40 The Professional Counselor | Volume 14, Issue 1 When it came to De-moralizing Food, Bodies, and Movement, a theme of removing the “shoulds” prevailed across participants. Kimberly described trying to “stay neutral with foods so that we don’t end up so much down the should line of what they should be eating or what they should be doing in terms of physical activity or those kinds of things.” Taking out the “should” entailed avoiding dictating what children “should be eating, “should look like,” or how they “should be exercising.” In summary, as poignantly articulated by Logan, “just focusing on the objectivity of what’s there without having the positive or negative associations.” Reprogramming and Re-Parenting The second category (n = 10) was Reprogramming and Re-Parenting. Beyond the skills of body neutral parenting, a key tenet of the approach was ample self-reflection. Caregivers engaged in deep reflection of their own relationship with food, their body, and movement while supporting their children in their body image development. The self-reflection process entailed identifying, rewiring, and, often, re-parenting oneself through the sociocultural messages that have permeated one’s life span. Scarlett shared that body neutral parenting “makes me reflect on myself and why I’m saying the things I’m saying and why I feel the way I’m feeling.” Subcategories of Reprogramming and ReParenting included: Knowing Your Why, Being Gentle With Yourself, and Needing Support. To illustrate, Leilani increased her awareness of her history with disordered eating and exercising for compensation and shared the impact her daughter has had on rewiring her way of thinking: If I had a child who was very thin, it would have reinforced that dysfunction for me, because then I’m someone who produced a very thin child, and that makes me even better. . . . And then when you have a kid who’s really big and she’s pretty chubby, that you have to make such a hard shift to undo. Being the skinniest person in the room isn’t your greatest value in life and really reestablishing that personal value system. That’s been a massive kind of change for me. This is a tangible example of the rewiring that happened for Leilani, though all of the parents spoke to their rewiring process and need to re-parent themselves alongside their children. Knowing Your Why The first subcategory (n = 10) of Reprogramming and Re-Parenting was Knowing Your Why. Participants acknowledged the value they put into the parenting approach. Jennifer captured common collective values of body neutral parenting when she shared: Number one, reducing shame. Number two, increasing quality of life and selfconfidence . . . that would probably eventually help with any mental health issues or any relationship issues because he’ll have the self-confidence to say where his boundaries are and trust his body. And at the same time listen to other people and be empathetic. Similarly, Kimberly emphasized how much it means to be parenting without shame: “I love that we know we’re not parenting with shame . . . as the hidden motivator. That’s why you don’t eat that extra food you might be hungry for.” A significant challenge for many participants was the “internalized messaging” they experienced regarding their body image, food, and movement. Almost all of the participants (n = 8) directly spoke
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