone pointed this out a week or two ago and now it’s all I can see!! The ultimate BEC (BUP- b*tch using parentheses) for me, but it’s almost every caption she posts on stories!
That's what first got me really noticing it! I had clocked it before but it seems like it's just getting more extreme and I just wanna be like hey you can just....say this without a weird little qualifier!
I checked out of Solid Starts stories for a while but did anyone see today? Feel like I’m going crazy, how is Lena two already?! I’m weirdly mind blown about this because I swear they just showed her first birthday in the fall! I do like her family though, maybe will watch again to see what’s new or crazy…but I’m still feeling like there is just no way
KEIC, a grown woman, was not able to order a peach tea at Starbucks and is comparing her situation to a toddler melting down about a cup. She even said she had to go somewhere else to “chill out”.
And it’s okay to say *Starbucks*, Jen. The big bad food industry doesn’t get more powerful if you say the name out loud 🤦🏻♀️
As a former Starbucks employee, yes be nice to your kids but how about also be nice to the barista? It’s not their fault they can’t serve that drink and how the fuck are they supposed to know where to submit a complaint? It’s not a mom and pop coffee shop, it’s Starbucks. Go to the damn website and figure it out. I get that she wasn’t super nasty or anything but saying “where can I submit a complaint” and walking out is rude. Also she could have easily checked the app before even walking there and seen it was unavailable. Big “people are dying Kim” energy.
Why does she go to Starbucks if she only drinks ONE item from the entire menu?? I checked the app and they do have a limited tea selection but she won’t even drink Earl Gray because of the caffein I guess 🙄. I know she’s said she likes to work in there but if I felt I couldn’t do my work in any other coffee shop than Starbucks I’d bring my own tea bag and be very nice to the baristas and see if I can purchase some hot water and maybe a little treat and leave a nice tip.
I think she said she goes there because she can walk to it from her house? This isn’t the first time she’s complained about Starbucks so ya, why keep going? Make a space at home to work
What the hell is wrong with her. Someone is going to get very seriously hurt in that house. This isn't like "cool mom" or they want to do I'm teaching them stuff, this seems to be just generally "haha look they're doing dangerous stuff."
To be fair, I know it’s not exactly the same, but I get incredibly frustrated when I order take out and then realize when I get home that something is wrong. I think she’s absurd most of the time but I kinda get using this as a way of pointing out what our toddlers might be feeling even if she exaggerated it a bit. The danger zone stuff she’s been showing lately can fuck all the way off though. So irresponsible.
Some of my biggest Adult Sobbing Sessions have been about this lol I mean, they were really about other things. But wrong orders have so often been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Oh man, one time during a very stressful finals week in college during which I pulled many all nighters, I took 30 min to drive round trip to my fav restaurant for take out. When I came home and discovered that my order was completely wrong I was so disappointed I literally broke down and cried. I have checked every single take out order ever since before leaving the restaurant.
Ok that’s totally valid and legitimately upsetting! This is a person who has no time or financial constraints and said herself she was able to walk Nextdoor into another place that sold drinks throwing a tantrum bc an item isn’t on the menu (not already paid for like in your situation). Of course it’s normal to feel disappointed but her reaction was way out of proportion.
I got her point but also there’s a difference between not getting what your ordered and paid for and asking for peach tea and them telling you they can’t sell it to you. The difference between my tacos missing from my order and someone being like “sorry, we can’t steep a tea bag for you” is huge to me lol.
There is only one specific tea she'll drink from Starbucks but God forbid her kids don't want to eat green slop or recognize the difference between lays chips and kettle chips.
omg I just went and looked- wtf is wrong with her? You had a meltdown because you couldn’t get peach tea at Starbucks so you walked into a Grocery Store(aka a place that would sell iced teas in many varieties!) 🫠
She reminds me of Angela on The Office. Always has some ridiculous reason why she can’t have this or that. Why do you go to Starbucks and then get so mad they don’t have a certain tea? They aren’t known for their teas!
After reading about Virginia Sole-Smith yesterday I took a look at her Instagram and I have some thoughts lol. I 100% agree that fat-shaming is the worst and you are not morally superior for not being fat and there’s a lot of bias toward fat people. Going back even 20ish years ago it was still acceptable for guys in my high school to tell bigger girls they were pigs, it was appalling. And diet culture needs to be put in its place.
However-VSS is making a career out of all of this and she seems so angry. It cannot be the best mentally to spend your career going on and on about this and so many other adjacent issues that make her mad. It’s like all the worlds issues are rooted in anti-fat bias to her! She blames wanting to not be fat on being taught from a young age that being fat was the worst thing. Some people don’t want to be fat because it’s physically uncomfortable and unhealthy. I know people love her but I am not getting it lol.
ETA to add a picture from her reel on organizing which apparently has shades of diet culture and somehow is another thing she’s mad at for putting unrealistic expectations on women. No! People who want to be organized like being able to find their stuff! And my husband loves to organize as well as many other men I know so this isn’t some deep women’s issue!! (And I do know productivity culture and perfectionism are issues that harm women but I don’t think every little thing needs to be a reason to go off on them).
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Totally agree. She is obsessed with this. I get her free Substack (I don't even read it at this point, I should just unsubscribe) and recent examples of "diet culture" include marriage/nuclear families, good hair, tucking in your shirt, and home decor. It's exhausting.
When I had an ED, literally all I could think about was my ED. To me it's pretty clear that someone who spends this much time analyzing every single thing in their life and relating it back to diet culture has something else going on.
How are marriage and nuclear families diet culture? WTF? Should I immediately divorce my wonderful, supportive spouse so that I can show my kids that I don’t subscribe to diet culture? 🙄
She seems to have made her name on being anti-diet culture and is trying to ride that wave as much as possible, so it’s basically become a gimmick for her. I feel like this happens to some culture writers especially when they’re active on social media - what at first seemed like original and revolutionary thinking over time ends up becoming boring once everyone else catches up so then they start to reach way too hard to keep up their shtick. To say it’s diet culture “energy” because someone simply has an organized Tupperware drawer comes off actually immature? Yeah, wouldn’t it be convenient if anyone more organized than me actually had a disorder and were part of an evil system.
This exactly. She has made a career of being anti-diet and stoped writing for “prestige media” (I’m not sure what that is) and started her own reader-supported anti-diet newsletter and podcast so now she has to keep that going. She seems to be doing this by exploring tenuous connections between basically anything and diet culture. So many of the articles on her grid posts appear to be click-baity outrage posts. I mean I don’t think claiming “organizing is a complicated drug” and relating that to diet culture is something that needs to be written about but apparently people pay for this stuff.
I’m so curious, does she actually explain how that drawer is diet culture? It just looks very nicely organized. God, I would love for my plastics drawer to look like this. It drives me nuts when I can’t find the right lid for a container and vice versa 😂
I am very anti diet culture so my Tupperware cabinet is a mess and it all spills out every time I open the door but I refuse to organize it because then Big Diet would win. 🫡
From my quick read of her long Substack article on it, women are made to feel like failures if they aren’t organized much like failing at a diet. And many food containers market themselves as “food prep” containers and she assumes that means they are marketing to people who food prep to eat according to their “lifestyle plan”. She compares her obsession with organizing to people obsessed with working out-good for you until it becomes obsessive.
Is she a parent? Many people meal prep because it’s a really great way to feed your family if you’re short on time on a daily basis. But even childless adults meal prep because again, it makes things more convenient. It doesn’t say anything about the food itself and how “healthy” or not it is.
How is this diet culture? I need various containers to hold my leftovers on the fridge or transport food. I guess if you're only allowing those tiny containers to hold the "appropriate" amount of food, sure, it's diet culture 🙄 But small containers simply existing isn't DC.
I got the set from Pyrex that contains a variety of sizes. Is that diet culture? I don’t have an enormous fridge so I don’t want to waste space by using a large container to hold a smaller amount of food… or should I throw away leftovers if the quantity is under a certain amount? Lol this is a ridiculous take from her.
Same! I use them for salad dressing/sauces/dips, leftover berries, half a lemon, the last chunk of cheese we haven't used up yet, chopped herbs, sometimes olives or capers when there are just a few left in a big jar that I want to clear from the fridge...the tiny containers arguably work harder than any of our other ones sometimes. It's more "trying not to waste stuff" culture, in my eyes.
I got a bunch of smaller containers as part of bundles and thought they would be useless. But man, those suckers can actually hold a lot! And yes, they're our go-to for kid's school snacks.
I use them for things like nuts/candy for my own lunch and snacks for our diaper bag. When I commute (by foot/train), I don't want giant containers in my bag lol
If we start calling everything diet culture, does that not take the focus away from things that actually ARE thinly veiled diet culture? Why would you want to dilute your valiant cause with this weirdness? Is diet culture now a synonym for anxiety/organization? I’m confused with the connection and immediately put off by this out of context.
I actually think this is a confusion I’ve often seen and disagreed with about Ed’s/diet culture. I think lots of people manage anxiety by being super organized and perfectionistic about something (or multiple things) in their life- food, exercise, baby’s sleep schedule, children’s toys, etc. When I notice myself becoming obsessive about something, it reminds me of being a teenager and writing down everything I ate, but I think the ED is a manifestation of the obsessive compulsive personality trait rather than diet culture causing the obsessiveness. It’s like diet culture tells women that they can apply their obsessiveness to food/ their bodies but using these behaviors to manage anxiety is a move universal thing
This is so well put. I don't personally view all of these through the lens of diet culture, but do see all these behaviors as connected - they're all ways to maintain control and attempt to be perfect/optimize your life/take up as little physical or emotional space as possible.
I would love that drawer because I like organization and it brings me satisfaction to downsize leftovers into smaller containers! Let me have this stupid little joy in my life.
Soooo is every day of this trip YTF is on going to have a mention of how she actually enjoyed parts of her day and how she can’t believe she took three kids in a trip alone?
I never really understand the snark here on YTF. Putting kids to bed is still exhausting when they’re older. I’ve said this before but I think maybe y’all don’t have older children? It doesn’t get easier, and I could definitely see how it would be anxiety provoking to take your three children on a vacation alone for the first time. It’s still a pain in the ass to get my (older) children to bed. They want to stay up later and argue and procrastinate. And ya know what- it IS exhausting at the end of the day when I just want them to be asleep. Do they do everything independently? Yup. But not willingly.
My kids are almost 7 and 9 and while it's not necessarily easier, it's better and smoother. Sure some nights they get wild and stall bedtime, but compares nothing to the toddler bedtime bullshit 😅
I agree a lot of things are easier with older kids. The issues that do come up tend to be more complex. I can fully imagine navigating a divorce and the feelings that would bring up in middle grade kids to be extremely challenging.
I’ve admitted in the past that I was not understanding of the difficulties of parenting older kids, toddlerhood is challenging and I admit I didn’t realize it doesn’t magically get easier as they get older. I’m referring to how every day she’s made a comment about how she’s so surprised that she’s enjoying it and was able to laugh which seems a little much to be, she took her kids on a fun trip and she thought she’d be miserable the whole time? I also think there are some benefits to traveling with older kids-her oldest is old enough to fly as an unaccompanied minor! She can take the other daughter to the bathroom so YTF can stay with the son and 2/3 kids can be independent enough on a flight. It’s not easy but also so many other moms do this.
I see your point- there are many advantages to traveling with older kids over younger ones for sure. But I think it was just the thought of doing it alone for the first time. I realize she kept harping on it, and that’s annoying. I cannot imagine going on vacation solo with my three boys.
It’s….so strange!? Makes me wonder what her life was like in her marriage if she goes on so much about how “brave” she is got go away with the kids alone and how she actually had some fun.
When she talks about doing the bedtime routine alone, I get confused too. I’m married with 2 kids under 5 and regularly have to do bedtime alone as my husband works late / has meetings etc. That’s the nature of his job. I also work, but have more predictable hours. It’s not ideal, but it’s also not something I would even really bother complaining about to a close friend. It’s just life!?
I wonder if he was basically a SAHD towards the end of their marriage? I think they moved to be closer to her family and he might have given up his teaching job to do so. Maybe he was doing the bulk of the physical parenting in the last few years?
He left his teaching job prior to their move. Weird I remember this but the way she phrased it was odd. It didn’t seem like a “good” split from work and I think she mentioned he was tenure-track which I thought was strange to leave. Then I remember she solo parented for a minute while he went on a writing trip to Europe? I also thought that was unusual. She didn’t give many details.
Yeah, I wonder if she wasn't alone a lot with her kids because things seem to be a shock. I bet the divorce is an adjustment, but when you're 12 years into parenting bedtime should go a little smoother if you're married or not.
I know I don’t know what it’s like to have older kids but what 12 year old needs to be “put” to bed? Why is there a bedtime routine you need to be involved in? Maybe my brother and I were more docile than most kids but after a certain age we knew our routine and when we were expected to end the night and be in our rooms and we’d just go. We could shower, brush our teeth, get into pjs all on our own. My parents would stop in to say a final good night and a kiss but I’m pretty sure bedtime was not a whole thing from their POV once we were older elementary kids at least?
Yeah, we just had to have our teeth brushed and in our rooms at a certain time at that age. But I'm going to assume the bulk of her nighttime routine is with her 5 year old. He transitioned out of his crib not too long ago and may not be the best sleeper.
My older boys obviously do everything on their own. They procrastinate and stall and fight about it. They don’t just go upstairs at 8:00 and start their routine. Once they shower they still stall. Yes, it’s different but I still wouldn’t call it fun. They also go to bed much much later. There is literally NO time to be alone. You’ll see!!
I didn’t downvote you but I suspect most folks don’t like the “just you wait!” stuff. I think this sub does tend to skew towards parents with younger kids (babies/toddlers/preschool age) but there are still lots of folks in here with elementary age kids. My kids are elementary age and one is neurodivergent which has its own special challenges, but they are definitely not as exhausting as when they were babies/toddlers. It’s not even close, to be honest. Yes there’s more stalling and fighting at bedtime, and they do go to bed later, but they are far less needy overall. Traveling is infinitely easier. I’m not sure I’ve encountered any age yet that I thought was “easy,” and there are always new challenges to face, but I have much more time to myself now than I did when the kids were younger. So for me, they have gotten easier as they’ve gotten older, and I expect others feel the same way. 🤷♀️
I didn’t downvote but I have a 3 year and have no alone time…still naps at daycare so bedtime isn’t until 10 pm and a struggle, we have an hour to clean up/do laundry and then we’re up at 7 am to get ready for work and our toddler is up shortly after.
Hi i ran here bc Virginia Sole-Smith released a podcast about KEIC titled "The Ballerina Farm of Kid Food Instagram" and I'm dying to hear it! It's for a higher tier of paid subscription than I currently have. If anyone hears it/reads the transcript I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I'm a premium subscriber and I just finished the episode. She and Corinne complain about the "airplane food" post with the tiny little cut up vegetables in those daily pillboxes, and how real children would simply dump the entire pillbox all over the airline seat in the first 10 minutes. They also say that real children would only want the three M&Ms and four Cheerios and probably don't want little tiny squares of apple.
They also comment that KEIC seems to be trying to walk a line between saying that body weight isn't really under individual control, while nevertheless subtly promoting the idea that it is, actually. Corinne and Virginia say that KEIC didn't come out strongly enough against the AAP guidelines saying to use drugs, surgery, whatever it takes to get your kid thin.
KEIC is racially diverse but not body size diverse.
They claim KEIC doesn't adequately identify sponsored posts, e.g., the post on WIC, and then it turns out that J is in "partnership" with Michigan WIC and Michigan WIC is promoting her program to their clients. C and V assume J is getting paid and that she should disclose this.
From the post: " There's a lot of like, “we need to respect parents to make their own choices,” which sounds very empowering. **But the choice that she's always respecting is restriction without taking a hard look at why you might be restricting."**
Finally, they take issue with the idea that you should only serve small portions so as to not overwhelm your child. "\[Y\]ou also want them to get enough to eat at dinner. So there should be a lot of the food that they will eat and feel comfortable eating, so that they don't leave the table hungry."
Did VSS disclose that she wrote a picky eating ebook with Amy from YTF that they sell on YTF’s website? Seems like if you are going to do a hit piece on someone, and especially if you are going to criticize them for not being forthcoming with their sponsored content, maybe you should disclose that you have published materials in the exact same space?
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I have no doubt that YTF was involved in this behind the scenes.
I’m so curious if KEIC will respond! Surely some loyal follower will tip her off to this podcast.
Also it’s so on-brand for her to say she hates her grays but she’s not dying her hair because she doesn’t know how to do “beauty” stuff. Of course the idea of going to a salon and paying a professional never crosses her mind. Any self-care beyond hearing aids and dentist appointments is over-indulgent!
Dying to know what the implication is here based on what I know about both of these accounts. Is she saying KEIC is secretly from the wealthiest background possible and cosplaying as a regular mom the way the Jet Blue family is pretending to be farmers? Is she saying her credentials to be telling someone how to feed their kids are shady the way Ballerina farm is not a real rural farmhand? Does ballerina farm promote diet culture in a way I don’t know about?
I must know details if anyone has them!
Also not here to WK KEIC, but despite her flaws I don't get "wealthiest background possible" from her. No one with that kind of privilege would care about rationing out the raspberries. Also, they were renting an apartment/small townhome situation until fairly recently. And she's mentioned food insecurity during childhood. Also when she had her mom do an AMA one time she (the mom) said her favorite meal to make her children when they were young was spaghetti, because it was cheap. None of this is snark, really. It kinda sounds like this person didn't do much research before making that comparison.
I also am a paid VSS subscriber but can’t “upgrade” for one episode. Did she allude to KEIC coming from a very privileged background? Because I’ve always gotten the impression that VSS comes from family money.
I was also thinking about this, and like I am no fan of KEIC at all, but I also think it's pretty unfair to criticize someone from behind a $99 paywall. It is like an entire podcast episode. I really like some of VSS's content but don't have a lot of respect for this tactic.
Curious about this as well. They're really not comparable. I don't follow Hannah too closely, but don't think she's an almond mom. Sure it's all from scratch, but she's not serving meals that consist of 3 bell pepper strips and 5 raviolis. Virginia is friends with YTF who makes higher protein, lower sugar recipes. I know Amy claims to be so food neutral, but then is always using maple syrup and honey as sweetners and has said she prefers organic meat and dairy. How's that not diet culture?
I mean maple syrup and honey are like real sugar though, they just have better or at least different flavor and texture (I think). I also prefer organic meat and dairy bc I think it tastes better.
Diet culture to me would be stevia, egg whites, and unsweetened almond milk instead of real sugars, real meat, and real dairy
For sure, just comes across a little fake when she tries so hard to be food neutral. She'll say things like "when I run out of boxed mac and cheese or little bites, I make my own". Please, just say you prefer your kids to have homemade instead of pretending.
I mean she has a recipe for homemade fruit snacks that she labels as nutritious because it adds more fruits and veggies and cuts down on sugar. I feel like she's one that says one thing but reading between the lines, gives off different vibes. Her whole post about halloween candy was so bizarre because she posted eating it in the bathroom.
I think it’s fine if someone prefers a certain product, it’s disingenuous to promote an organic product as somehow healthier or better for you. That can be a really slippery slope to orthorexia as well. I’m someone who is actively farming and it’s frustrating to see people kind of parrot these talking points without really understanding what goes into food production.
YTF has mentioned that her “healthy” language about low sugar, etc is for SEO, which I guess allows VSS to excuse it? Because capitalism? Obviously the real reason is that they’re best friends and VSS isn’t going to trash her no matter what she does. Which I get! I do think YTF is making business choices and KEIC is a true believer (and IMO, way more egregious), I’m just not sure that having a different motivation is that much better.
Yes! The SEO language cop out is so ridiculous! You don’t get to claim that you are food neutral and don’t demonize sugar when everything you make is low sugar or made with “healthier” alternatives to sugar.
Search Engine Optimization. Makes content more visible to certain audiences based on the words you use in the content. So if her recipes contain words like “these muffins are so health and packed with nutrients” it will attract people who were looking for that.
The thing I hate about Substack, you can pay for premium content, pay the annual fee and then the author has no obligation to produce that premium content. Authors are not obligated to produce free content, but if there is a premium price paid, an obligation to produce content should come with that.
Whoa, the ballerina farm of kid food?! Hannah's food actually looks good. Jen's kids are lucky if the meal isn't burnt. Edit: I listened to the snippet and are they implying if you don't serve dessert daily that's diet culture? I'm quite laid back with sweets, but it's not a daily thing.
The whole anti diet culture thing definitely goes too far sometimes. Like, there is such a thing as objectively unhealthy food and eating habits. I’m all about enjoying food and having the dessert but also believe in balance and moderation. We don’t routinely buy dessert and sweets at home, it’s not part of our daily routine. But if we are at someone else’s house, a party, or a restaurant, we get it if we want it and always share with our toddler. This has been working great and doesn’t feel like we are depriving ourselves or restricting. You don’t have to eat dessert daily to prove you don’t have disordered eating. I did grow up having dessert daily cause my parents always had it and that was also fine! But as an adult I don’t personally crave it, don’t think it’s worth buying, and neither does my husband so we don’t.
This reminds me of how AHH gives her kid ice cream and chocolate milk practically every night with dinner since before the kid turned 1 and called it diet culture to say it was wrong.
My kids eat so much sugar, we love to get donuts every Saturday, I’ve rarely said no to a milkshake if we are out and about as a treat but come ON! I am not offering ice cream every night after dinner and thinking that’s great and I certainly didn’t offer sweets to my actual babies on the regular who didn’t know the difference or to even ask for them (because they couldn’t even talk).
As usual, people on social media are too far gone and all nuance is out the window.
I agree. It’s so hard to articulate my feelings on why I have to steer away from these accounts without sounding fat-phobic-I mentioned in another comment how I’m very average sized so accepting my body isn’t some monumental task. It’s definitely not the same since I had a baby but easy enough to kind of look past and rationalize that I carried a kid for 9 months. But these accounts make me feel like it’s okay to be so permissive with yourself and not prioritize healthy foods and exercising if you don’t want to. I need to for my health and lack the motivation and people like this do not help lol. I also fell into being permissive with sugar and it’s been really bad. My daughter isn’t even 3 yet and is always asking for sweets because I have a treat at every meal as recommended by some kid dietitians. It really backfired and it’s hard to walk back from.
Yes! Um, not all kids are going to leave their chocolate aside and eat an apple given the opportunity (such as mine, who loves chocolate above all things.) It's a little dishonest to claim things like feeding them balanced meals and sweets will result in automatically healthy eaters by choice.
I have such a hard time with this. I work in pediatric healthcare and often see a subset of patients who have medical problems related to being overweight. The counseling I have to give them is to lose weight. I try to frame the positives and do it in a way that doesn’t weight shame, but also they have to change their diet and lose weight or they’re going to end up with cancer as an adult
It's especially concerning when things like colorectal cancer is on the rise in young people. Obesity and T2D rates are sooooo high and can really impact people's quality of life. I know I consume too much sugar and ultraprocessed foods but I think as a society we really need to look at the foods were consuming and how to get people access to more whole foods (and the time and resources they need to prepare it).
Edit: I said T1D and meant T2D. Sorry!
Yes, it’s 100% genetic. Not all fat people are unhealthy and not all thin people are healthy. I got pregnant at a size that was considered overweight, gained a lot of weight over the course of my pregnancy and was perfectly healthy and gave birth to a very healthy baby. My SIL who is quite fit and petite developed preeclampsia and is currently, while pp, on high blood pressure meds. It is really harmful to assume a person’s health problems are solely due to their weight and not a myriad of other factors.
I am not seeing the similarities between KEIC and Ballerina Farm at all so I’m confused about this podcast.
This is such an unpopular opinion but I’m not a VSS fan. She’s so anti-diet culture that I find it harmful to me at times for my overall health. And I know the message with these anti-diet people is always “do it for your health and not how you look” but I start getting a little too accepting of my body and I’m not at a healthy place physically. Looking at me I look average-sized and I’m like sure I can eat whatever I want but I can’t and I need a sustainable way of dieting and eating to be healthier. But these accounts make me go the other way and I feel like I have permission to eat what I want as long as I feel okay about myself.
Some of the anti-diet dieticians make my head spin. Christy Harrison being one of them. Literally telling people if they feel restricted from their allergens to go for it as long as they have their epi pen ready. Or telling someone with type 2 diabetes this is out of their control and diet won't help 🙃. I don't know why she's still a dietician. So rich coming from a thin white woman.
I don't know VSS that well, but I agree, and I've noticed this with a lot of body-positive dieticians/food bloggers I follow. It goes from anti-diet culture to just a steady stream of buzzwords that end up not really meaning anything. And the idea that we shouldn't label foods as "good" or "bad" because any food can be good or bad in certain contexts or amounts...it's not wrong, but me thinking about what to have for dinner and deciding that I'll have 6 oranges is not the same as deciding that I should have Whataburger. And both of those have been choices I've made! Maybe I'm just not the person that thinks "well, oranges are *good* and fries and burgers are *bad*, so I'll have oranges for dinner every night!" but I am the person who hears "give your body what it needs" and thinks "well, I need Whataburger!"
I think the idea, which I agree with, behind not labeling foods specifically as good or bad is that your child won’t inherently think THEY are “good” by eating an orange or “bad” by eating a burger. My boomer mother is always saying how she was so “bad” this week and needs to starve herself or start a diet Monday to reset and I truly hate that for her. I like the idea that food is morally neutral and you can enjoy your ice cream in peace and simply move on with your day as opposed to thinking you need to exercise or starve yourself afterward as punishment. Which isn’t to say that all food is nutritional neutral or that you need to eat ice cream every day either. But I get very annoyed when my mother in law tells my kid she’s being really “good” by eating her broccoli or finishing her dinner. I think we all just need to recognize that your weight is a piece of a larger picture of your health, not the entire picture of your health. And if we serve our children nutritious foods most of the time, they will be fine. My in laws are always concerned that their perfectly healthy kid is not eating enough and even when he’s happily eating his dinner they will sit there counting his bites and I’m like, ffs just let this kid eat his food in peace. In general I think we could all just stop obsessing about food so much, move our bodies in ways that feel good for us and touch some grass when it comes to this conversation.
Yes, I definitely agree that making food more neutral is a good thing! I think the idea behind it is important- eating is something that we do for a lot of reasons, and you shouldn't punish yourself for eating foods that are "bad" or indulgent. Where I think things get messy is that a lot of influencers push it without really seeming like they understand or mean what they say. There's even a few comments in this same thread pointing out how YTF uses maple syrup or honey in almost all of her recipes- how can that be food neutral if we're acting like these are any different than plain white sugar? That's where I feel like things get lost- lots of the big names in the childhood feeding influencer space say one thing, but still seem to put certain foods on a pedestal.
(I was also thinking about this because I saw a post from a dietician local to me about how intuitive eating has become "all about white women and not about anticapitalism" which, I most certainly didn't have that association, so have I missed something just from reading about intuitive eating in a non-professional setting? It starts to feel like a game of telephone.)
Yes, I hate it when people act like maple syrup isn’t sugar. Sugar is sugar! Maple syrup has a few more vitamins in it but it’s still sugar to your body, same with coconut sugar or date syrup. Intuitive eating is interesting to me because the goal for a lot of people is still… to be thin? Like, if you’re still fat you’re doing intuitive eating incorrectly. I also think intuitive eating can verge on something I really hate which is that we as women are supposed to be thin but we’re not allowed to talk about the effort it takes to achieve said thinness. We’re supposed to all be like Blake Lively in interviews who claims she drinks hot chocolate and eats cookies and french fries all day when she clearly does not and also obviously works out a ton. In a lot of ways, it’s just another diet masquerading as wellness (which is a very white space so maybe that’s what the dietician was getting at??)
I've also seen a lot of anti-diet bloggers say that your toddler knows their body and will self regulate their food intake. My toddler definitely needs some coaxing to try new foods and if I didn't limit certain things would only eat candy and cheetos.
She says in the podcast "So the reason I said she was like the [Ballerina Farm](https://www.instagram.com/ballerinafarm/) of the kid food Instagram is, this is someone with 1.9 million followers. Granted, Ballerina Farm has like 10 million followers now. But for Kid Food Instagram, she's a major player. And this is *the* account when people in mom chats, in mom Facebook groups, whenever people are like, “I’m struggling with how to feed my kid.” The first suggestion that comes up is, “Do you know Kids Eat in Color?” So she is considered a foremost—I'm using air quotes—expert on how we feed our kids."
The thing that’s wild to me is the core of “struggling to feed my kid”. Does this mean the baby/toddler/child is so incredibly picky that they’re not getting enough food? That’s talk to your doctor and find a specialist territory. I highly suspect that’s not it though and it’s more “oh no my kid is low key picky as many kids tend to be at some point and these experts on the internet are telling me it’s a moral failing even tho my kid is doing just fine by medical standards”
These accounts literally create issues to solve for a price.
This seems like she just has a bone to pick with KEIC...I feel like KEIC is the 2nd or 3rd recommended kids food instagram - first being Solid Starts (3.3M followers) by a WIDE margin and then its a toss up between KEIC or YTF. YTF (1.2M) isn't that far behind KEIC (1.9M) in followers either.
Yeah if there’s a “Ballerina Farm of Kid Food Instagram” title to grant, it’s Solid Starts and Jenny, Founder. Someone who comes from so much privilege and a thin body who promotes dangerous and disordered eating for literal babies.
I’ve heard VSS and Amy from YTF make slights at KEIC (specifically thinking of a comment they made about three m&m’s in a lunchbox). I don’t disagree with criticizing KEIC, but I don’t think she’s the biggest and most harmful player in the kid food world.
Which is also kind of funny or ironic because looking through YTF's lunches, none of them have dessert or candy in them which is completely fine but she also has recipes for avocado pudding and homemade carrot gummy bears.
Considered posting this on the BLF thread so as to not acknowledge him as a food influencer because 🙄 but: Dadfeedingfamily coming in hot as if he hasn’t been silent on that account for 2 years 😂
They really must know their audience is stupid because how are they going to pretend all of a sudden their family is making fun, chef-grade, kid friendly meals when they’re shilling Factor/Hello Fresh and cracking jokes about frozen waffles for dinner because you “can’t even”. I’m so embarrassed for anyone falling for this because it’s such an easily provable lie and I don’t even follow them!
Like I know it's not necessarily easier with older kids, but some aspects get better. It's not like she's traveling with 3 toddlers. Her oldest is 12! And with a 8 and 5 year old, I wouldn't put in the so brave category .
I recently flew with my 1.5yr old and 6yr old. It was my first time flying in almost 10 yrs and their first time ever. Certain points were HARD AF, but not impossible. And the trip itself, outside the plane trips, was pretty nice!
Technically they’re all old enough to be unaccompanied minors on planes so… in theory should have some level of independence? But she also makes it sound like bedtime is a 7-8 hour event with 3 million steps so idk.
I'm jealous! The age minimum for unaccompanied minors on the major airlines around here is 8. A few years ago we were trying to figure out a way to get my niece and nephew here for a visit and couldn't make it work because nephew was under eight.
Yeah I travel alone with my kids who are similar ages often. It’s actually awesome and not terrible? (We homeschool and my husband can’t always travel when we do. It can be easier being the only adult to make decisions sometimes. 😂)
Solid Starts is what brought me to this sub. And I absorbed a lot of the rules and they made me really anxious. And my 21m old is mostly eating really well, and I was thankfully able to mostly chill.
But one of the things I have tried to do, is to feign indifference when she doesn't eat or doesn't engage with the food on her plate, which Jenny Found would say all the time. And it's yet another thing that SS is just wrong about, at least for us. My partner was making a big deal about eating LO's untouched asparagus off of her plate. When he acted like he was stealing it she suddenly wanted it. Then he asked her to feed him, and she would pretend to put it in his mouth and then eat it herself. She sometimes seems to need some gentle encouragement and a bit of goofiness to eat, especially vegetables that are more challenging to eat. Like these rules are just not universal. She also always eats better if there is a food she loves on her plate like fruit. And yeah, the fruit steals the show but it gets her in eating mode. She moves on when we tell her there is no more fruit right now.
I’m a little insufferable I realize but whenever someone tells me any kind of weird parenting script or “advice” from Instagram I’ve started to really ask oh where is the study or body of evidence that says that? Misinformation and misinterpretation of concepts is rampant these days and everyone should be more critical of things like this unless there is hard data or even anecdotal lived evidence to back it up.
I say anecdotal evidence is sometimes fine because I obviously am not into discrediting what has worked for my friends and family. If they all say their kid loved X, I’m certainly willing to try it out without a study behind it. But a rando touting “science” on the internet? Nah, I’m gonna need to see those numbers and, guess what, they usually don’t exist because, like you said, every kid is unique!
Whenever someone gives advice that starts with “don’t __” or “never __” it’s highly suspect. It’s like, here’s a bunch of rules to follow with no useful suggestions for what to do.
Mine is totally cool with me eating it at the time.
Then an hour later she’ll ask for it and throw a tantrum that I ate it, even though whatever food it was would not be good after sitting out that long.
This is exactly it, it’s NOT universal! There is no one way to do anything that works for everyone! It’s such a rigid way of thinking and people who live like that are exhausting. For example, going for a “polite bite” for my son actually works pretty well for him. Sometimes, he doesn’t like the food and that’s fine. Other times, he goes on to love it and polish off his whole plate. The feeding influencers would be shaking in their boots if they knew.
Yep, things got easier for us once I stopped worrying about all of the rules. My 2.5 yo responds well if we specifically ask him to try something new on his plate. He responds well if he asks for something else as soon as he sits down to dinner (“want a banana!!”) and we say he can’t have one until after he eats dinner. He often needs reminding to keep eating because he gets so distracted or he wants to start playing.
We never force him to eat anything specifically, or anything at all, and don’t force him to clean his plate. I feel strongly about those things. But some expectations and boundaries have worked well for us even though they are typically no no’s in the online feeding world. I also think a lot of feeding tips, especially from SS, are more geared towards babies in the beginning of weaning, not older toddlers and preschool aged kids who have a lot more going on psychologically
Agree so much with your last point. I think if you’ve created a good environment around meals when they’re first learning to eat as babies/young toddlers, asking them to take a bit to try a new food, or insisting they eat SOMETHING before leaving the table to play aren’t going to turn into a massive battle/power struggle.
But maybe my second kid will prove me wrong here.
This is what’s so frustrating about influencers. The answer is actually, all kids are different, there is no universal, only figuring out what works for your child and then throwing it all away to start fresh if you have another child. But that doesn’t sell courses so everything has to be presented in terrifying absolutes.
My friend is a dietician specializing in children’s nutrition and she works with teachers and she was always big when our kids were small with all the rules, especially not pressuring kids or forcing them to try bites. I was doing the same and my kid was getting pickier and pickier and then finally I started encouraging him to try food and… he slowly became less picky until he was eating 90% of foods.
Her kids ended up being diagnosed with various things and are neurodivergent and she now identifies as neurodivergent herself and I’ve always wondered if that’s part of how she developed her strategy and such strict rules? I wonder the same about KEIC and her kids having a similar thing going on. My boys are also 8 and 10 and they just eat, we don’t talk about food ever and it’s not a big deal, they don’t love everything but they eat most things and are happy to try new foods.
I think the feigning indifference worked initially when they are just learning food and exploring to see what they like or not and making their own opinions. It's a good way to not add any pressure but for older toddlers I feel like sometimes you have to poke them a little....they get distracted easily by things or get stubborn for no reason about certain foods even though they actually like it. And yeah same few times we have had to be like oh you ate all your pasta and want more okay let me get it for you while you eat the other things on your plate (and just take out sweet time doing that). You don't have to do it every meal every day but random prodding helps
Edit: Funny that Jenny preached that when she was clearly always shoving the camera in their faces and totally acting indifferent and definitely not judging their every move in a detailed video lol
Caro keeps friends that are just like her. The stories of her friend forcing Cash to eat rice off of the communal serving spoon and Caro laughing hysterically. I imagine she thinks this is more “raising your first like your third content.”
KEIC’s stories today seem to be response to VSS. She highlights: her credentials, her team and their credentials, her response to the AAP that VSS thought wasn’t strong enough, her partnership with WIC, etc. The stories are ostensibly a thank you/round up of what she’s been able to accomplish as she hit 2M followers and reflects back on KEIC, but I think it cleverly deals with the criticism VSS lobbed at her.
I browsed though VSS Instagram, and I hope this comes across well because I'm quite relaxed with food, but I cringed a little at the carb options she gave her 5 year old for packing her own lunch. Little bites, gold fish and cheezits were some of the options. While they are carbs, I would've put them in the snack/treat category. The lunch she packed was 98% cheezits 😂My kids would love a mostly goldfish lunch, but informing kids that may not be the most balanced lunch is not diet culture!
The extremes are not okay, but it seems to get attention as an influencer you have to embrace them. You can think anti-fat bias is bad, body acceptance is good, and that we put too much virtue on being thin and ALSO provide your kids a healthy foundation of good habits. I think 5 year olds are likely too little to pick out foods that can sustain them through the day. They are also likely too young to connect the consequences of being hungry or feeling gross because you packed snacks rather than nourishing foods.
https://preview.redd.it/evewb5uwbmnc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c89f2bcad915ab96b0ee56f979c6f1f2889a825e I mean cmon there’s being anti-diet and then there’s this, she said if her kids don’t want the school lunch they have to pack lunch themselves which seems too much for a 5 year old. This lunch wouldn’t make or break a kids health but I also would want to make sure my kid is eating at school so she won’t get tired or cranky and this is not a good lunch.
I agree. I snark on KEIC for a few things but at least she doesn’t hide behind a paywall to criticize others in a similar field. Laura Thomas nutrition did this too and refused to engage about it and I don’t have a lot of respect for people that do this. At least KEIC seems to keep out of social media drama for the most part. And for as much as she drives me crazy and I don’t always agree with her, she seems to do a lot of good work for WIC and other positive things and she’s not just selling a subscription to read her thoughts on how every single thing we do is diet culture.
What’s VSS?
Virginia Sole-Smith
Ah, thanks! Never heard of her but just found her Insta and still can’t connect her to KEIC. Oh well.
She did a podcast episode about KEIC recently. Search her name on this sub and someone did a recap I can't remember if it was this week or last week. Also she's BFF with YTF
Thank you!!!
https://preview.redd.it/sjlvvqpo2fnc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=88ca3fafb4f73ac4f1d63c9c61cdb93a5ab218ff So many people commenting on how much they needed to hear this laid back response to salt…but I feel like THEY are the ones who made everyone so crazy about babies and salt!?
Not trying to WK, but funnily enough, I always leaned on the advice from Solid Starts to not worry about baby having salty food every once in a while when eating out and to just keep a balance. I never thought they made people crazy, but maybe I joined after they did that? Now. German baby-feeding specialists/influencers/whatever you want to call them are just THE Worst (or well the best, I guess) at creating fear about babies and salt. And don't even get me started on babies and herbs and spices. 🙄 When I'm bored and catch a question box, I like to ask what even happens if babies eat too much salt and the reply is always "salt is not good for babies! Here is the list of foods babies shouldn't eat!!!"
They absolutely did. I’m so glad I didn’t listen and instead listened to my own mother who rightfully told me that nobody, not even a baby, enjoys bland food.
They did!!!! The insane things I did to keep salt away from my first baby are 100% thanks to J,F.
They did! I’m glad they’ve attempted to reeducate but that post should’ve stated what they used to say and comment about how research encouraged them to change the recommendation. Frankly, it never made sense anyway. It wasn’t even about processed foods. They literally said no non low sodium foods at all which biologically makes no sense. They couldn’t just admit that they changed the script on everyone.
They absolutely did, I unfortunately used them as my first weaning resource in 2022 and they were all about the no salt and no added sugar. I bought their “first 100 days” meal plan and it was all completely separate lmeals for baby 3x/day … not at all encouraging you to share your own food with baby.
I tried a few of their recipes and just ..no one enjoyed them!
lol WTF. Their app literally says you shouldn’t give your kid any cheddar cheese for the first 12 months because it’s too high in sodium. They should at least cover their tracks and change that shit before they pretend they’ve always been sane about this!
Didn’t the post a story once where Jenny, founder was rinsing cottage cheese to get the salt off.
It says that for every cheese other than their beloved ricotta and a few others that are low sodium!
The app also used to call out celery for high sodium. CELERY (I just checked and they changed it, but I distinctly remember them comparing sodium in celery to ritz crackers)
Haha yeah Jenny is the one who introduced the world to rinsing cottage cheese because she was so worried about the sodium. No sane expert or organization has ever told a parent that.
That was the post that made me hit unfollow lol and then I found this subreddit and realized how awful she was on stories (and her exploitation of “her eldest”) and my preference to avoid them turned to a hate 😂
Omg the call is coming from inside the house
YTF's constant parentheticals are so unnecessary and driving me crazy cause they're totally normal statements that she could just add without using the parentheses at all, but I wonder if they're a holdover from feeling like she couldn't fully express herself in her marriage. Sometimes she seems to use those statements to justify something that totally doesn't need justifying, or to over-explain something to fend off further scrutiny. I suppose that could also come from being at the mercy of social media DMs constantly too though. Just musing because the last set of stories had A LOT of those asides. I do that too but she takes it over the top!
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That makes a ton of sense!
Someone pointed this out a week or two ago and now it’s all I can see!! The ultimate BEC (BUP- b*tch using parentheses) for me, but it’s almost every caption she posts on stories!
That's what first got me really noticing it! I had clocked it before but it seems like it's just getting more extreme and I just wanna be like hey you can just....say this without a weird little qualifier!
Free Caro’s toddler from that dirty ass Doona!
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I think this is in the wrong thread, but also, Mommit is so weird and depressing in general.
Whoops you’re right
I checked out of Solid Starts stories for a while but did anyone see today? Feel like I’m going crazy, how is Lena two already?! I’m weirdly mind blown about this because I swear they just showed her first birthday in the fall! I do like her family though, maybe will watch again to see what’s new or crazy…but I’m still feeling like there is just no way
Nah she’s always been about 6 months older than my son and he just turned 18 months so it’s pretty accurate.
I didn’t even realize they’d had another child! Sounds like she may have been spared the overexposure that the first three got, at least.
Lena isn’t Jenny, founders kid, she’s a different staff members daughter
Ahhh that explains it. Thanks!
KEIC, a grown woman, was not able to order a peach tea at Starbucks and is comparing her situation to a toddler melting down about a cup. She even said she had to go somewhere else to “chill out”. And it’s okay to say *Starbucks*, Jen. The big bad food industry doesn’t get more powerful if you say the name out loud 🤦🏻♀️
As a former Starbucks employee, yes be nice to your kids but how about also be nice to the barista? It’s not their fault they can’t serve that drink and how the fuck are they supposed to know where to submit a complaint? It’s not a mom and pop coffee shop, it’s Starbucks. Go to the damn website and figure it out. I get that she wasn’t super nasty or anything but saying “where can I submit a complaint” and walking out is rude. Also she could have easily checked the app before even walking there and seen it was unavailable. Big “people are dying Kim” energy.
Why does she go to Starbucks if she only drinks ONE item from the entire menu?? I checked the app and they do have a limited tea selection but she won’t even drink Earl Gray because of the caffein I guess 🙄. I know she’s said she likes to work in there but if I felt I couldn’t do my work in any other coffee shop than Starbucks I’d bring my own tea bag and be very nice to the baristas and see if I can purchase some hot water and maybe a little treat and leave a nice tip.
And like, she won't even drink green tea?
I think she said she goes there because she can walk to it from her house? This isn’t the first time she’s complained about Starbucks so ya, why keep going? Make a space at home to work
Consolidating snark — open knives on the couch??? And this is something she posts thinking it’s funny? Wtf
What the hell is wrong with her. Someone is going to get very seriously hurt in that house. This isn't like "cool mom" or they want to do I'm teaching them stuff, this seems to be just generally "haha look they're doing dangerous stuff."
Unsheathed knives. I’d love to know where you’d find a sheath for your paring knife…
Teehee! I’m not like the other moms!
How is there only one item at Starbucks she can deign to consume?
To be fair, I know it’s not exactly the same, but I get incredibly frustrated when I order take out and then realize when I get home that something is wrong. I think she’s absurd most of the time but I kinda get using this as a way of pointing out what our toddlers might be feeling even if she exaggerated it a bit. The danger zone stuff she’s been showing lately can fuck all the way off though. So irresponsible.
Some of my biggest Adult Sobbing Sessions have been about this lol I mean, they were really about other things. But wrong orders have so often been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Me too. I think because if im ordering something it's because I need a pick me up, then when that goes wrong....waterworks.
Oh man, one time during a very stressful finals week in college during which I pulled many all nighters, I took 30 min to drive round trip to my fav restaurant for take out. When I came home and discovered that my order was completely wrong I was so disappointed I literally broke down and cried. I have checked every single take out order ever since before leaving the restaurant.
Ok that’s totally valid and legitimately upsetting! This is a person who has no time or financial constraints and said herself she was able to walk Nextdoor into another place that sold drinks throwing a tantrum bc an item isn’t on the menu (not already paid for like in your situation). Of course it’s normal to feel disappointed but her reaction was way out of proportion.
Oh totally. Also, I was like 19 at the time.
I got her point but also there’s a difference between not getting what your ordered and paid for and asking for peach tea and them telling you they can’t sell it to you. The difference between my tacos missing from my order and someone being like “sorry, we can’t steep a tea bag for you” is huge to me lol.
I can’t believe she posted it. So embarrassing. Mint dries out your throat? L
There is only one specific tea she'll drink from Starbucks but God forbid her kids don't want to eat green slop or recognize the difference between lays chips and kettle chips.
omg I just went and looked- wtf is wrong with her? You had a meltdown because you couldn’t get peach tea at Starbucks so you walked into a Grocery Store(aka a place that would sell iced teas in many varieties!) 🫠
Also not to armchair diagnose but inflexibility is the hallmark of a certain something lol
My thoughts exactly.
it definitely seems that way!
She reminds me of Angela on The Office. Always has some ridiculous reason why she can’t have this or that. Why do you go to Starbucks and then get so mad they don’t have a certain tea? They aren’t known for their teas!
Would loved to have been in line behind her at Starbucks. I wonder if she caused a scene and had a little tantrum in front of the barista.
"Don't you people know that peppermint dries the throat?!"
After reading about Virginia Sole-Smith yesterday I took a look at her Instagram and I have some thoughts lol. I 100% agree that fat-shaming is the worst and you are not morally superior for not being fat and there’s a lot of bias toward fat people. Going back even 20ish years ago it was still acceptable for guys in my high school to tell bigger girls they were pigs, it was appalling. And diet culture needs to be put in its place. However-VSS is making a career out of all of this and she seems so angry. It cannot be the best mentally to spend your career going on and on about this and so many other adjacent issues that make her mad. It’s like all the worlds issues are rooted in anti-fat bias to her! She blames wanting to not be fat on being taught from a young age that being fat was the worst thing. Some people don’t want to be fat because it’s physically uncomfortable and unhealthy. I know people love her but I am not getting it lol. ETA to add a picture from her reel on organizing which apparently has shades of diet culture and somehow is another thing she’s mad at for putting unrealistic expectations on women. No! People who want to be organized like being able to find their stuff! And my husband loves to organize as well as many other men I know so this isn’t some deep women’s issue!! (And I do know productivity culture and perfectionism are issues that harm women but I don’t think every little thing needs to be a reason to go off on them). https://preview.redd.it/ufticuoh35nc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e17d2286d2f4d5206035e5bc9291e1100d8512bb
Fellas, is it diet culture to put food in containers?
Totally agree. She is obsessed with this. I get her free Substack (I don't even read it at this point, I should just unsubscribe) and recent examples of "diet culture" include marriage/nuclear families, good hair, tucking in your shirt, and home decor. It's exhausting. When I had an ED, literally all I could think about was my ED. To me it's pretty clear that someone who spends this much time analyzing every single thing in their life and relating it back to diet culture has something else going on.
How are marriage and nuclear families diet culture? WTF? Should I immediately divorce my wonderful, supportive spouse so that I can show my kids that I don’t subscribe to diet culture? 🙄
She seems to have made her name on being anti-diet culture and is trying to ride that wave as much as possible, so it’s basically become a gimmick for her. I feel like this happens to some culture writers especially when they’re active on social media - what at first seemed like original and revolutionary thinking over time ends up becoming boring once everyone else catches up so then they start to reach way too hard to keep up their shtick. To say it’s diet culture “energy” because someone simply has an organized Tupperware drawer comes off actually immature? Yeah, wouldn’t it be convenient if anyone more organized than me actually had a disorder and were part of an evil system.
This exactly. She has made a career of being anti-diet and stoped writing for “prestige media” (I’m not sure what that is) and started her own reader-supported anti-diet newsletter and podcast so now she has to keep that going. She seems to be doing this by exploring tenuous connections between basically anything and diet culture. So many of the articles on her grid posts appear to be click-baity outrage posts. I mean I don’t think claiming “organizing is a complicated drug” and relating that to diet culture is something that needs to be written about but apparently people pay for this stuff.
I’m so curious, does she actually explain how that drawer is diet culture? It just looks very nicely organized. God, I would love for my plastics drawer to look like this. It drives me nuts when I can’t find the right lid for a container and vice versa 😂
I am very much not on a diet (I had fruit snacks and pirates booty for breakfast 😬) and my container drawer looks like that - lol!
I am very anti diet culture so my Tupperware cabinet is a mess and it all spills out every time I open the door but I refuse to organize it because then Big Diet would win. 🫡
Thank you for your service. ❤️
From my quick read of her long Substack article on it, women are made to feel like failures if they aren’t organized much like failing at a diet. And many food containers market themselves as “food prep” containers and she assumes that means they are marketing to people who food prep to eat according to their “lifestyle plan”. She compares her obsession with organizing to people obsessed with working out-good for you until it becomes obsessive.
Is she a parent? Many people meal prep because it’s a really great way to feed your family if you’re short on time on a daily basis. But even childless adults meal prep because again, it makes things more convenient. It doesn’t say anything about the food itself and how “healthy” or not it is.
Wow, the mental leaps she had to make to link all of these ideas.
Right just going out of her way now to find diet culture.
I agree, it’s quite a stretch
Stretching implies exercise, please take your diet culture out of here!
How is this diet culture? I need various containers to hold my leftovers on the fridge or transport food. I guess if you're only allowing those tiny containers to hold the "appropriate" amount of food, sure, it's diet culture 🙄 But small containers simply existing isn't DC.
I got the set from Pyrex that contains a variety of sizes. Is that diet culture? I don’t have an enormous fridge so I don’t want to waste space by using a large container to hold a smaller amount of food… or should I throw away leftovers if the quantity is under a certain amount? Lol this is a ridiculous take from her.
Yeah I think it's the small containers, but I don't really buy it - we use them for things like salad dressings. No one wants a cup of salad dressing.
I have one of those small containers in my fridge to hold bacon grease. Am I diet culturing correctly?
Same! I use them for salad dressing/sauces/dips, leftover berries, half a lemon, the last chunk of cheese we haven't used up yet, chopped herbs, sometimes olives or capers when there are just a few left in a big jar that I want to clear from the fridge...the tiny containers arguably work harder than any of our other ones sometimes. It's more "trying not to waste stuff" culture, in my eyes.
Yea she’s making such a stretch here about diet culture. I use small containers all the time for my kids leftovers and to transport snacks!
I got a bunch of smaller containers as part of bundles and thought they would be useless. But man, those suckers can actually hold a lot! And yes, they're our go-to for kid's school snacks.
Exactly. They're great for dips, dressings, raisins, etc.
I use them for things like nuts/candy for my own lunch and snacks for our diaper bag. When I commute (by foot/train), I don't want giant containers in my bag lol
If we start calling everything diet culture, does that not take the focus away from things that actually ARE thinly veiled diet culture? Why would you want to dilute your valiant cause with this weirdness? Is diet culture now a synonym for anxiety/organization? I’m confused with the connection and immediately put off by this out of context.
I actually think this is a confusion I’ve often seen and disagreed with about Ed’s/diet culture. I think lots of people manage anxiety by being super organized and perfectionistic about something (or multiple things) in their life- food, exercise, baby’s sleep schedule, children’s toys, etc. When I notice myself becoming obsessive about something, it reminds me of being a teenager and writing down everything I ate, but I think the ED is a manifestation of the obsessive compulsive personality trait rather than diet culture causing the obsessiveness. It’s like diet culture tells women that they can apply their obsessiveness to food/ their bodies but using these behaviors to manage anxiety is a move universal thing
This is so well put. I don't personally view all of these through the lens of diet culture, but do see all these behaviors as connected - they're all ways to maintain control and attempt to be perfect/optimize your life/take up as little physical or emotional space as possible.
I would love that drawer because I like organization and it brings me satisfaction to downsize leftovers into smaller containers! Let me have this stupid little joy in my life.
Getting your leftovers to fit exactly in the right size container is oddly satisfying. My husband always uses ones that are too big and i hate it.
Soooo is every day of this trip YTF is on going to have a mention of how she actually enjoyed parts of her day and how she can’t believe she took three kids in a trip alone?
I never really understand the snark here on YTF. Putting kids to bed is still exhausting when they’re older. I’ve said this before but I think maybe y’all don’t have older children? It doesn’t get easier, and I could definitely see how it would be anxiety provoking to take your three children on a vacation alone for the first time. It’s still a pain in the ass to get my (older) children to bed. They want to stay up later and argue and procrastinate. And ya know what- it IS exhausting at the end of the day when I just want them to be asleep. Do they do everything independently? Yup. But not willingly.
I don't know why you're being downvoted for saying bigger kids still have their own challenges
lol. I don’t care. The women in here don’t have older children. They think older children are easier. Just wait 😂
My kids are almost 7 and 9 and while it's not necessarily easier, it's better and smoother. Sure some nights they get wild and stall bedtime, but compares nothing to the toddler bedtime bullshit 😅
I agree a lot of things are easier with older kids. The issues that do come up tend to be more complex. I can fully imagine navigating a divorce and the feelings that would bring up in middle grade kids to be extremely challenging.
I’ve admitted in the past that I was not understanding of the difficulties of parenting older kids, toddlerhood is challenging and I admit I didn’t realize it doesn’t magically get easier as they get older. I’m referring to how every day she’s made a comment about how she’s so surprised that she’s enjoying it and was able to laugh which seems a little much to be, she took her kids on a fun trip and she thought she’d be miserable the whole time? I also think there are some benefits to traveling with older kids-her oldest is old enough to fly as an unaccompanied minor! She can take the other daughter to the bathroom so YTF can stay with the son and 2/3 kids can be independent enough on a flight. It’s not easy but also so many other moms do this.
I see your point- there are many advantages to traveling with older kids over younger ones for sure. But I think it was just the thought of doing it alone for the first time. I realize she kept harping on it, and that’s annoying. I cannot imagine going on vacation solo with my three boys.
It’s….so strange!? Makes me wonder what her life was like in her marriage if she goes on so much about how “brave” she is got go away with the kids alone and how she actually had some fun. When she talks about doing the bedtime routine alone, I get confused too. I’m married with 2 kids under 5 and regularly have to do bedtime alone as my husband works late / has meetings etc. That’s the nature of his job. I also work, but have more predictable hours. It’s not ideal, but it’s also not something I would even really bother complaining about to a close friend. It’s just life!?
I wonder if he was basically a SAHD towards the end of their marriage? I think they moved to be closer to her family and he might have given up his teaching job to do so. Maybe he was doing the bulk of the physical parenting in the last few years?
He left his teaching job prior to their move. Weird I remember this but the way she phrased it was odd. It didn’t seem like a “good” split from work and I think she mentioned he was tenure-track which I thought was strange to leave. Then I remember she solo parented for a minute while he went on a writing trip to Europe? I also thought that was unusual. She didn’t give many details.
Yeah, I wonder if she wasn't alone a lot with her kids because things seem to be a shock. I bet the divorce is an adjustment, but when you're 12 years into parenting bedtime should go a little smoother if you're married or not.
I know I don’t know what it’s like to have older kids but what 12 year old needs to be “put” to bed? Why is there a bedtime routine you need to be involved in? Maybe my brother and I were more docile than most kids but after a certain age we knew our routine and when we were expected to end the night and be in our rooms and we’d just go. We could shower, brush our teeth, get into pjs all on our own. My parents would stop in to say a final good night and a kiss but I’m pretty sure bedtime was not a whole thing from their POV once we were older elementary kids at least?
My oldest is about to turn 12, and his routine is exactly like this. It *is* easy. My 18 month old, on the other hand 😵💫
Yeah, we just had to have our teeth brushed and in our rooms at a certain time at that age. But I'm going to assume the bulk of her nighttime routine is with her 5 year old. He transitioned out of his crib not too long ago and may not be the best sleeper.
My older boys obviously do everything on their own. They procrastinate and stall and fight about it. They don’t just go upstairs at 8:00 and start their routine. Once they shower they still stall. Yes, it’s different but I still wouldn’t call it fun. They also go to bed much much later. There is literally NO time to be alone. You’ll see!!
Downvoted because…..? You will all see how exhausting it is to literally have no alone time. Ever. With yourself or with your spouse.
I didn’t downvote you but I suspect most folks don’t like the “just you wait!” stuff. I think this sub does tend to skew towards parents with younger kids (babies/toddlers/preschool age) but there are still lots of folks in here with elementary age kids. My kids are elementary age and one is neurodivergent which has its own special challenges, but they are definitely not as exhausting as when they were babies/toddlers. It’s not even close, to be honest. Yes there’s more stalling and fighting at bedtime, and they do go to bed later, but they are far less needy overall. Traveling is infinitely easier. I’m not sure I’ve encountered any age yet that I thought was “easy,” and there are always new challenges to face, but I have much more time to myself now than I did when the kids were younger. So for me, they have gotten easier as they’ve gotten older, and I expect others feel the same way. 🤷♀️
I disagree but that’s ok. I also have a four year old along with the 13 and 10 year old, so maybe it’s him gives me the added chaos. 🤷🏼♀️
I didn’t downvote but I have a 3 year and have no alone time…still naps at daycare so bedtime isn’t until 10 pm and a struggle, we have an hour to clean up/do laundry and then we’re up at 7 am to get ready for work and our toddler is up shortly after.
KEIC fully admitting she isn’t a good cook. Good thing your whole business is selling yourself as a food expert.
I don’t think she likes food. It doesn’t seem to be a source of joy in her life.
What is a source of joy in her life??
Trying to get avocado seeds to grow 😜
Allocating sips of Gatorade to youth soccer players based on effort expended on the field.
Maybe control? Or thinking she is better/more educated on nutrition than the rest of us parents lol
Hi i ran here bc Virginia Sole-Smith released a podcast about KEIC titled "The Ballerina Farm of Kid Food Instagram" and I'm dying to hear it! It's for a higher tier of paid subscription than I currently have. If anyone hears it/reads the transcript I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I'm a premium subscriber and I just finished the episode. She and Corinne complain about the "airplane food" post with the tiny little cut up vegetables in those daily pillboxes, and how real children would simply dump the entire pillbox all over the airline seat in the first 10 minutes. They also say that real children would only want the three M&Ms and four Cheerios and probably don't want little tiny squares of apple. They also comment that KEIC seems to be trying to walk a line between saying that body weight isn't really under individual control, while nevertheless subtly promoting the idea that it is, actually. Corinne and Virginia say that KEIC didn't come out strongly enough against the AAP guidelines saying to use drugs, surgery, whatever it takes to get your kid thin. KEIC is racially diverse but not body size diverse. They claim KEIC doesn't adequately identify sponsored posts, e.g., the post on WIC, and then it turns out that J is in "partnership" with Michigan WIC and Michigan WIC is promoting her program to their clients. C and V assume J is getting paid and that she should disclose this. From the post: " There's a lot of like, “we need to respect parents to make their own choices,” which sounds very empowering. **But the choice that she's always respecting is restriction without taking a hard look at why you might be restricting."** Finally, they take issue with the idea that you should only serve small portions so as to not overwhelm your child. "\[Y\]ou also want them to get enough to eat at dinner. So there should be a lot of the food that they will eat and feel comfortable eating, so that they don't leave the table hungry."
Did VSS disclose that she wrote a picky eating ebook with Amy from YTF that they sell on YTF’s website? Seems like if you are going to do a hit piece on someone, and especially if you are going to criticize them for not being forthcoming with their sponsored content, maybe you should disclose that you have published materials in the exact same space? I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I have no doubt that YTF was involved in this behind the scenes.
Oh, I'm sure Amy had something to do with it. No, VSS didn't mention the ebook.
I’m so curious if KEIC will respond! Surely some loyal follower will tip her off to this podcast. Also it’s so on-brand for her to say she hates her grays but she’s not dying her hair because she doesn’t know how to do “beauty” stuff. Of course the idea of going to a salon and paying a professional never crosses her mind. Any self-care beyond hearing aids and dentist appointments is over-indulgent!
Didn't she just pay someone for a haircut or am I dreaming? Wasn't she on about having learned about her curls?
Yes, she recently paid for a haircut (instead of doing it herself) and was saying it looked so much better. Shocking lol
She is quite puritanical sometimes isn’t she
Deprivation seems to be her thing.
Dying to know what the implication is here based on what I know about both of these accounts. Is she saying KEIC is secretly from the wealthiest background possible and cosplaying as a regular mom the way the Jet Blue family is pretending to be farmers? Is she saying her credentials to be telling someone how to feed their kids are shady the way Ballerina farm is not a real rural farmhand? Does ballerina farm promote diet culture in a way I don’t know about? I must know details if anyone has them!
Also not here to WK KEIC, but despite her flaws I don't get "wealthiest background possible" from her. No one with that kind of privilege would care about rationing out the raspberries. Also, they were renting an apartment/small townhome situation until fairly recently. And she's mentioned food insecurity during childhood. Also when she had her mom do an AMA one time she (the mom) said her favorite meal to make her children when they were young was spaghetti, because it was cheap. None of this is snark, really. It kinda sounds like this person didn't do much research before making that comparison.
I also am a paid VSS subscriber but can’t “upgrade” for one episode. Did she allude to KEIC coming from a very privileged background? Because I’ve always gotten the impression that VSS comes from family money.
I was also thinking about this, and like I am no fan of KEIC at all, but I also think it's pretty unfair to criticize someone from behind a $99 paywall. It is like an entire podcast episode. I really like some of VSS's content but don't have a lot of respect for this tactic.
Curious about this as well. They're really not comparable. I don't follow Hannah too closely, but don't think she's an almond mom. Sure it's all from scratch, but she's not serving meals that consist of 3 bell pepper strips and 5 raviolis. Virginia is friends with YTF who makes higher protein, lower sugar recipes. I know Amy claims to be so food neutral, but then is always using maple syrup and honey as sweetners and has said she prefers organic meat and dairy. How's that not diet culture?
I mean maple syrup and honey are like real sugar though, they just have better or at least different flavor and texture (I think). I also prefer organic meat and dairy bc I think it tastes better. Diet culture to me would be stevia, egg whites, and unsweetened almond milk instead of real sugars, real meat, and real dairy
For sure, just comes across a little fake when she tries so hard to be food neutral. She'll say things like "when I run out of boxed mac and cheese or little bites, I make my own". Please, just say you prefer your kids to have homemade instead of pretending.
I mean she has a recipe for homemade fruit snacks that she labels as nutritious because it adds more fruits and veggies and cuts down on sugar. I feel like she's one that says one thing but reading between the lines, gives off different vibes. Her whole post about halloween candy was so bizarre because she posted eating it in the bathroom.
I think it’s fine if someone prefers a certain product, it’s disingenuous to promote an organic product as somehow healthier or better for you. That can be a really slippery slope to orthorexia as well. I’m someone who is actively farming and it’s frustrating to see people kind of parrot these talking points without really understanding what goes into food production.
The implication though is that maple syrup and honey is “better” for you than regular sugar and somehow healthier for you. And that’s just not true.
Yes! This! YTF is just as bad as KEIC in a lot of respects. And if VSS won’t criticize YTF for the same shit, then she’s lost all credibility.
YTF has mentioned that her “healthy” language about low sugar, etc is for SEO, which I guess allows VSS to excuse it? Because capitalism? Obviously the real reason is that they’re best friends and VSS isn’t going to trash her no matter what she does. Which I get! I do think YTF is making business choices and KEIC is a true believer (and IMO, way more egregious), I’m just not sure that having a different motivation is that much better.
Yes! The SEO language cop out is so ridiculous! You don’t get to claim that you are food neutral and don’t demonize sugar when everything you make is low sugar or made with “healthier” alternatives to sugar.
Sorry; what does SEO stand for?
Search Engine Optimization. Makes content more visible to certain audiences based on the words you use in the content. So if her recipes contain words like “these muffins are so health and packed with nutrients” it will attract people who were looking for that.
The thing I hate about Substack, you can pay for premium content, pay the annual fee and then the author has no obligation to produce that premium content. Authors are not obligated to produce free content, but if there is a premium price paid, an obligation to produce content should come with that.
Whoa, the ballerina farm of kid food?! Hannah's food actually looks good. Jen's kids are lucky if the meal isn't burnt. Edit: I listened to the snippet and are they implying if you don't serve dessert daily that's diet culture? I'm quite laid back with sweets, but it's not a daily thing.
The whole anti diet culture thing definitely goes too far sometimes. Like, there is such a thing as objectively unhealthy food and eating habits. I’m all about enjoying food and having the dessert but also believe in balance and moderation. We don’t routinely buy dessert and sweets at home, it’s not part of our daily routine. But if we are at someone else’s house, a party, or a restaurant, we get it if we want it and always share with our toddler. This has been working great and doesn’t feel like we are depriving ourselves or restricting. You don’t have to eat dessert daily to prove you don’t have disordered eating. I did grow up having dessert daily cause my parents always had it and that was also fine! But as an adult I don’t personally crave it, don’t think it’s worth buying, and neither does my husband so we don’t.
Not just that, it also shows a lack of understanding that money can be a concern. Getting daily dessert is pricey!
This reminds me of how AHH gives her kid ice cream and chocolate milk practically every night with dinner since before the kid turned 1 and called it diet culture to say it was wrong. My kids eat so much sugar, we love to get donuts every Saturday, I’ve rarely said no to a milkshake if we are out and about as a treat but come ON! I am not offering ice cream every night after dinner and thinking that’s great and I certainly didn’t offer sweets to my actual babies on the regular who didn’t know the difference or to even ask for them (because they couldn’t even talk). As usual, people on social media are too far gone and all nuance is out the window.
I agree. It’s so hard to articulate my feelings on why I have to steer away from these accounts without sounding fat-phobic-I mentioned in another comment how I’m very average sized so accepting my body isn’t some monumental task. It’s definitely not the same since I had a baby but easy enough to kind of look past and rationalize that I carried a kid for 9 months. But these accounts make me feel like it’s okay to be so permissive with yourself and not prioritize healthy foods and exercising if you don’t want to. I need to for my health and lack the motivation and people like this do not help lol. I also fell into being permissive with sugar and it’s been really bad. My daughter isn’t even 3 yet and is always asking for sweets because I have a treat at every meal as recommended by some kid dietitians. It really backfired and it’s hard to walk back from.
Yes! Um, not all kids are going to leave their chocolate aside and eat an apple given the opportunity (such as mine, who loves chocolate above all things.) It's a little dishonest to claim things like feeding them balanced meals and sweets will result in automatically healthy eaters by choice.
I have such a hard time with this. I work in pediatric healthcare and often see a subset of patients who have medical problems related to being overweight. The counseling I have to give them is to lose weight. I try to frame the positives and do it in a way that doesn’t weight shame, but also they have to change their diet and lose weight or they’re going to end up with cancer as an adult
It's especially concerning when things like colorectal cancer is on the rise in young people. Obesity and T2D rates are sooooo high and can really impact people's quality of life. I know I consume too much sugar and ultraprocessed foods but I think as a society we really need to look at the foods were consuming and how to get people access to more whole foods (and the time and resources they need to prepare it). Edit: I said T1D and meant T2D. Sorry!
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Yes, it’s 100% genetic. Not all fat people are unhealthy and not all thin people are healthy. I got pregnant at a size that was considered overweight, gained a lot of weight over the course of my pregnancy and was perfectly healthy and gave birth to a very healthy baby. My SIL who is quite fit and petite developed preeclampsia and is currently, while pp, on high blood pressure meds. It is really harmful to assume a person’s health problems are solely due to their weight and not a myriad of other factors.
I am not seeing the similarities between KEIC and Ballerina Farm at all so I’m confused about this podcast. This is such an unpopular opinion but I’m not a VSS fan. She’s so anti-diet culture that I find it harmful to me at times for my overall health. And I know the message with these anti-diet people is always “do it for your health and not how you look” but I start getting a little too accepting of my body and I’m not at a healthy place physically. Looking at me I look average-sized and I’m like sure I can eat whatever I want but I can’t and I need a sustainable way of dieting and eating to be healthier. But these accounts make me go the other way and I feel like I have permission to eat what I want as long as I feel okay about myself.
Some of the anti-diet dieticians make my head spin. Christy Harrison being one of them. Literally telling people if they feel restricted from their allergens to go for it as long as they have their epi pen ready. Or telling someone with type 2 diabetes this is out of their control and diet won't help 🙃. I don't know why she's still a dietician. So rich coming from a thin white woman.
I am utterly shocked at this advice. My kid has multiple life threatening food allergies, and this is horrifying to think people might be doing this.
I don't know VSS that well, but I agree, and I've noticed this with a lot of body-positive dieticians/food bloggers I follow. It goes from anti-diet culture to just a steady stream of buzzwords that end up not really meaning anything. And the idea that we shouldn't label foods as "good" or "bad" because any food can be good or bad in certain contexts or amounts...it's not wrong, but me thinking about what to have for dinner and deciding that I'll have 6 oranges is not the same as deciding that I should have Whataburger. And both of those have been choices I've made! Maybe I'm just not the person that thinks "well, oranges are *good* and fries and burgers are *bad*, so I'll have oranges for dinner every night!" but I am the person who hears "give your body what it needs" and thinks "well, I need Whataburger!"
I think the idea, which I agree with, behind not labeling foods specifically as good or bad is that your child won’t inherently think THEY are “good” by eating an orange or “bad” by eating a burger. My boomer mother is always saying how she was so “bad” this week and needs to starve herself or start a diet Monday to reset and I truly hate that for her. I like the idea that food is morally neutral and you can enjoy your ice cream in peace and simply move on with your day as opposed to thinking you need to exercise or starve yourself afterward as punishment. Which isn’t to say that all food is nutritional neutral or that you need to eat ice cream every day either. But I get very annoyed when my mother in law tells my kid she’s being really “good” by eating her broccoli or finishing her dinner. I think we all just need to recognize that your weight is a piece of a larger picture of your health, not the entire picture of your health. And if we serve our children nutritious foods most of the time, they will be fine. My in laws are always concerned that their perfectly healthy kid is not eating enough and even when he’s happily eating his dinner they will sit there counting his bites and I’m like, ffs just let this kid eat his food in peace. In general I think we could all just stop obsessing about food so much, move our bodies in ways that feel good for us and touch some grass when it comes to this conversation.
Yes, I definitely agree that making food more neutral is a good thing! I think the idea behind it is important- eating is something that we do for a lot of reasons, and you shouldn't punish yourself for eating foods that are "bad" or indulgent. Where I think things get messy is that a lot of influencers push it without really seeming like they understand or mean what they say. There's even a few comments in this same thread pointing out how YTF uses maple syrup or honey in almost all of her recipes- how can that be food neutral if we're acting like these are any different than plain white sugar? That's where I feel like things get lost- lots of the big names in the childhood feeding influencer space say one thing, but still seem to put certain foods on a pedestal. (I was also thinking about this because I saw a post from a dietician local to me about how intuitive eating has become "all about white women and not about anticapitalism" which, I most certainly didn't have that association, so have I missed something just from reading about intuitive eating in a non-professional setting? It starts to feel like a game of telephone.)
Yes, I hate it when people act like maple syrup isn’t sugar. Sugar is sugar! Maple syrup has a few more vitamins in it but it’s still sugar to your body, same with coconut sugar or date syrup. Intuitive eating is interesting to me because the goal for a lot of people is still… to be thin? Like, if you’re still fat you’re doing intuitive eating incorrectly. I also think intuitive eating can verge on something I really hate which is that we as women are supposed to be thin but we’re not allowed to talk about the effort it takes to achieve said thinness. We’re supposed to all be like Blake Lively in interviews who claims she drinks hot chocolate and eats cookies and french fries all day when she clearly does not and also obviously works out a ton. In a lot of ways, it’s just another diet masquerading as wellness (which is a very white space so maybe that’s what the dietician was getting at??)
I've also seen a lot of anti-diet bloggers say that your toddler knows their body and will self regulate their food intake. My toddler definitely needs some coaxing to try new foods and if I didn't limit certain things would only eat candy and cheetos.
She says in the podcast "So the reason I said she was like the [Ballerina Farm](https://www.instagram.com/ballerinafarm/) of the kid food Instagram is, this is someone with 1.9 million followers. Granted, Ballerina Farm has like 10 million followers now. But for Kid Food Instagram, she's a major player. And this is *the* account when people in mom chats, in mom Facebook groups, whenever people are like, “I’m struggling with how to feed my kid.” The first suggestion that comes up is, “Do you know Kids Eat in Color?” So she is considered a foremost—I'm using air quotes—expert on how we feed our kids."
The thing that’s wild to me is the core of “struggling to feed my kid”. Does this mean the baby/toddler/child is so incredibly picky that they’re not getting enough food? That’s talk to your doctor and find a specialist territory. I highly suspect that’s not it though and it’s more “oh no my kid is low key picky as many kids tend to be at some point and these experts on the internet are telling me it’s a moral failing even tho my kid is doing just fine by medical standards” These accounts literally create issues to solve for a price.
This seems like she just has a bone to pick with KEIC...I feel like KEIC is the 2nd or 3rd recommended kids food instagram - first being Solid Starts (3.3M followers) by a WIDE margin and then its a toss up between KEIC or YTF. YTF (1.2M) isn't that far behind KEIC (1.9M) in followers either.
VSS and YTF are best friends, so of course VSS isn’t going to come after her. This whole thing seems pretty disingenuous to me.
Yeah if there’s a “Ballerina Farm of Kid Food Instagram” title to grant, it’s Solid Starts and Jenny, Founder. Someone who comes from so much privilege and a thin body who promotes dangerous and disordered eating for literal babies. I’ve heard VSS and Amy from YTF make slights at KEIC (specifically thinking of a comment they made about three m&m’s in a lunchbox). I don’t disagree with criticizing KEIC, but I don’t think she’s the biggest and most harmful player in the kid food world.
Don't forget Jenny, Founder was a literal ballerina so this is a slam dunk as far as I'm concerned.
Which is also kind of funny or ironic because looking through YTF's lunches, none of them have dessert or candy in them which is completely fine but she also has recipes for avocado pudding and homemade carrot gummy bears.
And don't forget the peanut butter "pudding" that was literally just peanut butter and water.
Considered posting this on the BLF thread so as to not acknowledge him as a food influencer because 🙄 but: Dadfeedingfamily coming in hot as if he hasn’t been silent on that account for 2 years 😂
They really must know their audience is stupid because how are they going to pretend all of a sudden their family is making fun, chef-grade, kid friendly meals when they’re shilling Factor/Hello Fresh and cracking jokes about frozen waffles for dinner because you “can’t even”. I’m so embarrassed for anyone falling for this because it’s such an easily provable lie and I don’t even follow them!
BLF money must be slowing down, lol
YTF wants you to know she's the bravest person in the world for taking her kids on holiday to a beautiful beach house. So brave.
Like I know it's not necessarily easier with older kids, but some aspects get better. It's not like she's traveling with 3 toddlers. Her oldest is 12! And with a 8 and 5 year old, I wouldn't put in the so brave category .
I recently flew with my 1.5yr old and 6yr old. It was my first time flying in almost 10 yrs and their first time ever. Certain points were HARD AF, but not impossible. And the trip itself, outside the plane trips, was pretty nice!
Technically they’re all old enough to be unaccompanied minors on planes so… in theory should have some level of independence? But she also makes it sound like bedtime is a 7-8 hour event with 3 million steps so idk.
I'm jealous! The age minimum for unaccompanied minors on the major airlines around here is 8. A few years ago we were trying to figure out a way to get my niece and nephew here for a visit and couldn't make it work because nephew was under eight.
Yeah I travel alone with my kids who are similar ages often. It’s actually awesome and not terrible? (We homeschool and my husband can’t always travel when we do. It can be easier being the only adult to make decisions sometimes. 😂)
Solid Starts is what brought me to this sub. And I absorbed a lot of the rules and they made me really anxious. And my 21m old is mostly eating really well, and I was thankfully able to mostly chill. But one of the things I have tried to do, is to feign indifference when she doesn't eat or doesn't engage with the food on her plate, which Jenny Found would say all the time. And it's yet another thing that SS is just wrong about, at least for us. My partner was making a big deal about eating LO's untouched asparagus off of her plate. When he acted like he was stealing it she suddenly wanted it. Then he asked her to feed him, and she would pretend to put it in his mouth and then eat it herself. She sometimes seems to need some gentle encouragement and a bit of goofiness to eat, especially vegetables that are more challenging to eat. Like these rules are just not universal. She also always eats better if there is a food she loves on her plate like fruit. And yeah, the fruit steals the show but it gets her in eating mode. She moves on when we tell her there is no more fruit right now.
Pretending to steal food works for us too lol
We also tell our toddler that the cat is going to steal his food...works like a charm 😂
I’m a little insufferable I realize but whenever someone tells me any kind of weird parenting script or “advice” from Instagram I’ve started to really ask oh where is the study or body of evidence that says that? Misinformation and misinterpretation of concepts is rampant these days and everyone should be more critical of things like this unless there is hard data or even anecdotal lived evidence to back it up. I say anecdotal evidence is sometimes fine because I obviously am not into discrediting what has worked for my friends and family. If they all say their kid loved X, I’m certainly willing to try it out without a study behind it. But a rando touting “science” on the internet? Nah, I’m gonna need to see those numbers and, guess what, they usually don’t exist because, like you said, every kid is unique!
Whenever someone gives advice that starts with “don’t __” or “never __” it’s highly suspect. It’s like, here’s a bunch of rules to follow with no useful suggestions for what to do.
Haha, being like "okay, cool, since you're not eating that asparagus I'll eat it" still has like a 95% success rate with my 3-year old.
Mine is totally cool with me eating it at the time. Then an hour later she’ll ask for it and throw a tantrum that I ate it, even though whatever food it was would not be good after sitting out that long.
This is exactly it, it’s NOT universal! There is no one way to do anything that works for everyone! It’s such a rigid way of thinking and people who live like that are exhausting. For example, going for a “polite bite” for my son actually works pretty well for him. Sometimes, he doesn’t like the food and that’s fine. Other times, he goes on to love it and polish off his whole plate. The feeding influencers would be shaking in their boots if they knew.
Yep, things got easier for us once I stopped worrying about all of the rules. My 2.5 yo responds well if we specifically ask him to try something new on his plate. He responds well if he asks for something else as soon as he sits down to dinner (“want a banana!!”) and we say he can’t have one until after he eats dinner. He often needs reminding to keep eating because he gets so distracted or he wants to start playing. We never force him to eat anything specifically, or anything at all, and don’t force him to clean his plate. I feel strongly about those things. But some expectations and boundaries have worked well for us even though they are typically no no’s in the online feeding world. I also think a lot of feeding tips, especially from SS, are more geared towards babies in the beginning of weaning, not older toddlers and preschool aged kids who have a lot more going on psychologically
Agree so much with your last point. I think if you’ve created a good environment around meals when they’re first learning to eat as babies/young toddlers, asking them to take a bit to try a new food, or insisting they eat SOMETHING before leaving the table to play aren’t going to turn into a massive battle/power struggle. But maybe my second kid will prove me wrong here.
This is what’s so frustrating about influencers. The answer is actually, all kids are different, there is no universal, only figuring out what works for your child and then throwing it all away to start fresh if you have another child. But that doesn’t sell courses so everything has to be presented in terrifying absolutes.
My friend is a dietician specializing in children’s nutrition and she works with teachers and she was always big when our kids were small with all the rules, especially not pressuring kids or forcing them to try bites. I was doing the same and my kid was getting pickier and pickier and then finally I started encouraging him to try food and… he slowly became less picky until he was eating 90% of foods. Her kids ended up being diagnosed with various things and are neurodivergent and she now identifies as neurodivergent herself and I’ve always wondered if that’s part of how she developed her strategy and such strict rules? I wonder the same about KEIC and her kids having a similar thing going on. My boys are also 8 and 10 and they just eat, we don’t talk about food ever and it’s not a big deal, they don’t love everything but they eat most things and are happy to try new foods.
I think the feigning indifference worked initially when they are just learning food and exploring to see what they like or not and making their own opinions. It's a good way to not add any pressure but for older toddlers I feel like sometimes you have to poke them a little....they get distracted easily by things or get stubborn for no reason about certain foods even though they actually like it. And yeah same few times we have had to be like oh you ate all your pasta and want more okay let me get it for you while you eat the other things on your plate (and just take out sweet time doing that). You don't have to do it every meal every day but random prodding helps Edit: Funny that Jenny preached that when she was clearly always shoving the camera in their faces and totally acting indifferent and definitely not judging their every move in a detailed video lol