A Life Unschooled

I love Deena’s approach, and in this chat I spoke to her about how to process our own relationships with food, how to not project them onto our children, as well as about diet culture, anti-fat bias, whether food is really neutral and how to partner with our children around food.

I am ALL for making food a joyful and connected experience, rather than one full of restriction, arbitrary rules and moral judgments! Who isn’t?

A bit about Deena: Deena Barselah is a Holistic and Integrative Health Coach who guides mothers and families all over the world to remove the chore from food and cultivate a more joyful, connected, easier, and confident relationship with food. She's supported her own disordered eating, autoimmune conditions, and chronic digestive distress with gentle shifts in diet, habits, nervous system healing, and truly learning how to trust her body. Deena believes there's no one-size-fits-all to food and that by cultivating a system that works well for your unique body and family, you can let go of the "shoulds" that weigh you down. She lives in Encinitas, CA with her husband and son. Previously, Deena worked in the corporate world in areas of Organizational Psychology and People Development.

You can find Deena ⁠at her website⁠, or ⁠on instagram⁠ (She is currently on an IG hiatus, but her account is still full of helpful, informative content!)

NOTE: You can read a transcript of this interview below, but please bear in mind I don’t edit the transcript and so it won’t always be accurate!

Hi, I'm here today with Deena Barselah.

And I'm super excited about this conversation because we've been we've been waiting a while to make it happen.

And yeah, I'm just gonna let Deena say a little bit about who she is, what she does and how she came to do this work.

Great, thank you so much for having me.

This is like long overdue, and I'm so glad to be here.

So yes, I live in Encinitas, California, Southern California with my husband and my eight-year-old son.

And we are a homeschooling, unschooling, whatever label you want to apply type of family.

And I am a certified holistic health coach and I've been working in integrative health coaching for almost 14 years now.

And my journey to that really started in early childhood where I grew up.

I'm 43 years old, so I grew up in the 80s and 90s.

with every woman around me, either very distinctly being on a diet or off a diet.

And when I say distinctly, it was very clear whether they were, you know, off the plan, kind of cheating, not paying attention to what they should be like all of those strong, all of those words and sentiments, feelings is what I grew up with.

And then or they were on a diet and they were being really strict and talking about what they couldn't eat and what they shouldn't eat.

And it was never to I'd like to be really clear that this was never put on me explicitly, where I know that that is the case for a lot of people.

But as a very highly sensitive, deep feeling person, very aware of the feelings of everybody around me, and that's just how I came into the world and the kind of like a hyper vigilant,

I get that there's a place for me to just not rock the boat and make people happy and be the good girl.

That's how I came into this world and with different things going on in my family.

And so as that person, I also was very attuned.

To all the language and all the feelings around food.

And it was just, you know, it was every, it was my mom, my mom's friends, my friend's moms, my teachers.

It was literally every woman was talking about it this way.

And that's how I grew up.

And then as I, like I said, as a very highly sensitive person.

Not really having a great outlet, or I should say like the way we talk about it in parenting today, like a productive and, you know, true to me, outlet for my emotions, they were stored and food became a really great way for me to, you know, food was a tool for me to fill myself up to channel those emotions.

And in my and we, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this

But into my teenage years, I developed disordered eating and then an eating disorder of bulimia.

So I would binge my food, I would eat and any oftentimes when I ate, then I purged my food, or I would binge and then purge.

And that went on for a really long time that went on for almost two decades.

So, and intermingled in there was just a lot of other disordered eating patterns and that being very normal in the culture we lived in and going on and off diets, you know, today that might look like going on and off cleanses, on and off dietary protocols.

And I also had a lot of health stuff.

So I had chronic digestive issues, and I got sick a lot.

And I felt really tired.

And I had a lot of hormonal dysregulation, and polycystic ovarian syndrome, and thyroid issues, and all these different things that came about through my 20s.

And I started leaning towards more of an integrative health model, I started realizing just the way that like, one doctor for each part of my body was not serving me.

And so I was

embracing more of that.

And through that, I started to learn more about holistic health, which felt like a great thing, given my history for me to really grab on to as a way to support my body.

And so that continued to take me on a journey through my 20s.

And I started to work with a health coach, who introduced me to some concepts around mindful eating around eating psychology around

Why I had some of the food behaviors I had.

And slowly, slowly, I started to integrate these different things, started to open my world.

You know, I should also say that I grew up in a completely conventional health.

world.

There was no term like nothing.

Nobody talked about nutrition or wellness.

It was low fat, low calorie diet.

Those are the only words that were used around food, but nothing around like the body's wisdom or why I why I was feeling what I was feeling that I live in one whole body that has hearts and systems that speak to each other.

Nobody said anything about that.

So it was I was very like eyes wide open to that world.

And then

I became a holistic health coach myself, because I was so drawn to it.

And at the time, I was working in the corporate world.

And that felt like such a wonderful way to support myself.

And then I support started supporting clients.

And back when I first started supporting clients, it was a lot around

eat this, not that, because admittedly, at that time, I was really glad to move away from the diet world of like Weight Watchers and South Beach and all the different diets to lose weight and more around what people call like, but it's a lifestyle.

It's not a diet, you know, those words.

And so that was, that was how I supported clients early on.

I would I was living in New York City at the time and I would take clients on store tours where I would be like, you know, this is good for you to buy.

This is better.

Let's look at ingredients.

Let's clean out your kitchen.

Let's take out all the, you know, all the non real food.

You know, that was the way I worked.

And over all these past

14 years of coaching clients, mostly women around the world.

What I have seen is that until we are really getting to the root, and I saw this for me mirrored big time, until we understand more about why we're drawn to certain foods and understand our behaviors around foods more, understand how they're related to past stories, trauma, hypervigilance,

You know, different nervous system states, and we really integrate all of that.

The food is more of a detail, but also it can be a really important detail.

So there's room to hold both of those.

And that's, that's where I am now.

So now I coach mostly mothers, but I love working with couples and I love working, you know, with the, it's the full family picture of how do we, ourselves,

Have a positive, confident, and embodied relationship with food?

And how do we support our children in doing the same?

Knowing that our bodies will change many times in our lives.

The food we eat will change many times in our lives.

So how do we lay that foundation?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thanks for sharing that.

It's always interesting how people come into this kind of work.

And actually I can relate to like so much that you've said, but I think what's,

Interesting to me is that when, cause I had an eating disorder as well for many years, but when I sort of finally got it together and like started getting better or feeling like I was really committing to getting better, the way I approached it was like complete rejection of anything to do with thinking about food.

So it was like, I'm just gonna focus on other things that are not food.

And just kind of eat when I'm hungry, stop when I fall, doesn't matter what I'm eating.

Just whatever's there, or whatever tastes good in that moment, or what I happen to be eating in a restaurant, whatever.

So it's just interesting how like, recovery takes different routes, right?

And how we find ourselves in different ways.

But anyway, with all that said, I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you approach

food in your home, just in general, and then more specifically with your child.

Because I think this is like such a common issue people have when they're trying to be a little more like consent-based or when they may be leaning into unschooling a little bit more.

And it's actually a very similar issue to like this, the screen, the so-called screen.

It's kind of like, well, if I just let them, you know, be on screens all day, if I just let them eat whatever they want, whenever they want all day, like,

What's going to happen?

Like, are they just going to be eating candy, like from morning till night or whatever?

So anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, I love this analogy, I think, especially in the homeschooling world, right, where we, where things are not as contained, right, like you're not packing up the lunch for school.

And that's the only they have very distinct opportunities of when they can eat, you know, there's there's a lot more

There's a lot more room for freedom and what that can look like.

But when it comes to food, because this question is so good because we all have our own food story and we all have our own food rules.

And I'm not here to say that there should be no rules.

There's absolutely room for boundaries, for guidelines, for rules.

It's just that what we want to be able to do is get really clear on whose rules they are

Because lots of times the rule is like, just from your home of origin, or it's something a doctor said to you once, or it's something you saw on your Instagram feed, or you read in a book somewhere, and it's not necessarily something that, and the same goes with screens, right?

We just hear, we can see data around all the terrible things that screens do to the brain, and then we can look at our individual child and recognize

All of the different ways that they use a screen and that screen is not, screens is not just one thing.

Food is not just one thing, right?

So, so let's get into this.

I think when it comes to how we do things in our home, collaboration is really at the top.

And I think that that is one area where it comes to food in particular, because we own we all have our own food story, whether you've had a totally positive, wonderful relationship with food your whole life, which I've yet to meet someone that that is the case.

There's still a story there and there's still and with that story comes an expectation.

It comes, you know, an assumption of how something should go.

And so given that we all have that story, we often have some tension in it that impacts our willingness and our joy in like inviting our kids into the process of food.

So we start to become, we often are more like top-down, because we start as parents, like if we roll it back, the food thing with parents starts

When really like if you were pregnant with your child, then it starts when you're pregnant.

If you if if your child came into your home in some other way, then it's like, what are you?

Is it nursing or is it bottle feeding?

What are you doing for first foods?

How are you handling things in the toddler ages?

Right.

Like exposure.

And oftentimes in those earlier years,

It's a little bit easier, especially for the first child.

Once the second child comes along, they're influenced by the first child.

So kind of all bets are off at that point.

But when it comes to those toddler years, oftentimes there's not as high of an exposure if you've really been trying to, you know, optimize nutrition and optimize exposure to sugar, which means different things in different families.

But what happens is we start to get so like, it's my job to create

Exactly how I want it to look.

And then that, inevitably, that child gets older and then starts to want other things, sees things at birthday parties, sees things in the store, starts to notice more.

And then you're like, oh, my God, how am I supposed to do this?

And oftentimes that translates to more control.

And that's when it's like, okay, what's the perfect meal plan?

And so then it's bringing, it's figuring out like, here's five dinners I'm going to make this week.

And it seems like this perfect idea.

And then all, most of these things do not involve the child.

So the parent is choosing what food comes into the house.

The parent is choosing where the food goes once it comes into the house.

The parent is choosing what's getting offered when.

And if we think about it from like a consent perspective, it's very much like, here you go, this is your food.

And then in the, you know, kind of, oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the term right now, it'll come to me.

But the idea of like, the child chooses if and, you know, what they want to eat.

And then that's meant to be the gentle approach to food.

I'm presenting you with these options.

You can choose what and if you want to eat this.

But when and where and how and all of those other things, I'm, you know, I the parent, I'm choosing.

Yeah, and I think that goes with a lot of things, not just food, actually, that when our kids are younger, we can control a lot more because they just don't know.

And I- Exactly.

There's like gray areas there, but it feels a little uncomfortable, just that idea, the idea that like, because they don't know that like candy exists, then we can like pretend like it doesn't exist.

Right, right.

You know, until they know, and then that's when the fear kicks in, right, as well, that we start to try and control even more in a way.

Yes, exactly, because if there's been no exposure and you've been like,

It's like controlling the food that comes in.

Isn't that kind of like our internalized diet culture in a way?

Because if we're not buying candy, are we not saying, you know, unconsciously, or like, maybe we don't mean to be saying this, but we're not saying like, this is bad.

This is bad food, so I'm not buying it.

And if you're just buying, you're just offering fruit as snacks, or whatever, it's because you think

Fruit is good.

And I guess that takes us to the whole like, how do we get to a place where like food is morally neutral?

Right?

Is it?

So yes, neutral.

And I think that these are these are the questions.

And I am the first to say that I, I don't have blanket answers to this.

You could be interviewing somebody else that is much more in the camp of diet culture and has influenced every single aspect of this and the term all foods fit and food is neutral.

I'm not of that belief.

And I think that that's also because of my

Deep background in holistic and integrative health and working with people on using food as a wonderful tool for healing the body and recognizing the ways in which food influences the body, influences different bodies in different ways.

So let's just, I'll come right back to that in a second, but I just wanted to finish the piece about the collaboration, because this is where I think, to me, this is like the easy button.

This is the thing that

If the, as the perspective can shift for families to, for parents to welcome their children into all stages of the food process, we actually end up eliminating so much of the tension and struggle and also decisions, right?

Like these, I, I've seen these statistics around, you know, we spend about seven hours a week making decisions.

And I think especially as mothers, especially as homeschooling parents, you know, the primary parent doing all this, there's so many decisions to make every single day, all day.

And that mental load is exhausting.

So if we just think about all the decisions that we make when it comes to food, that alone is exhausting, let alone everything else we're doing.

So when we bring our children into the kitchen,

And into the food process.

And when I say into the kitchen, I mean, you know, doing the food shopping, whether you do food shopping online or you do food shopping in the store, being at a farm stand or a farmer's market.

Prepping food, cooking food that involves a little bit of risk, which is always, for most children, a really enticing element of it, right?

Like standing at the stove, doing the things that the adults are doing is often a draw for most children.

And so the more we can do that, while at first it will take some understanding of how to do that in a way that works really well for you,

Then the children are involved.

It's not something that's happening to them.

They've made decisions.

They're aware of what's coming on the table for dinner.

They're picking out things from the fridge that they want on the table as well.

You get to sit back and actually enjoy your meal and enjoy your food so much more because there's agency in the process, because your child has had a say in the matter.

And then you also get a lot less rebellion, a lot less, you know, I hear from families all the time, whether it's like, and when I say rebellion, I don't even mean it's

As a negative thing, it's just the pushback around like, hey, it's my body, it's my mouth, I get to choose what goes in it, which is absolutely true.

We cannot, the mouth, the, you know, food is extremely personal, right?

The mouth is this like opening to the body and to have anybody force something,

into someone's mouth.

And I don't even mean physically, that's a whole other level.

But I mean, in like a cajoling, you know, manipulative way in any way, like if you eat this, then you can have this, you can't have like all of those kinds of things.

Our children are always looking to us for approval, right?

It's that survival thing in children.

So knowing that we do want to talk about food back to this neutrality piece, we want to talk about food in an inviting, welcoming,

um, you know, embodied way.

But I also think that we can honor that food impacts different bodies in different ways.

So I'm, I am don't necessarily I mean, I can say I don't believe that each individual, you know, or what I'll say is the food itself is neutral, right?

An individual piece of candy or an apple or a piece of bread or whatever, or the meat, whatever you're talking about, that in and of itself is just an item sitting on a plate or in a wrapper or in a package.

It's neutral on its own, but the way it impacts an individual's body is not neutral.

Um, it may be right, like there are people like I have celiac, I cannot eat gluten.

So while the piece of bread sitting on the plate is a neutral piece of bread, if I eat it, I will feel sick.

I know that when myself and my son and also my husband, we've we've kind of established this and, and, you know, back to like how I do things in my home, when we eat really sweet, or

Like, and when I say sweet, I'm referring to like refined sugar foods, not as much as a piece of fruit.

But if we eat like ice cream or a piece of candy or a cupcake or something like that, like basically, if we're going out for ice cream, if we're at a birthday party, if we're doing any of these kinds of things, sweets that we have in the house, if we eat them without having had any food prior, without any like protein rich foods, I'll say prior,

It affects all of us and particularly I will notice in my son who absolutely has some neurodivergence, I will see that it affects his ability to settle, to be focused at all, his voice is higher, there's so many things that happen in his body that if he hasn't had anything before.

It's not this huge, strict thing.

And if he wants something, he knows that his body at this point, because we've had conversations about it in a very non-shaming way, where he has recognized when he feels better, it's as an embodied piece for him, that he can just grab any food he wants that has some protein, and he can also have that sweet thing.

So like when we had Halloween candy in the house, it was just here.

And available because he went trick-or-treating, the Halloween candy was here and he could have it, but he knew how it made him feel.

And we, you can, this is where you, you do allow your child to see that for themselves, because if the rule is always external, externally, you know, imposed, then there's no,

embodied knowing, which for so many of us that tend towards disordered eating and eating disorders, there's usually there's almost always a disconnection from the body.

Yeah, so that body wise education, you know, you can talk about it totally separate from food, you can talk about it as like,

What do your poops look like?

What are your poops telling you about how your body is doing?

Right now my son is sick.

He has a fever.

And so we had a whole conversation about, he asked me, he was like, why does my fever keep going higher?

And so we had a whole conversation about the function of fevers in the body.

So there's an opportunity to like bring that in in so many ways so that your child learns that they can trust their body and that that can also happen with food.

Yeah, yeah, I love bringing up that embodiment piece, because I think, I think that does matter, like all our, and I was talking to someone else about it, just with learning in general, like so much of our learning is assumed to like happen in our brain.

When a lot of the things we experience and learn about and live through or whatever are embodied.

And we've kind of lost that sense.

I mean, I'm the first person to like admit that I have, you know, to some extent lost or never had or whatever that sense of feeling something in my body.

And I had to work quite hard to like rekindle that, right?

So I think there is something to be said about that in terms of like, I feel like a lot of times the discussion around diet culture is like,

you can't talk about what's in food.

You know, you can't be like, oh, this has that inside it, or I don't know, fruit has sugar in it.

And I don't know, you know, crisps have salt, or whatever, like, you're not supposed to talk about the ingredients, because then that can somehow be be shaming, I suppose, or can be totally can like label the food as like, good or bad.

It's like you're, it's like a kind of pathway to labeling the food in a way.

Yeah, I can see.

Yeah.

And particularly if you're using words like good or bad, healthy, unhealthy, right?

Like in when it comes to the binary language, I'm a big advocate for catching yourself when you're using it, because we've most of us grew up that way.

And as adults, if you're seeking dietary protocols or whatever you're doing, it'll be words like inflammatory or anti-inflammatory, like all of the anti-inflammatory diets, all of that.

And so we have to be able to be more discerning and take a step back and say, what does that mean?

Like the word clean is used a lot.

Like someone will say like, oh, it's super clean ingredients.

It's a super clean restaurant.

And it's like,

What, what are you saying, you know, like these these words also after a long time, and I feel this way with the phrased culture as well, that they start to lose meaning, because they're used so much, and they just mean different things to different people there isn't even

You know, one established definition of these things, like we start to understand generally what that means.

But when a term gets thrown around all the time, it's confusing.

And it's particularly confusing for children that often need a more like concrete understanding of what something is.

And for children, I feel

And I think if we had all had this, it would be great, but most of us didn't.

I feel that body-wise education and knowledge about the body and seeing things in their own body is the most concrete, wonderful way to experience anything having to do with the body.

Because when we're learning, experiences can be the peak, right?

You can read about them, you can learn about them in different ways, but when we can feel them,

It's totally different.

So when my son, when we can practice like some deep belly breathing and some diaphragmatic breathing, just letting his taking a deep breath in and him seeing if he's laying down, sometimes we'll put like a stuffed animal on his belly, and we'll see his belly rise and his belly come down.

And it's a little bit of a game to him, but within like two minutes, not even, within like 45 seconds, his whole system is calmer.

And he knows that.

And now he knows that like taking a deep breath and without just saying like, take a deep breath, you know, like when you can be like annoyed at your child or you see that they're all over the place.

So for him to be able to have that tool, and there's just so many wonderful examples of that with children, but like we all grew up praising

the cerebral and the brain and the thought process.

And that I see is like pervasive in all of the all of the information around diet culture and like the anti diet conversation.

It's all about the words we use and how we think about it and how you talk about it, which is just keeps you like spinning in your head versus actually feeling it and encouraging

Children and anybody to feel it.

And sometimes that's feeling the impact of a certain food and sometimes that's feeling what else is coming up in the body when you notice that you or your child is continually drawn to a certain food or type of food over and over again.

And you can start to notice that that pattern often matches an emotional state.

So, yeah.

Would you like boredom?

Yes, exactly.

Right.

So if we think about again, like the embodied piece, when you're chewing something, especially if you're chewing something really chewy, or really crunchy, it gives your jaw something to do.

And it gives you something to like, there's so many, you know, I laugh at how many kind of like,

Radical Mothering Podcast

It literally does, you know, and for someone that might need it can be very regulating for some children.

Absolutely.

As that.

So it's something it's noticing it is.

Yeah.

And I also recently read something about because I've always, you know, you know, I've always been I've always thought that like kind of eating because what you actually need is connection and comfort was not a desirable thing in general for me.

just to help me in my recovery.

So I was always very aware of like, when actually what I needed was not the food, but something else, right?

But then I read something recently about like, well, food is a comfort.

Like, it can be a comfort.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Like it's one of many things that give us comfort.

That's the key.

I feel like that's the part of it, that it's, it's honoring this and this.

It's one of many things that gives us comfort.

Like again, back to babies, you know, nursing a baby or bottle feeding a baby.

First of all, the formula and breast milk are both sweet and fatty and all of these wonderful things that we enjoy, right?

I mean, it's so complex, but you're also

Like if this is a really wonderful, you know, situation of a baby coming into the world, that baby is being held in someone's arms and being rocked while they're nursing or while they're, you know, drinking from a bottle.

It's an entire comforting, you know, looking in, looking in someone's eyes, like everything that comes with the first things that are going into someone's mouth and that, that full sensory experience, it's all about comfort.

Right.

And so,

And for anybody that, like, nursed extended, quote unquote, whatever that means, you know, they

You'll hear people say that like, no, it's not for nutrition at this point, it's more for comfort and nursing a baby to sleep, all of these things.

Like we recognize that we do these when they're babies, when they're toddlers, and we recognize that that is a full leap for comfort while it is something going into their mouths.

So we have to remember that this is how we came into the world and this is how we're wired.

And so there's room for both of it.

And then it's the opportunity to ask, like, is food my primary outlet, whether it's for comfort, whether it's to, you know, work through whatever, whatever emotion it is.

Is food the only thing available to me?

And then we get the opportunity to really tune in with all these other ways that we can have, like the menu of options that are available, but without making it wrong.

If you are

Processing, and in a conscious, intentional way, something that's going on with you with food.

Both of those things can be okay.

And as you recognize these things in your kids.

And then it just gives you information so that you can help equip them without making the food be wrong or the food be a problem or being filled with fear that they're going to develop disordered eating.

But you can equip them with other tools to work through those emotions to support their systems.

Yeah.

And speaking of that fear that they will develop disordered eating, I feel like that's

A very common thing with parents who experienced it themselves is that we have children and, you know, like literally one of my main goals was like, I do not want my children to experience this too.

Initially, and then, you know, when they were little.

And so this is one of the things I researched the most because I was going to do everything right.

And I was like,

You know, eating disorder, going to eating disorder proof my child, if that's even a thing.

With time I've gotten to a place where actually I focus less on that and I focus more on like having a connection with them so that if they do ever experience an eating disorder,

I will be there for them.

So I'm less, you know, but anyway, I would, I wanted to ask you, can we eating disorder proof our children and how, and to what extent?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's, it's such a beautiful question and it's, it's such a, it's such a deeply felt question for me.

And I think for probably a lot of people listening to this, because I think, you know, as parents, we,

The fear is such a motivator, right?

Like whatever it is that we experienced in our lives that was painful, we don't want our children to experience.

And so we feel like we want to do everything we can to make that happen.

And on the flip side, the things that were like the greatest things in our lives, we feel like our children absolutely should have.

And then we recognize, I think somewhere along the line, that these children are

autonomous, unique beings that that are in our home that are that are exposed to who we are, all the all the positive, wonderful and all the weakness and struggle and everything that comes along with it.

And so I don't think that we can, you know, blank proof anything in parenting.

And I think that that part is really hard.

And I think it's just it's something that I've had to sit with a lot and recognize that, yes, like deep, trusting, loving connection with our children, I think is the top and recognizing that all emotions are safe.

You know, that whatever you feel, and we can help the behaviors and the manifestation of those things.

But whatever you're feeling is what you're feeling.

And that's valid.

And there's room and I'm available to be here for you.

And if I'm not the best person to help support that, I'm going to do everything I can to help you find the best person to support whatever it is that you're feeling.

And so it's so that our children can grow up knowing that it's all safe.

And that they can express themselves.

That's a really big one with disordered eating is, you know, if you're familiar at all with like the chakras, like the throat chakra and this part of the voice, as I'm pointing to my throat, you know, that's also where the thyroid is, which is like a grand marshal hormone and gland for so much in the body.

And oftentimes there'll be a manifestation of something in the throat when there isn't just open room for self-expression.

And I know that for me, as I've learned a lot over the years of like, why was it disordered eating?

Why was it an eating disorder for me?

Like, why was that the thing?

You know, for some people, it's sex.

For some people, it's drugs.

For some people, it's alcohol.

For some people, it's reckless behavior.

It can be so many different things of a manifestation of just like, not feeling comfortable in oneself and looking without to

to figure that all out, right?

And for me, the food going in and the purging coming out was a way of numbing and filling myself up, and then the release, the expression in that way.

And recognizing that that's a big part of it for a lot of people who tend towards disordered eating, and particularly more of a manifestation of eating disorders,

That's a big one.

So I think that's the best we can do.

I wanna sit here and say, just let your kids eat everything all the time and that will be, that's the best way.

And that is what a lot of people say.

And it's not proven that that is actually the best way.

The pendulum has swung to the other extreme

Because we know that what was over here on the right with like complete heavy diet culture and heavy rules and, you know, everybody being obsessed with thinness and a body has to look a certain way and everything I can do to get my body look a certain way.

We know that that didn't work, but that doesn't mean that the opposite works.

So that's where I sit, you know, I'm here to help families really come into like their own middle ground because with anything, whether it's unschooling or parenting or whatever kind of thing we want to look at, the pendulum will swing to the other, the other end, right?

in order to try to find a better way, which feel it feels like balance because it's so not what we were doing.

But really, quote unquote, this illusion of balance, I think, is that as like if you when you picture a pendulum swinging back and forth, you know, if you pull on it in one direction, it will go it'll swing to the other extreme and eventually it will settle in in the middle and everybody's middle is different.

And I think that's what we need to honor.

And we need to really look at each individual family member and needs and family rhythms.

There's so many different pieces when it comes to the conversation with food, because food is every day, multiple times a day for the rest of our lives.

And that can either be the most overwhelming, burdensome concept, or it can be like, okay, how am I going to befriend this and find deep,

loving, joyful connection with food and support my children in their own connection.

And that's a manifestation of each individual family member.

Yeah.

And I love how the image of the pendulum actually, because you're so right, I feel like a lot of us and I include myself in this, have just gone to the complete opposite of like, what basically we experienced as you know, just

Less restriction, sometimes no restriction whatsoever.

You know, food is neutral.

We have a bit of everything and children eat when they want, whatever they want, and so on.

And everybody does it differently too, but it is essentially the opposite.

And I think everybody does have to find that, maybe not the middle ground, but their own place along that continuum in a way.

Because also we're all different families and we all live in different places and we all come from different cultures.

So it doesn't really make any sense that there is like one right way to do food, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, and you're sitting in this like beautiful space in Italy right now, and it's 7pm your time, you're eating dinner in another couple hours, right?

It's such an interesting thing because the places we are, the people we're around, the times of our lives, you know, food, what we're eating and how we're eating changes so many times during our lifetime.

And I think that that's where it's

It's being able to find what works for us individually.

And that's why I'm such an advocate for children really learning about their bodies in a really empowering way.

So this is consent on all perspectives, right?

It's when you go to a doctor's office, when someone touches your body or in any way, whether it's like

An intimate encounter or an encounter that's not welcome at all, that you have language for how to talk about your body and know what feels good in your body.

And I love using food.

I'll often say like food is a portal.

It's like a gateway to so much that we can learn about ourselves because we do interact with food every day.

And food is something that we can use as a tool to really learn about what feels good and what doesn't.

And there can also be room for bringing in whatever it is that you individually know about food.

A lot of people I work with have taken culinary courses, or they're health practitioners themselves, or they have a lot of knowledge, back to that cerebral place.

They have a lot of knowledge and education about the impact of food, or maybe they've had their own

like health struggles, health conditions, and ways in which they've used food, or they've learned about certain diets or protocols that are supportive, which often means a list of foods that are not supportive.

But if they've experienced that in themselves, and they've learned that, and they're bringing these principles into their family, into their day to day life, I'm not here to say that that's wrong.

I, you know, if they, if, if they're,

Using certain foods or removing certain foods to like support the microbiome because we know so much about the microbiome and gut health and the impact on brain health.

And, you know, some people say the gut is the second brain.

Some people say it's the first brain like evolutionarily and bacteria wise.

So it's very cool to know that and then to be able to say like this is how we do things in our home and to own that and feel okay about it without like you were saying these

The anti-diet culture, these different movements making that wrong.

It doesn't, you're not wrong if you don't want candy in your house.

But I do, I do believe, and this is what I support people with is like, what, what's your plan for when your children or you are going to encounter

Candy and sweets and all of that.

And so how does that come in in a way that does not make your child wrong or bad for wanting it or going against the rules?

Because they will find their way to have it.

So I think holding both of those.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And I'm going to just like play devil's advocate for a minute here.

And yes, please.

What would you say?

What would you say to someone who is who is basically like, oh, well, my child just eats.

I don't know, pizza just as a random thing, but it could be anything, anything that is deemed by, you know, society as not particularly

What if you're someone who has all foods available in your house, however, your child will only eat candy?

only.

I don't know if this person exists.

But what if, like, how would you kind of approach that?

I'm just curious, because I'm curious how you kind of, yeah, how you kind of move through that, you know?

Yeah, that's great.

So there's a few things here.

For one,

Um, when there's just complete like, in a home where your child can eat whatever they want to eat whenever they want to eat it, if that's the case, which is often not the case.

But if that let's say that is let's say that the parent is really wanting to just embrace like, absolute full freedom.

I encourage that there's that there are some

Let me think of like where I wanna go with this first.

That there's... Okay, hold on.

In most of these scenarios, when this is what's played out, like the parent has seen all the things out there in the world, in social media, read articles, listened to podcasts saying like, all foods fit, bring everything in, let your child just have access to everything all the time, and then that sense of restriction and all of that will kind of like move by the wayside.

The underneath that for the parent that's coming to me asking that question is a fear that that won't actually happen.

And typically it does, but it won't not necessarily always where this is where I.

Like I even went on to an Instagram account recently and I asked this question because there was a there was a graphic by I'm not going to say the like the Instagram holder, but it's a dietitian that is a big advocate for like anti-diet for children and she basically said that like ice cream.

You know, having ice cream all the time, whenever is great.

Sometimes your kids will eat so much ice cream.

Sometimes your kids will not eat so much ice cream, but having it available all the time is or something to the gist of that is really important for your child.

So that's like this kind of example, right?

In the comments then I asked, because then I read through the whole caption, there wasn't any nuance there.

There were no qualifiers.

It was like ice cream all the time.

Your child's body will tell them when they've had enough.

And I said, like, what about cases where there's, you know, neurodivergence and some of that, whether it's

The sugar or different things that can impact a body.

What if they, you know, certain children, certain humans are actually, there's so many different reasons why perhaps the hormones that come on to say like, that's it, I'm satiated, may not, right?

There's a lot of other like health related and body related things that may not make that maybe a case.

And her answer to my thing was like,

Yes, of course, you know, when I'm sharing things here, I'm not, I'm not sharing, like the every single case situation, it she was basically saying, like, yeah, there's nuance here.

And there's individuality, and each family has different things that go on here.

But that's, that's more than I can put in a post.

And I honor that as a content creator, and I know that you experience that too.

But the issue is that there's people all over the world making decisions about having full access to candy or ice cream for their children based on these memes and graphics and like quick, you know, hashtagable buzzword clickbaity things.

And they're not aware of all of this other nuance.

And this is where social media is extremely tricky, and is a really hard place to be like the only place that you get this information without having some of that other knowledge, which is why I am such a big advocate for body wise education.

Like when I work with clients in my programs, I'm teaching about

So I'm going to start with the basics of blood sugar, the basics of hormones, the different things that go on in the body.

So because we never learned it unless you like took biology classes like through college or it's part of your job or you're a practitioner in some way, like we didn't learn this and it's crucial to learn it.

So there's that, there's the nuance piece.

But what I often find in most of these families is what I was sharing earlier is that there's usually not

a place for that child to be involved in all steps of the food process.

So they're not connected to food.

They often have other like dysregulated patterns in their lives.

And they have they have narrowed their list of acceptable foods so much to the thing, you know, so much so that they are drawn to the thing that is giving them that like

dopamine, this feels really good, hyper palatable, all of that.

They're going to that over and over again.

And that is their individual body's wisdom.

There's a reason why they're going to that over and over again.

And so we want to take a step back and look at how can we support this child?

Because if that's if they have such a narrow list, like this is like the picky eater thing.

If there's such a narrow list, maybe it's not just candy, but it's like there's five or six foods and they're all bland and sweet foods.

There's an invitation there to look at the child holistically, to help them again with resources for other things.

It's getting into some eating psychology and why are we drawn to the foods that we're drawn to and also having them be an integral part of the food process.

When we only know one thing, we go to one thing.

When we can see all different ways that we can be involved in something, we often are.

And once we find the way that we like to be connected to it.

Each individual is different.

Every cook is different.

Every, you know, when we're in a space, the way we're drawn to things are different.

But so it's, that's my answer to that.

You know, it's a long, multifaceted answer, but it's

I don't believe it's like, nope, take away the sugar.

You've done the test and all they want to eat is these sweet foods.

Taking it away, that's not gonna do anything to help actually support the child for a positive, confident, and embodied relationship with food.

So yeah, that's kind of, that's the thing.

And then I also just, I would add this like the logistical piece here of I do believe that it's really helpful for

there to be clear understanding of like how and when food comes into the house.

And you get to decide if like once a candy jar is emptied, is it immediately refilled?

Or is there a certain cadence of like, when you predictably place an online food order or when you're going to the store or like what happens once something is empty?

And that's an opportunity for like,

Self-regulation and, you know, we can do the same thing with screens.

Like the opportunity, some children are going to have an easier time with that self-regulation than others.

And it's understanding that, but like, is there, is it just like when you go to a bulk food section and you like pull the latch and more candy just comes out?

Is it always just like, is it an endless flow of candy in the house or are there times when there's just like, oh, that's done?

Yeah.

And again, this flow idea is not

life.

It's just not a thing we have, we see in life, like you're not always going to have all the things you want, constantly.

And this isn't just doesn't apply to food only, but any other thing, right?

Exactly.

So, and it's helpful for children to learn that it's helpful for us as adults.

I mean, oftentimes, adults really struggle with that, right?

Like, it's the opportunity to recognize that.

Okay, that's, that's done.

I ran out of coffee before my grocery shop.

I'd be going out that morning.

So that's great.

No, this is good.

So it's like, it's funny, but it's so helpful.

Because then it's a matter of like,

If you ran out of coffee and you didn't know you were about to run out of coffee, you didn't plan your like coffee ration appropriately for when you were going to run out, if you would be willing to run out for coffee, then it's a really important thing to recognize why you would not be willing.

To replenish a certain snack that your kid really wanted to, or anything, right?

It's not, I mean, I think that so often we talk about like snacks and sugar with kids, it's everybody, we all have this stuff.

So that's, you know, that's a consent, you know, respectful parenting piece of like, yeah, that's a biggie.

Yeah, and I mean, I think I do a similar thing with my kids, like if they want a popsicle and we've run out, and it's, you know, not going to be grocery shop day in a few days.

If I have the time and I have the space to go to the shops, like I will go, but I'll usually be like, hey, come, why don't you come with me?

Because, well, first of all, I can't leave them home by themselves much of the time.

But it's also a whole thing of like, if you're willing to make this effort to actually go to the shop and get them, then you know, you must really want them.

And it's kind of a collaborative thing, right?

Exactly.

you know, whatever you want, at any given time.

So yeah, I mean, there's so much to talk about.

But all of that is, it's just, it's part of it, right?

Like, if you could just say, like, poof, I have a popsicle.

If that's the only way you want a popsicle.

Well, we don't have any popsicles.

But if you want to get your shoes on and stop doing what you're doing and

Come out to the store with me and do all that.

Yeah.

And we could also pick up a couple other things anyway.

So let's talk about that.

And that's collaboration.

It's being involved.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think, okay, this might be saying more about my kids than children in general, but in, but most of the time they actually don't want to then go out and get the popsicle because they're doing something or they're about to watch a movie or whatever.

So, you know, I think there's something to be said about that.

Yeah.

Anyway, I'm gonna let you go because we've been talking for a while, but I could keep talking forever about this because there's just so many things.

Oh, good.

Thank you so much for being on.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Such awesome questions, too.

Such a fun exploration of these topics.

Oh, and would you like to tell people where to find you?

Sure.

And also anything you've got going on right now?

Yeah, um, so it's just Deena Barselah on Instagram website, DeenaBarselah.com.

So you can find me in those two places.

I have some really fun, just like free offerings that you'll see there.

So there's I have a program called the Snack Hack, which is all about just supporting families in

in doing snacks because snacks can be that like, oh my gosh, you're hungry again, you're hungry again.

And this is where we get back to like, instead of them having to come to you for things all the time, how you can set up a snack area that really supports that like embodied and, and autonomous nature for them.

And then we have, we have a Let's Talk About Sugar coming program coming up in October, which

If you resonated with this conversation, you will love learning about sugar in a totally different way.

And then I'm going to be offering Kids in the Kitchen again in November, which is going to be the last time I'm running it live.

And I know you went through Kids in the Kitchen last year.

So we'll be doing that again.

And that is all about

How to bring your kids into the kitchen in a way that feels really good and honors everybody in the family and their uniqueness.

So we kind of, we address all of the things that can often feel like, I don't want to bring my kids into the kitchen.

So lots of other fun things coming up, but just connect on Instagram, say hi.

If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to know.

Wonderful.

Thanks so much, Deena.

Thank you.