I’ve been sitting with this for a long time: we keep trying to fix families with quick prescriptions, one-size-fits-all programs, and the next shiny trend that promises to solve it all. It’s what our sick-care system is built on. (Oh, don't call it healthcare because it's not about real prevention and health when you only qualify to be seen, referred or treated when you cross a certain threshold for diagnosis. But I digress...) Transactional care. Commoditized health. Packages and checklists and soundbites that sound good but rarely hold up in real life.
And families are still stressed, in fact, moreso. Parents are overwhelmed. Kids are growing up in the middle of a swirl of body shame, diet culture, anxiety, and endless scrolling.
The missing link isn’t another app or diet or medical code. It’s values. And they aren't values that families are missing. It's about values that families need individually and from the community to thrive.
When I sit with families, the first thing I notice isn’t what they’re eating or how much they’re moving. It’s the stress in the room. The tension in the parents’ shoulders: fear, worry, exhaustion. The kid who won’t meet my eyes: shame. The parent who blurts out “I just don’t want them to go through what I did:” shame and fear, yet again.
Stress is the first domino. It drives disconnection, short tempers, mindless eating, shame spirals, and sleepless nights. When the stress is high, nothing else sticks. Not routines. Not habits. Not good intentions.
So in my work, the very first value is connection. I connect with parents first to offer a few necessary things before they can create any changes: meeting with them exactly where they are, and bringing along compassion, calm, some humor and a space to breathe.
That isn’t soft. It’s critical. If parents don’t feel safe, respected, and seen, they can’t create safety and connection for their kids. That’s how stress travels through families, and why calming the stress is always step one.
The next value is authenticity. I refuse to hide behind a white coat, a perfect meal plan, expert-on-a-pedestal persona or a glossy influencer promise. Families don’t need another “expert” telling them what they’re doing wrong. They need someone who can laugh when dinner turns into a comedy sketch, someone who admits it’s messy, someone who knows the struggle personally and professionally. That’s me. I’m a physician, a mom, a coach, an improv comic. I bring all of it.
And here’s another thing: compassion and truth-telling go hand in hand. Parents deserve both. They deserve to know the harm that diet culture, stigma, and quick fixes cause. They also deserve compassion for why it’s so hard to resist those things when the whole system is pushing them. Shame never heals a family. Compassion does.
Play matters, too. Humor is not decoration. It’s how we let off steam, how we find each other in hard moments, how we find what is real and meaningful in our lives, and how kids (and adults!) learn. If we strip out humor and humanity from health, no wonder it feels like a punishment.
These values—calm, authenticity, compassion, play—aren’t just ideals. They are the practical tools families need. They are the framework for real change. Without them, we’re just repeating the same patterns that got us here: transactional care, capitalist quick fixes, more stress, less time, more shame.
With them, we start building something different. Parents who can pause and breathe instead of react. Families who know their relationships are more important than their portion sizes. Kids who learn that all feelings are welcome.
This is why I refuse to sell quick fixes. They don’t work, and worse, they pile on more stress. This work is about building the missing link back into family health: values that honor our humanity, our relationships, our messy realities. In a word, realness.
Health doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from connection. From stress relief. From curiosity about what we actually need, not what someone else thinks we should buy.
Well, I guess that’s my manifesto. It's the compass I follow in Family in Focus. Because families deserve more than transactions. They deserve relationships that heal. And if we're going to help our children create relationships with food and their body, we need to build those relationships for ourselves first.
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