Welcome to Pediatric Meltdown, the podcast for busy pediatricians who want to better understand children’s emotional health, behaviors, and gain the skills and knowledge to help them thrive. I am your host, Lia Gaggino. In this episode, I brought in my very own daughter, Julia Parzyck. She works in the eating disorder recovery space and has recovered from an eating disorder, herself.
Let’s dive into Julia’s story of how society impacts the mental health of patients suffering from eating disorders because of the BMI metric that tells them they are unhealthy or obese and how tough it is to have conversations and educating people more about food.
[00:01 – 04:52] Opening Segment
● I introduce and welcome my guest and daughter, Julia, to the show
● Julia talks about her eating disorder recovery journey
○ She grew up in a family with body image issues
○ She got bullied because of her weight
○ She went to a therapist to help her with her eating disorder recovery
[04:53 – 14:10] Children and Eating Disorders
● Julia talks about the turning point of why she decided to recover from her eating disorder
● Pediatricians goal with monitoring children’s growth
○ How we try to prevent kids from having eating disorders
● Julia shares her BMI issues
○ According to BMI, she was considered unhealthy and obese
○ Navigating her eating disorder in a healthier way
● Julia weighs in on the mental aspect of patients with eating disorders
○ Eating healthy and exercising more is not very helpful advice
○ Living in a Fatphobic society
○ Having the right resources and education of what should their kids eat or not
○ Being compassionate in dealing with these patients
[14:11 – 22:48] Talking about weight and BMI
● Julia weighs in on doctors dealing with kids’ nutrition
○ BMI is not a measure of health
● Having tough conversations with patients
○ Listening to patients
○ Dealing with families with a history of obesity
● Feeding children the right information about food
○ Educate yourself so you can guide your kids
○ Children getting bad information online
● Julia talks about intuitive eating
○ Emotional response to eating certain foods that are considered as “Good” or “Bad”
○ Society told us that being healthy means you have to be thin
[22:49 – 30:07] Taking The Right Approach
● Having a team to have conversations and educate people about food
○ Adding on things instead of taking them out
■ The next time you eat a burger, have some salad with it.
● Telling people they shouldn’t have certain kinds of food in their homes
○ Do I have to be a certain weight in order to have these conversations?
[30:07 – 34:51] Closing Segment
● Julia’s takeaways
○ Be mindful
○ Educate yourself more
● Plug to this episode’s resources. See links below
● Final words from me
Tweetable Quotes:
“There’s no harm in educating yourself more and continuously learning, that’s just how we get better.” – Julia Parzyck
“We look very different and there’s no perfect size.” – Dr. Lia Gaggino
Resources Mentioned:
● Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon
● The Intuitive Eating Workbook by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
You can connect with Julia on Instagram or visit her website https://www.fitfatandallthat.com/ to know more about what she does and how she can help you in your eating disorder recovery journey.
If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me at LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter or email me at [email protected] . To learn more about me visit https://www.medicalbhs.com/
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