Diet Free Back-to-School Nutrition Resources!

It’s that time of year again: back to school for kids. As parents, the back-to-school season often brings both excitement and stress, especially when it comes to protecting your child from diet culture messaging in schools and the media around back-to-school nutrition.

There’s confusing messaging about packing lunches, school lunches, nutrition education in schools, and nutrition to support sports and other activities.

That’s why we’re sharing our favorite diet-free back-to-school resources. As two registered dietitians and child feeding experts with over 20 years each working in eating disorder treatment and prevention, we want to share practical tips and tools that will help you support your child’s health in a positive and nourishing way.

Tan box with green and blue curvey lines. Blue letters reading "Have you seen diet culture show up in your child's school and you're n ot sure what to do? We have created 5 letters to help support you!"National Alliance for Eating Disorders and Sunny Side Up Nutrition logos at the bottom.

Eating Disorder Prevention Letters Parents Can Send to Their Child’s School

We teamed up with the National Alliance for Eating Disorders to create five letters you can share with your child’s teacher. Each letter is customizable and downloadable so that you can tailor it to your child’s needs.

Introductory Letter to Your Child’s Teacher – Want to be proactive? At the beginning of the school year, use this letter to introduce yourself to your child’s teacher and tell them a bit about your nutrition and food philosophy.
Letter regarding School Weigh-Ins – Have this letter on hand if your school conducts student weigh-ins.
Letter regarding a Harmful School Assignment with Diet Culture – This letter will help if a school assignment includes calories, weight, or good/food bad food messaging.
Letter regarding Food Police in the School Cafeteria – We often hear about adults in the cafeteria telling a child how and what to eat their lunch. This letter will explain that you’d like your child to be in charge of the order in which they eat their lunch and how much they eat.
Letter requesting your Child Opt-Out of An Assignment – Does your child have a history of an eating disorder? And/or do you feel strongly that your child needs to opt out of an assignment? This letter is to help you request that your child opt out of an assignment that may be potentially harmful.

Building Diet-Free Classrooms

In addition to our letters, there are many other resources to support diet-free back-to-school nutrition and diet-free classrooms.

Let’s Make Our Children’s Classrooms and Activities Free From Diet Talk This free downloadable handout is great to share with teachers, coaches, troop leaders, and school administrators — anyone who is helping teach and care for children. The handout lays out how weight-focused comments can be harmful and the evidence for the risks associated with dieting.
Please Don’t Teach My Kids to Diet: 5 Resources to Give Teachers and Schools This blog post is an oldie-but-goodie. It provides ideas on how to work with educators around these important topics and 5 resources to support you!

Diet-Free Nutrition Education

We believe nutrition education needs to be developmentally appropriate and free of diet culture. These podcasts and blog posts provide information on supporting your school and children’s teachers towards this goal.

A promotional graphic for a podcast episode. The text reads, "NEW Podcast Episode! Episode 10: School Nutrition Curricula with Sarah Ganginis."

Diet-Free Nutrition Resources for Kid’s Sports and Activities

Back-to-school also means back to activities! These podcast episodes and blog posts are packed with information about supporting your child in their activities this fall and important additions to your diet-free back-to-school resources.

Tips for Supporting Your Middle, High School, and College Students

Girl with dark wavy hair sits at a table studying with a water bottle. She smiles at the camera. — *Photo Credit: Jeswin Thomas via Unsplash*

Do you have a teenager? The teen years are full of transitions, boundary-pushing, social media, and independence. These podcast episodes provide many perspectives on supporting your teen as they transition back to school.

Packing School Lunches Free of Dread and Diet Culture

Back-to-school means back-to-packing lunches! Neither one of us loves this job, but we try to keep it simple and quick. We have tons of resources to support you in taking the dread and diet culture out of lunch packing!

Feeding Kids Podcast Series by Age Level

Do you have questions about feeding your child of any age? We have you covered! Listen to our Kids Series! This series is 4 podcast episodes where we answer listener questions about feeding kids.

We hope the transition back to school is a smooth one! Do you have diet-free back-to-school resources that you love? Or questions for us about feeding kids and teens? We’d love to hear from you!