Music. Welcome to Mr. and Mrs. Therapy, the podcast that empowers you to transform life's challenges into opportunities for personal growth and healthier relationships. We're your hosts, Tim and Ruth Olson, licensed marriage and family therapists and trauma experts. As experienced therapists with backgrounds in addressing trauma and mental health disorders, we believe there is hope and there certainly is healing.
We've spent our lives supporting people through the ups and downs, and we want to share these insights with you. Together, we'll unravel the layers of personal growth, healing from trauma, and building healthy relationships. Each week, we'll bring you engaging conversations, expert insights, and practical strategies to help you heal from the past, foster healthy communication, and develop enduring love.
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We're so glad that you're here with us today. In the last episode, we started talking about themes that we send our kids and messages that we send our kids, whether it's intentional or unintentional. So we're going to continue to talk about that today and how it's really important as a parent to make sure that you're just aware of these themes. Because like I said, it can be totally unintentional, but it really is what we're modeling, what we're talking about.
Your kids are always listening. At least my kids are. I don't know about your kids, but I feel like my kids are always listening. So it really is important to watch the messages that are being sent to them. And to go along with what you're saying there, Ruth, I think a lot of times kids present like they're not paying attention. But that information still gets filtered through their mind, whether it's through their conscious or unconscious.
But before we jump into today's episode, if you find anything that's useful in this episode or you think of someone as you're listening, go ahead and forward this to them because we really do want these messages to be able to reach those who could benefit from it. All right, let's jump into today's episode. So the theme that we're going to talk about today is prioritizing health over appearance.
And I think this is a topic that really is in our face all around us because of social media, because of societal standards, and the way that that influence our individual perceptions, of beauty and success. And all of that is constantly being poured into our minds and our kids' minds. And they may not even know it or truly understand what they're seeing or what they're hearing. But as a parent, you want to do your best to make sure that you are prioritizing the right message.
And so our family, we do family workouts together. And once the kids hit five, they come and they work out with us. Even before five, they're around and they try the different things that they're seeing. But at five, it's when we have them come and they specifically will begin these family workouts with us. And a lot of times the kids will ask, well, why do we have to do this? And we want to make sure that we are, at a young age, helping them to be healthy and helping them to move their bodies.
Bodies and we've talked about this in the past on several different episodes but the benefits of movement and the benefits of the chemicals that get released even for your mental health how that helps but even for your physical body that it's just such a good and healthy thing to do and whenever they ask us why do we have to do this that's what we talk about we say hey this is healthy for you it's healthy for your mind it's healthy for
your body and the goal isn't necessarily some type of physique or some type of body type that we're trying to help them achieve. But especially in this day and age where job and work and leisure activities are becoming more and more sedentary, creating a routine where you are trying to add something into your day to be more physically active is just a part of being healthy.
And so a goal you should want for yourself and for your kids is to be healthy, but not necessarily striving for some type of appearance. As we can see with bulimia and anorexia, those people can have body structures that look healthy, but then they can be wildly unhealthy. And so the major goal, the major theme that we want to press on our kids is about health. What is healthy? Doing things with your body that help it to be healthy, not about physical appearance.
Oh, I totally agree, Tim, that our appearance doesn't always show the true measure of our health. Because remember that time when I went to the gym and I had a personal trainer help me. And the first thing they did was have me log all of my foods for that week. And I was in my master's program. And I was fairly tiny at the time. But when I came back and I showed them what I was eating, the person that was setting up my plan was really shocked by how unhealthy my eating habits were.
And I think he said the healthiest thing I was eating at that time was the day that I had eaten In-N-Out. And I think it was probably because they didn't have preservatives. But that means that was the best thing that I was eating all week. The rest of it really was just so unhealthy and not good for my body. But if you had looked at me at the time, it wouldn't have been a good mirror of really my lifestyle and my habits. So it is easy to get mixed up with appearance over health.
And so even just thinking about your own life and the messages that you're sending your kids, there are themes that they're going to see and things that they will just kind of catch on to and start to repeat or change. That maybe they don't understand at that time, but if it continues on, they may begin to follow that model that you're setting.
And again, these can start off at something subtle. When you see somebody you hadn't seen in a while and they either gained some weight or lost some weight, and then when they leave, the first thing you comment on or say is, oh my gosh, did you see how much weight they gained or how much weight they lost?
And you might not be saying that to your kids, but if they are within earshot when they hear that, or when you're looking through social media and you see a photo and you make a comment on the person's weight, that definitely can send a message and get ingrained into your children that this is a very highly valued thing.
Now, remember what we talked about in the last episode. It's not about the prioritization of what you set up in your mind, but it's the main message and theme that your kids hear. That's the thing that they're going to adopt and that they're going to integrate in, not what you tell them is the most important thing.
Oh, for sure. And I really appreciate that about you, Tim, that we're on the same page and we both really tried to make a conscious effort not to make comments about people's bodies in general, but especially in front of our kids. And I really appreciated and noticed this the other day when we were in a group of people and everyone was just having normal conversation. They were talking and the conversation just started going toward physical appearance
and body types. And it wasn't necessarily encouraging. And so Tim was very aware of it and had our kids go and play or do something else. And I really appreciate that because as a mom of four girls and one boy. We want to make sure that we're always being honoring in that area because there's a high chance that they're going to struggle with that someday. And so we want to catch it now and make sure that we're modeling.
And that means the world to me, Tim, that you, and it makes me emotional, but that you are very aware of that. And you're aware of making sure that our girls in particular are protected from that. And I do think women and girls are more susceptible to that. And they have more probability of being wounded in that area. And you may be even thinking, or even your parents may have been thinking like, oh, I want to try and protect them from the pain and discomfort of being overweight. weight.
But in the process of trying to protect them, they instill this theme. And even when they are at an appropriate weight, they still don't feel okay, or they don't feel happy, or they still struggle with body image issues. And so they may have ended up with the good end goal of maybe that person was able to maintain a certain type of look, but then that person is still miserable in the midst of that. And so it's this hard balance.
And I've had clients tell me that their parents have told them awful things like, you better make sure you keep this body because no man's going to want somebody who looks like this person over here and they say those kinds of things and it really is damaging and instills your value is in your appearance.
And then if something happens where you have some type of medical condition or some issue or maybe you go on vacation and you gain a couple pounds then all of a sudden you become neurotic and freaked out like oh man my spouse is going to leave me because I gained a couple pounds and so it removes and steals the security that you can have where it's my value isn't in my appearance.
If those types of thought processes have been pressed on you, or if you're pressing them on your kids, even if there is well-meaning behind it, you may, again, help them get to that end goal of maintaining a certain type of body structure. But then at the end of the day, it's at the cost of their level of happiness. Oh, for sure. And I got emotional because I'm just so grateful that Tim and I are really on the same page on this issue, because like I said, it's all around us.
And we're also not advocating for the other end where it's like, don't even worry about your appearance at all. Because as you take into consideration your health, You also do want to teach your kids to take care of their appearance overall. But what we're saying is that that is not the priority. The priority is health. And then you can teach them, you know, when we go to certain things, if we go to church, we teach them what's appropriate there.
And then maybe if we are at a summer thing, we teach them what's appropriate there, right? And this is just in general, you want to teach your kids this, right? If it is blazing hot outside, you don't want them wearing fleece leggings and a parka. You're going to teach them and their body is going to begin to understand and know what they want to wear in different temperatures. But that's all part of teaching them what's appropriate and taking care of your appearance.
But at this young age that they're at, we want to make sure that we're not overemphasizing that, but we are teaching them to be healthy. be. And I do think, again, to emphasize that your BMI does matter as far as your physical health goes. Now, it's actually really interesting because you can be overweight on your BMI, whether you're muscular or whether you don't have great eating habits. But something that's notable about that is that people who are bodybuilders
have issues because their BMI is kind of out of whack. They're technically obese. And I think a lot of people would look and say, well, they're healthy. But a problem that comes along with that, if you don't know people who who are in that field, a lot of times they have to wear CPAP machines because even though it's from muscle weight, it caused them to have a harder time breathing and they have sleep issues because they're still outside of that BMI range.
And so just to go back and reemphasize what you're saying there, Ruth, yeah, we're not trying to say on the other end of the spectrum that, you know, it's okay, you can be whatever weight you want to be, but what's the emphasis? The emphasis should be on health. And if you're a bodybuilder and you want to be a bodybuilder, that's great. But it does also come with some medical issues along with it.
And so let's talk about some other areas where maybe you are saying this and you are teaching them that really you're prioritizing health. But some of these themes can be kind of passed down by just the modeling of everyday things that you're doing. And this might be unintentional or it might even be something you're not even thinking about anymore. But I would say things like weighing yourself every single day and your kids see it.
Or an obvious one is making comments about yourself and your own body and saying things like, oh, I don't look good in this anymore because I'm gaining so much weight. or I'm not going to eat that because it's too many calories. Where these are things that kids hear all around them. And so you just want to make sure to do your best to model within your own home what you desire and be an open space for them to ask questions and have conversations.
And teaching them about calories and teaching them about food as fuel, all of that are really great things to discuss. So it's not that you don't want to be talking about calories, but you just don't want to overdo it and over focus on, oh, my gosh, I can't eat that because of the calories here. There was a period of time when we were teaching them about calories where they would look at everything and they would look at the milk and they'd say, oh, this has this many calories.
And they'd look at the cereal and say, this has this many calories. And the candy bar, this has this many calories. So it's not a bad thing to talk about it because you want them to talk about these things in the safety of your home, but it really is teaching them what it all means. And I think that's the big emphasis too, is that there's times where you educate them about things. But you don't necessarily put a big emphasis on, oh, you need to know what calories are.
Calories is just the fuel your body uses. And hey, look at the different calories that are in all these different things. And that was a phase they went through for a little bit. And then we haven't talked about that for a long time. And so we didn't make a big emphasis on it, but we taught them about it. And then they were curious. And then that curious kind of waned away because we weren't continuing to put emphasis on it.
And so again, it's not necessarily about sheltering your kids from this stuff, because that's not what we're advocating. But it's about being mindful in the way that you're talking about it so that you're not sending any unwanted negative themes to your kids by accident. And just like in the last episode where Tim talked about, you can have both things.
So in the last episode, we talked about encouraging your kids to be excellent, but ultimately making sure that they know that your love is there, not based on how they perform or if they are excellent or not, but that you love them no matter what, but you can And also teach them to strive for excellence. And so it's the same thing here. You teach them about hygiene and their appearance, but just make sure that that priority isn't overemphasized in that.
And that you want to reiterate the importance of that health-focused mindset for their long-term well-being. That's just not a quick flash in the pan kind of thing, but you want them to be healthy over their lives. And there are such fun ways to make physical activity or health be a part of your regular family life. It doesn't have to be, okay, we're going to do this workout. Everyone come down here. But going to the park and playing, or right now we have them on a swim team.
And so they are swimming every single day. And so we actually haven't been doing our family workouts because they're getting the exercise and they're getting healthy and disciplined and working on excellence and kind of their overall well-being in mind, body, soul, and spirit as we're in these summer months. So our family workouts do look different, but our focus on overall health is still there.
And so maybe you have grown up in a house where your physical appearance or your weight was was really focused on. And I know some of this is cultural, right? I know that in the Asian culture, family members make comments all the time about your weight and eating more, eating less. And it feels like you can never win either way. So even taking into consideration your culture, but that doesn't mean that you have to pass those same beliefs and these same focuses on to your children.
You can teach them differently. You can encourage them in different ways.
But if you have experienced this and you kind of have that negative belief of, I'm not good enough, or I can't get what I want, I'm ugly, or my body is hateful, those beliefs can definitely be embedded into your mind and into your heart and into the way that you live your life and even though you try and you work so hard at trying to achieve something you can feel like you're just not able to get there you're just not able to
get over those beliefs that you've really lived with for much of your life and so if that's the case we would love to walk you through and help you heal from that. And so there's a link in the podcast description below. If you want to set up an appointment and begin to heal from some of these beliefs and hurts that you've experienced, then contact us and we can get started. So that's all we have for you guys for today.
We hope you guys have a great day and remember your mind is a a powerful thing. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. We hope that you enjoyed today's episode and found it helpful. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend? Also, we'd love for you to leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It lights us up to know that this podcast is helping you. If you have any questions or a topic you'd like discussed in future episodes,
visit our Facebook group. Just click the link in the description below. Although we are mental health providers, this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide diagnosis or treatment. If you are struggling with persistent mental health issues, chronic marital issues, or feeling hopeless or suicidal, you are not alone. Help is available. Please seek professional help or call the National Suicide Hotline at 988. date.
Thank you again for joining us on Mr. and Mrs. Therapy. Remember, there's always hope and there's always help. Music.