Ever wonder if your relationship with food is actually okay? In this episode, registered dietitian Jessica Setnick joins Leslie to talk about the early signs that eating has become more than just eating — the connection between stress and food, why body image gets distorted, and how to know when it's time to talk to someone. This one's for anyone who's ever felt confused, guilty, or "off" about food.

[01:19] Why diet culture messaging is louder than it used to be

[03:45] How eating problems actually start

[07:31] Two questions to ask about any "should" message about your body [10:49] Why stress affects your eating

[15:24] Yellow flags in how you think about food

[19:01] Why your brain doesn't show you an accurate picture of your body

[27:34] What's different about high school and college [31:43] How to know when it's time to get help

[36:48] Can you actually have a healthy relationship with food?

Resources mentioned:

• Freshman Formula
• Parent Masterclass - for parents of high school students planning to attend college or college freshman already on campus
• Free Clarity Call with Leslie

Leslie

There's a misconception that many people have, and it's that people with eating issues fit into just a couple types either someone who is strict severely, or someone who can't control their eating and they binge all the time. The truth is, there are so many other eating challenges that we can develop, and they start much earlier than we often realize and are much more subtle than we realize, which is what we'll be talking about today.

Leslie

What does a concerning eating relationship look like? How do you spot it in yourself? Questions to ask, influences that might be affecting you and what you can do about it. I'm joined by Jessica Ethnic today, and what I love about Jessica is her perspective. She says that she dreams of a world where no one is ashamed to talk about their eating quirks, and everyone is open to getting help.

Leslie

She's the best kind of nutrition expert. She knows her stuff, but she doesn't take herself too seriously. Jessica brings her own experience of an eating disorder, plus 30 years of helping others with their eating issues. To this conversation, I think you'll find this episode with her to be interesting and super helpful. No matter what your relationship with food is like, there's great insights and tips for everyone.

Leslie

What's up parents and teens? It's me, Leslie, and welcome to the Healthy Teen Life podcast, where we cover Teen in College, aging, adult health, and wellness topics. I'm so excited to be spending this time with you. And if you're new to the podcast, then thank you and welcome to The Healthy Teen Life. It's always really great to have new friends join us!

Leslie

I know you have a lot going on in your life, so I think it's really cool that you're taking your time to listen and learn something new that I hope will help you live healthier and happier, even if it's just a tiny bit that I've done my job. So get comfortable and let's dive in. Hey.

Leslie

Jessica, thanks so much for joining us on the Healthy Teen Life podcast today. It's great to have you here.

Jessica Setnick

Thanks. I've been excited.

Leslie

Yeah. So I would love it if you could give our listeners just a little bit about yourself what it is that you do, and that can then launch us into what we're going to talk about today.

Jessica Setnick

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm trained as a dietitian. I didn't even know what a dietitian was until I became one. But my job used to be sitting with teens and helping them figure out what was going on with their eating when things were going wrong. I no longer meet with individuals anymore. I try to help doctors, nurses, counselors, and dietitians know how to help a teen within eating problem.

Jessica Setnick

So someone who is doing what I used to do.

Leslie

Right. That's so, so valuable. Especially for doctors, nurses, things like that, that they're not specifically trained in eating disorders. For them to be getting the information and starting to learn it, that is super helpful because I know even as a mom, having my own kids going to the doctor, they often don't know how to address when the young person's having an eating challenge, when they're questioning their body, when they're not feeling good about.

Leslie

Should I have this? Should I not? Should I feel guilty about this? This? This is okay. All those things.

Jessica Setnick

Well, it's a very specific skill set because a lot of us, people who ever the adults that are the age of the doctors and the nurses, etc., we weren't raised with good information. We were all raised in diet, culture and appearance culture. And that's just gotten worse over the years. And so if it was bad for us and it's bad for teens now, we don't have necessarily those skills of how to talk about it because we're all living in the same swamp of diet culture.

Leslie

Yeah. And I'm glad that you said that it has gotten worse, because it definitely has in some ways, and I think worse in the sense that it's more prevalent, it's more present all the time in everything you see.

Jessica Setnick

Oh, yeah. I mean, when we were growing up, you had the, you know, you could get a magazine at the store or in a subscription, and then you read the magazine and then you were done. Now it's a never ending stream of media. That's right there in your bed, in your on your phone. It's everywhere all the time.

Jessica Setnick

So, yeah, the volume of it, even if the messages may be equal, the volume is worse. And I think there's what is that saying? Don't compare your day to day with someone else's highlight reel. It's very curated. And so it's not just seeing. We just had cameras in people's houses and saw what they were doing all the time.

Jessica Setnick

That would be one thing, but the things that we're seeing all the time are the best picture that someone chose, or the filtered picture that someone chose, or the certain pose that someone chose. And so we're seeing only we're just constantly surrounded with all these images that it's just very easy to feel less than left out, all of those things.

Leslie

Yeah. And I think so many teens are starting to recognize that they are aware that, you know, there's filters and they're using them themselves because they want to feel better about what they're putting up on social media. I think it's sometimes as hard when you're seeing it consistently, and you don't even realize the impact that it's.

Jessica Setnick

Well, teens are smart. Okay. They're probably way smarter about technology than I am. And this kind of thing is not about logic or smart or coding or brainpower. It is very emotional. Yeah. And that is something that no matter how smart you are, things still sort of tug at your heartstrings, can make you feel left out, can make you feel not good enough, can make you feel like someone has something you don't have that is totally normal.

Jessica Setnick

No matter how smart you are, you can feel that way.

Leslie

So let's first talk about eating disorders. Kind of how they can start to happen. Maybe some signs that, you know, young people can be aware of. And then we can start to dive into some things about like prevention, early intervention, other influences like social media. But there's others also.

Jessica Setnick

Well, first let me say that I don't prefer the term eating disorders because I feel like when something is an eating disorder, it's pretty far down the pathway. So I prefer to talk about problem eating behaviors and eating worries. That to me is where it's already a problem. So it's not really prevention, but it's catching something a long time before it becomes an eating disorder.

Jessica Setnick

By the time someone has lost weight, gained weight, isn't eating, is overeating. To me, those those things can become very, very strong habits, if not worse. And what we're really trying to catch is anytime something changes, if there's a change in your eating, that's what we really want to catch, especially a change that occurs related to something stressful.

Jessica Setnick

Yeah. So stress plus change in eating is what goes together to cause severe eating problems. We're trying to catch it right at the stress, wanting to change your eating situation. So that would be something like a school dances coming up. You want to cut back on your eating or lose weight to fit into a certain outfit. That could be something harmful or bad.

Jessica Setnick

Happens to someone that you know, and you want to try to prevent it by going on a diet. Those kind of things where it's a health related concern, or it can even be something like a community stressful event. It could be a natural disaster. Anything that sort of violates your sense of feeling safe can make you want something safe.

Jessica Setnick

And in our society, the idea of the way you look keeps you safe. It's not true, but it can be very seductive, very alluring that if I change the way I look, I can change the way I feel. The other thing is, there's a lot of messages out there about food being unsafe. So if you're feeling unsafe in some ways I can avoid certain foods.

Jessica Setnick

I can limit the things I eat. That can be a way to feel safe. And same thing with weight. If I weigh myself often, that can help me feel safe. None of those things really help you feel safe from the things that are all out there, but there's sort of a something we grab for because we think it's going to help.

Jessica Setnick

And then when it doesn't help, that's when things get really, really severe. So, for example, how many meals can you skip before the guy you want to invite you to? The school dance invites you like you can't make it happen by changing the way you look, but it's so tempting. And so we change, change, change. So I'm thinking, let's say I moved to a new town and I don't have a lot of friends at school.

Jessica Setnick

And I think, like, maybe if I lose 10 pounds, I'll have some more friends. So let's say I was able to do that and lose 10 pounds and I don't have more friends. There's options here, right? Well, maybe I could join a club. Maybe I could join a sports team. But then what if I think maybe that just wasn't enough?

Jessica Setnick

And if I lose ten more pounds, then things will be better. And that's how we end up down a spiraling path. So the way to catch it to me is before anyone would ever think eating disorder. But when people think about stress and changing their eating or changing their bodies, that's the place we want to. I want to help teens recognize.

Jessica Setnick

Wait, what? That was an interesting thought pattern that I had. Wait, why am I thinking that that weighing myself is going to make people like me better? I need to look at this from a different point of view.

Leslie

Yeah, I think that's a really a key point there. Jessica is stopping and questioning like, wait, why am I thinking this? Where is this coming from? And is this true? Right. And trying to evaluate it more.

Jessica Setnick

And I can tell you that there is a really important clue that you can use when you're trying to think, is this something I really want, or is this something that is a message I'm picking up from somewhere that doesn't really belong to me? And the main thing is, does it cost money? Because there is an important key in consumerism, which is if you feel really good about yourself, you don't have to buy a lot of things.

Jessica Setnick

You have to feel bad about yourself in order to want to buy things. You have to feel bad about your skin. In order to buy skin products, you have to feel bad about your hair. In order to buy hair products, you have to feel bad about having hair on your legs in order to buy razors. I'm not saying don't buy razors.

Jessica Setnick

Don't shave your legs. You do you? But when you're questioning, I feel like there's something not good enough about me. If it's tied to something you have to buy, that is a really big clue that that is not coming from you. That is coming from an external force that wants you to feel bad about yourself. And the best way we can fight that is not let them win.

Jessica Setnick

I mean, the same thing is happening with me in aging. So I'm a teenager times for probably I'm 53 and everything targeted to me is about anti-aging or sleeping better, and every single thing costs money. And that's how I know it's not really for me, because, yeah, I put lotion on my face before I go to bed, but it's not something that's being pitched to me by an influencer on Instagram for $75.

Jessica Setnick

The more money attached, the worse it has to make you feel about yourself in order to feel like you really need it.

Leslie

Well, I think there's also another nuance that has started to happen or is coming, which is and you mentioned it is influencers. They're not always selling you a product directly, but they're making money on the back end either through like, you know, with YouTube, with impressions and everything else. Am I spending money or being asked to spend money?

Leslie

But it's also are they making money off of me? Right? Is there an incentive for them of why they're talking about this workout routine, this intense workout routine, or eating a certain way, or taking a supplement or whatever it might be because they're benefiting from it financially and being that wise consumer and going, wait a minute here, what's going on, I think is very important because there's a reason why they're telling you this information and making it.

Jessica Setnick

That's the second clue. The second clue is have they met me?

Leslie

Right?

Jessica Setnick

Because if they haven't met you, then they can't possibly know what is important for you. They are just casting a super wide net of anyone who might be caught in it. And so if it's, let's say, a teacher at school that's making a suggestion, or if it's a trusted family member or something like that, then yeah, that's something maybe worth listening to.

Jessica Setnick

On the other hand, a stranger who's never met you can't possibly know what is actually best for you. And it's so tempting to outsource our well-being to someone who looks away. We want to look or talk the way we want to talk, or has the things that we want to have. But they're not you, and you may not need what they're selling, even though they are very convincing.

Leslie

Yeah. Now, you mentioned stress earlier, and I think that is a question that often comes up, is why does stress affect my eating?

Jessica Setnick

Yeah. So this is a weird thought that a lot of people don't ever think of. But food is a mood altering chemical the same way we talk about drugs, the same way we talk about alcohol, a mood altering chemical. In other words, when you eat, you feel differently. And anyone who's ever been hungry knows that you're hungry. You're crabby, you don't like anyone.

Jessica Setnick

Then you eat something and you suddenly feel better. Oh, it's also, you know, same with your maybe your brain power or your athletic performance, right? Food is a chemical that we eat, and it changes the way we feel. Yeah. And so when you are under stress, stress saps out your brain chemistry, the chemicals that make you feel sort of well and balanced and good.

Jessica Setnick

And then the things that put those chemicals back in are food, alcohol, drugs, the same things that we turn to when we're not feeling like ourselves or not feeling well. And so it's very tempting to eat to fix our stress. Now, if you're genuinely not fueled correctly, then yeah, then food is needed. But there's times when we don't really know what we need, and so we just search for those things that we are used to.

Jessica Setnick

So if someone typically will turn to vaping when they don't feel good, that's what they're going to turn to every time. And when someone turns to snacks, that's what they're going to turn to. Every time we all sort of have these habits. And then sometimes when people think, well, I don't want to turn to food and then they turn to vaping or something else, like we can switch around.

Jessica Setnick

But the idea is to me, it's sort of like taking a bath when you're not dirty or, you know, it's like, how do I know when I've eaten enough? If I'm eating because I'm stressed, like there is no amount of food that can solve. I don't know that you need a math tutor, right? So that's where eating and stress are a mismatch.

Jessica Setnick

If you genuinely need fuel, you'll will solve it. And then you'll feel better and you'll move on. But if what you really need is, I don't know, your Add medicine or something like that, there's no amount of food that's going to fit that need.

Leslie

Yeah. I mean, like you need to address that, that test that you didn't do so well on making you feel bad. And so then you start. Yeah. Things like that.

Jessica Setnick

Totally. And here's an interesting fact that I think people also beyond the fact that people don't even think about food as a mood altering chemical once you think that way, sometimes not eating is mood altering and people really don't think about that. So in other words, skipping a meal can actually have different effects on your mood when you're thinking, well, but if I'm hungry, then I should feel bad.

Jessica Setnick

But for some people, the way their brain chemistry works is they actually feel lighter and better. And that's how we end up with people who are not eating to make themselves feel better. And that's not ideal either. So we have like two thirds and one third, two thirds of people that get anxious eat more. A third of people who get anxious eat less.

Jessica Setnick

And neither one is ideal because at the end of the day, you're not managing your anxiety.

Leslie

And you're depriving your body of what it needs.

Jessica Setnick

Yeah, but even if you eat, even if you overeat from anxiety, you still not managing the anxiety itself.

Leslie

Yeah, exactly. And it's so important recognizing when stress is affecting that self-care.

Jessica Setnick

Yeah. And I think it's so alluring to think of that as something that is wrong with us instead of, well, it's kind of a depressing world sometimes, and it's a very anxiety provoking world sometimes. Like, these are normal responses to the world out there, and we have to learn ways to cope with it and get through. We need to stick together, find reasons to laugh.

Jessica Setnick

You know all the things that help us get through our stress because we're never going to not have stress. But sometimes I think we think it's us, it's us, it's us. And so we're always looking for something that's going to fix us instead of going out into sort of the bigger wide world and trying to connect with people.

Jessica Setnick

I think that's why why we get isolated is because we think, if I'm not feeling good, I know I felt this plenty of times. If I'm not feeling peppy, then I don't want to call anyone because I don't want to talk to me when I'm feeling down. And it's the exact opposite. It's when you feel down that you need to reach out to someone.

Leslie

Yeah, I become a cycle they get caught up in trying to understand your eating can be complex and your relationship with food. Is it healthy? Is it not? So are there some, you know, yellow flags, red flags that teens should be looking out for or start to notice?

Jessica Setnick

So one clue is, are you looking at individual food kind of under an imaginary microscope? Because truly nutrition and health is based on choice after choice after choice over weeks and months and years. So if at any point you're feeling like if I don't eat that broccoli, I won't be healthy. Or if I do eat that cookie, I won't be healthy.

Jessica Setnick

Like, that's too much power on any one food. It's the relationship you have with food that is so much more important than anyone. Food you do or don't eat. And I will say to the teens, listening, your parents may actually fall for this same thing and may say something like, you can't x, y, z until you eat that broccoli.

Jessica Setnick

And it's because we were trained that same way that you can't be healthy if you don't like broccoli or whatever.

Leslie

The case, unless you, you know, finish your right.

Jessica Setnick

But healthy is such a big word for so many things. And one, food doesn't have the power to make you healthy or make you unhealthy. One choice, even multiple choices. I'm talking about days, weeks, months, years of choices. And so if you catch yourself thinking, I can't eat that, or I have to eat that even if I don't like it, that's a big yellow flag that you're putting way too much responsibility onto food, way too much control onto food in terms of how it's affecting your life, I would say it would be much more important to focus on.

Jessica Setnick

Do you eat multiple times a day and not go too long without eating? Because hunger is like a pendulum slipping back and forth. If you get to hungry, you will eat too much in most cases, and then you feel guilty and you think, oh, now I have to cut back. And then that pendulum keeps swinging. So eating several times throughout the day is much more important than exactly what you eat at each of those times, but it's so much easier to hone in.

Jessica Setnick

Another thing is portion sizes. Oh my gosh, I'm a dietitian. I do not look at portion sizes on a package before I put something in a bowl and eat it. It is that unimportant. The only thing I would ever use a portion size for is to compare. If for some reason, I wanted to find out how many crackers are in this box versus this box or something like that, I would use it to compare two different crackers, but I would never actually look on the package and say a serving size is X amount of crackers.

Jessica Setnick

I will only eat that many. That's nuts. And so if you catch yourself honing in on numbers, on calories, on things like that, that is a big yellow flag that says that somehow food is sort of, if you think of your life as a pie, and food should be one slice of the pie. If that piece of the pie is getting bigger and bigger, bigger and taking up too much of your life, sometimes that's when numbers and counting and keeping track comes in.

Jessica Setnick

And unless you have a, let's say, a medical condition and you have to keep track of something to show your dietitian, I think keeping track of everything you eat is a sign that you are focusing too much of your pie of life on what you're eating. It doesn't. It's important, but it doesn't have so much importance that it should crowd out other things, right?

Leslie

Right. Yeah. If it's occupying too much of your mind space all the time, and instead of just checking in every now and then. Am I hungry, am I not? Is it time to eat? You know, should I eat? How am I feeling? Am I low on energy? Do I need some food to fuel me? Those sorts of things.

Jessica Setnick

So right on yeah I agree.

Leslie

And then what about body image feeling bad about their body. And you kind of refer to that earlier of like oh, if I lose some weight that guy will be more interested in me. Or, you know, those sorts of things where we tend to use our body and relationship to food and connect the two in a way that can be harmful.

Jessica Setnick

Yes. Well, I would say that the mind expanding thought to think about right now is that you've never actually seen your body. So you can look down and see parts of your body. You can look in a mirror and see a reflection of your body. You can look on a phone or at a photo and see a two dimensional representation of your body in pixels at a given moment in time, but you can't actually see your whole body, or even get the impression of your body like someone else does.

Jessica Setnick

Same with your voice. If you ever heard your voice recorded right, we all think, oh, I can't. There's no one.

Leslie

Like that.

Jessica Setnick

It's like that. It's like our brains have not developed. I mean, through most of human history, you couldn't hear your own voice. So we haven't developed that ability to hear it the way others here. Same with the way you look. For most of human history, we could not see ourselves, so we didn't know how we look. Our brains have not developed to correctly interpret how we look.

Jessica Setnick

And so when your parent says something like you're the most beautiful girl of the world, or you're the most handsome boy in the world, they really think that because that's the way their brain is seeing you. You may not see that, but that's because you can't see yourself through someone else's eyes. It just simply doesn't work that way.

Jessica Setnick

And your brain. This is I hate to say it this way, but I think it makes the most impact. Your brain is lying to you there. Yeah, I'll tell you that. How many times have you looked for your keys and you can't find them? And then they're right there where you thought they would be. The best way I can convince you that your brain is lying to you is.

Jessica Setnick

Close one eye and look at your nose. I've closed my left eye and I can see my nose with my right. Now I'm going to close my right eye and I can see my nose with my left eye. But when you open both eyes, you cannot see your nose. Your brain has edited it out for you. That's what happens when you look at your own body.

Jessica Setnick

You see something, but it's not what's real. And it's very upsetting to think that your mind is not telling you the truth. But think about how you might see. Let's say I'm looking out my window right now, and I see someone on a bike fall over and I think, oh, poor guy, he fell over on his bike. But if I'm looking out the window and I see my grandma on a bike and she falls over, I'm like, Leslie, I gotta go.

Jessica Setnick

I gotta go get my grandma. Right? It's like, what you see is different based on how you feel about what you see. I might feel bad for a stranger who fell off his bike, but I'm hysterical about my elderly grandma falling off a bike. Right? Right. And my grandma is important to me versus a stranger. I'm not saying it's okay that a stranger gets hurt.

Jessica Setnick

That's not my point. But you get my point that how we feel influence is what we see. So this is the weirdest part. When you're feeling not good about yourself, you will see something different in the mirror.

Leslie

Yep. And you've had preconditioning of other experiences of what people have said to you, what you've been exposed to, what you've seen, what you've believed.

Jessica Setnick

We think what we see is real, but really what we see is based on what we've been told about what we see, what our vision is seeing. But remember, eyes are not just vision. Vision is eyes going through the brain to interpret. So it's what we've been told about what we see. It's what we feel about what we see is what we feel about how we're feeling in the moment.

Jessica Setnick

I've gone out before to a party in my teens and felt really good about how I looked and then felt like, oh, the person that I have a crush on isn't paying any attention to me. And then I walk by a mirror and think I look horrible, but I look exactly the same as I looked when I left the house and thought I looked good.

Leslie

So that's a sign like that, right? There is a sign. It's like, wait, okay. Hold on. Hit the pause button. What's going on here?

Jessica Setnick

Because your body hasn't changed. Another example is if, let's say you're driving along or sitting on the bus and you look down and you think, oh my God, my thighs are so huge, they haven't changed. Nothing has changed except your perception. So to think about what has happened in my life in the last 10 or 15 or 5 or 2 minutes, that could have made me somehow not feel good about myself, because there's zero chance that my thighs have actually changed in those last few minutes.

Jessica Setnick

But it's the way that we're feeling that can make a big impact on our body image.

Leslie

Yeah. Although I do want to talk about change, because during puberty there is a lot of change going on. So that can be can be very challenging in terms of accepting your body or feeling good about your body, and then that turning into some changes in your eating behaviors. Because because of that.

Jessica Setnick

Sure. And I think one of the things that we have to do when we're in a time period where our body is changing is we need to push back when other people say things like, oh, you're so big, or oh, you got to tall, or oh, you're filling out, you're turning into a woman or whatever is to just say, you know, I really felt uncomfortable talking about my body right now.

Jessica Setnick

Can we talk about something else? Instead of feeling like, oh, I'm supposed to feel good about this, but I don't really know how I feel about it yet, or I don't really feel good about it yet. Like, we need to make sure that other people are not controlling the narrative about our body. And I'll share that. I went from completely flat chested in ninth grade to my full adult boob size in 10th grade, so one summer and something that still sticks with me is I would go shopping for a dress, and nowadays I have to buy a dress for the boobs, and then I can have it altered on the bottom because it's a tent

Jessica Setnick

I buy for the boobs. I have a tent on the bottom, but I remember these sweet, matronly ladies would come and they would zip up your dress in the back. And when they got kind of to the mid back area, they would say, oh, you know what? This one doesn't fit. It wouldn't zip up. And what I had observed on TV and in movies at Cetera was if you couldn't zip your clothes, you're fat.

Leslie

Right.

Jessica Setnick

So that equals I must be fat. So obviously I need to diet like this was something that just. It was so fast, I couldn't have even told you at that time. I was making all these connections. But I can look back and see how, you know, if an adult had said to me, oh, you know what, hun? This dress doesn't fit your chest.

Jessica Setnick

Let's get you a different dress that fits your chest, and then we'll alter it down at the bottom, just like I do now with no problems. I might have felt really differently about myself. So we really have to push back from the way that other people are perceiving our bodies. It might be very uncomfortable to change so quickly.

Jessica Setnick

I sometimes think of my son who grew a lot of inches in a year. I don't know how many, but he didn't realize he was going to have to start ducking down under some short doorways. Like, I totally relate to that. Even though I'm a short person, change is hard and so we don't always have to be excited about it.

Leslie

Yeah, I remember from my son buying like multiple pairs of pants, you know, because he kept growing and like, they kept getting short.

Jessica Setnick

Yes. And there's nothing we can do about it. It's normal body processes. But for whatever reason, our society kind of makes it sound like you should be able to control this. And I will also mention that during that time period when you're changing, sometimes people grow wider before they grow taller, sometimes people grow taller before they grow wider.

Jessica Setnick

And what's unfortunate is it feels like everyone has permission to comment on your body. And that's the part that I wish we would change. I wish people would say things like, I'm so glad to see you, or I just love your smile or something like that. That doesn't draw attention to your is changing. And I noticed and everybody noticed.

Jessica Setnick

Nobody likes that.

Leslie

Yeah, it's very uncomfortable and it does nothing but cause you to feel uncomfortable about your body and maybe, you know, start to question it and, and then be like, oh, should I be doing something about this? This is bad. Is this something wrong with me?

Jessica Setnick

A reporter just contacted me and asked if I would say something about Ariana Grande possibly having an eating disorder, and I said, absolutely not. I do not comment on people's bodies. Not famous people, not people I know no one done right, right. And I encourage you not to write the article, which of course I'm sure they did, but still I refuse to participate in that.

Leslie

So for listeners, you know, high school and then they're there and there's a lot of social change that's happening in high school. A lot more pressure, a lot more awareness. And then going into college, too. But during this time is when a lot of eating challenges can develop as high school and college. So what are some of the things that you see are happening there that are influencing that, that our listeners might want to hear about?

Jessica Setnick

Some of it is very much hormonal. There are certain ages where your hormones are changing, and even if that doesn't change the shape or size of your body, it can still change the way you feel, your mood, way you feel about yourself, etc. and then there, in addition to that, are the hormonal changes of your body. And in addition to that, there's all the societal conditioning about the changing of your body, about things like starting your menstrual cycle and what that signifies.

Jessica Setnick

There's also, unfortunately, a lot of situations where, you know, it's such a hard topic to talk about, but let's just say boundaries being violated, right? There's things like sexual assault. There's things like being pressured to drink, being pressured to put things in your body, basically. And bodily autonomy is something that I think we're very much still kind of dealing with as adults.

Jessica Setnick

But as teens, you really don't always have the words to talk about it. You don't always have the skills to set boundaries and things like that. And so anything that feels like an invasion of your privacy or your safety or your security can absolutely affect the whole way that you feel about your body. And that's one of the things that unfortunately, in many cases, traumatic events can lead to someone wanting to change their eating or their body because of the stress response chemically and also the stress socially.

Jessica Setnick

There's just so much that I think is really hard. And I know when I was a teen, I probably would never have thought I would talk to an adult about things like no, private. Yeah, but I'm grateful that I found one adult at my school that was not a teacher, but was someone that I felt like I could talk to you and really help me.

Jessica Setnick

And I feel like that is what I wish for every teen or even college student, because it's really hard to get you get lots of support from your peers, okay? You get lots of support from the people in your class, the people your age, the people in your dorm, the people you live with. And there's a level of insight and information that someone who's in the same stage of life as you can't give you.

Jessica Setnick

So the same way, I might actually ask my niece, who's in college, to help me with some ideas that I'm not sure that people my age would really get, and I want to get her point of view. I think I would really encourage any teen to see if there's someone that you feel like you can trust when you're struggling.

Jessica Setnick

I'm sure you talk about that all the time, even though it's so you just think, okay, this boomer is like so out of touch or whatever, but I think there is a benefit to talking to someone who has a different life point of view as you, and can maybe help you see things in a different point.

Leslie

Of view. Yeah, I definitely always promote reaching out and getting support from a trusted person and adult. Or maybe it's a cousin who's five years older than you or something, already been through those life experiences and is a bit ahead of you, has had that knowledge and those experiences and can help support you.

Jessica Setnick

And you, you know, instinctively I think, who is the right person and who's the wrong person, you know, that's trustworthy. Or if you if you think someone's trustworthy and then they kind of give you a response that doesn't really mesh, then just know to find someone else. It might be a friend's parent or something like that, but I just feel like I love having friends and people that are going through the same stuff as you.

Jessica Setnick

But there's also a level of insight that you can't have when you're in that kind of area.

Leslie

Exactly.

Jessica Setnick

Decade.

Leslie

Yeah, experience does speak and maturity that comes with age. It does help out. So definitely I recognize that for some people, talking to their parents is hard. But finding that trusted adult is really important. So how does someone know if they need help? Where if they're at a certain point, when should they reach out?

Jessica Setnick

Well, I suspect if you're thinking it, it's probably time or pastime. To be perfectly honest, I can tell you that one time in the whole history of my work, did I have a fourth grader come in, and when I asked the question, I ask everyone, what brought you here? She said, well, one day after I ate, I went to the bathroom and I made myself throw up and I thought, that's not right.

Jessica Setnick

And I went to my mom and I told her, and here we are. That's the only time anyone has ever caught it that fast, right? Usually people feel bad or they feel guilty or. But anytime. If you're already thinking this seems like a problem, it probably is. And it's worth getting someone involved. Someone that can either support you and talking to your parents, or support you in finding an appropriate professional.

Jessica Setnick

If you're in college, you have a student health center, so that's fantastic because you just make an appointment, and sometimes it's actually much easier to talk to a stranger than it is to talk to someone that you know. But I think anytime someone's sort of thinking they might have a problem, it's time to talk to someone.

Leslie

Yeah. Something that I've always said on this podcast is the earlier you seek help, the easier it is to resolve that or address it than letting it perpetuate. And it gets just more entrenched or more difficult or more challenging for you.

Jessica Setnick

And I think also that I can solve this myself mentality is really hard. I think some of us have been raised to be really independent and feel like we can't count on anyone around us. This is one of those things that if you really have no one, there are books and websites and things you can read, but I would do that sooner rather than later because there's so much misinformation that's bombarding us all the time.

Jessica Setnick

The good information usually you have to actually look for.

Leslie

Yeah. And it's getting more and more challenging with AI and misinformation and all of that and strong opinions and so forth. But yeah, and you know what? I'm guilty of that. I very much so was was one of those people who was like, I can figure this out myself. I can do this. And not necessarily with eating but with other things in my life.

Leslie

And it often bit me in the butt, so to speak. I mean, it's just I had to learn like, no, I can ask other people for support, and it doesn't mean that I'm not worthy, that I'm not capable. It's just that I'm not an expert in this area, or I'm struggling in this area, and I need someone to get me over that hump or to show me how it's done.

Leslie

And then, yeah, I can start to do some of this stuff on my own. I had to realize for myself that, like, I wasn't an island and I couldn't do everything on my own.

Jessica Setnick

You know, I read something that really helped me, and I've shared it with a lot of my teen patients since then, which is you think that counseling is for a certain kind of person? Yeah. Like a crazy person or a troubled person or something like that. It turns out counseling is actually for certain situations. Every person might get in a situation where they need someone to talk to about it.

Leslie

Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. And I do think a lot of young people, a lot of teens do recognize that or they're more I don't know, I don't think accepting is the right word, but.

Jessica Setnick

I think I agree with you. I think our teens are more mentally aware, more emotionally aware than we are or we.

Leslie

But you can still have that resistance. Well, like, yeah, but not for me like everyone else, but not for me or, you know, I feel uncomfortable. I don't know if I want to do that. And and I agree with you, Jessica, that there's so many different forms of, of therapy and coaching that can be supportive and help you through a challenging moment in your life.

Leslie

And it doesn't mean that you have to do it for the rest of your life or anything. It's just depending on what the situation is and what you need to work on. It can be super, super helpful.

Jessica Setnick

And it's so tempting to say, I already know what they're going to tell me. I feel like people say that about dietitians all the time. I already know what they're going to tell me. And I always say, well, if you already know what they're going to tell you, then you doubly should go. Because if you know what they're going to tell you and you aren't doing it, then something's amiss.

Jessica Setnick

And you might be actually very, very surprised by what they end up telling you. I always feel so much better after I talked to my counselor, because I feel so heard and listened to, and that mean voice in my head isn't they're telling me I'm doing everything wrong. That's not what a counselor is for you, don't you? You really don't need another person telling you how much you're screwing up.

Leslie

But yeah, we do that enough to ourselves. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So just one last question for you, Jessica. This has been super helpful. I mean, it's just very interesting. I think there's another question that can come up, which is can I have a healthy relationship with food again? Like if they have been struggling with food, they decide, okay, I'm going to address this and get some some support.

Leslie

I think that question kind of lingers in their mind is can I can I ever really have a good relationship with food?

Jessica Setnick

Yes you can. And what it means is not that you never have a bad thought about food or your body or something like that. There's no thought. Please. I can tell you that even as an adult, sometimes I have the thought of like, oh, maybe if I lost weight x, y, z would be better. It's normal to have those thoughts because we're living in the swamp of diet culture.

Jessica Setnick

Yep. The key is can you keep it at the thought level and not let it impact your actions. And that's what you're trying to do is not be a perfect eater. But say let's say you eat three pieces of pizza and you think, maybe I should have stopped it to okay, well, that's good information for next time. Maybe try two pieces of pizza and then join in the conversation at the party before you go back for the third and decide if you really want it or not.

Jessica Setnick

Right? So learning, I think through the things that feel like mistakes I'm using finger quotes or mistakes. Learning about yourself is the goal. Not necessarily trying to find perfection, but having that healthy relationship with food means being okay with some glitches sometimes. Nobody has perfect eating and it's actually trying for perfect eating that causes more problems.

Leslie

Right. That's a great point. The more we we try to seek that perfection that more difficult.

Jessica Setnick

I think of it like your hair growing, like you might want your hair to grow faster, and you might use certain shampoos and brushes and pillowcases and everything. But at the end of the day, how much your hair grows in a year or a month is it's a natural body function. And the same thing is true for eating and weight.

Jessica Setnick

If we try to control it too much, we just end up feeling like, what was the point of all that our bodies kind of going to do what it's going to do anyway, or breathing any of those things? The good news is our body knows how to control it. Given the right fuel, our body knows what to do with that food.

Jessica Setnick

And if you feel like you're eating for reasons other than fuel, then that's the thing that needs to be addressed, not the food.

Leslie

Yeah, and everybody's body is different. So trying to compare yourself just isn't a fair comparison. Yeah. No. All right Jessica, thanks so much for being on the podcast today. This is very great information. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And I hope everyone was able to pick up some good nuggets and some good next steps for themselves so that they can have that healthy relationship with food in their body.

Leslie

Your life is busy and sometimes having shortcuts to make it easier is the way to go. So follow the show right now for quick, easy access to every new episode. Know someone else who would like this information? Don't be selfish. Share it with them. And hey parents, follow me on Instagram at Leslie Rose coaching for more health and wellness information to support your teen or college student and get news about my upcoming masterclasses and programs.

Leslie

Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you. Same place, same time next Wednesday so you can live your healthy teen life.