Bites Like Books: Modeling Nutrition as Foundational as Literacy with Dr. Nimali Fernando of Doctor Yum Project

What if kids learned nutrition the same way they learned to read? 

In this episode, we explore how everyday food habits and routines can lay the foundation for lifelong health. We talk about why modeling matters, how nutrition and literacy are deeply connected, and what it takes to overcome the real barriers families face when trying to build healthier habits.

This episode is for anyone who believes small, consistent actions can create lasting big change to improve the health of our young people.

Transcript

0:00  
You. Welcome to a new type of conversation with each episode. We'll meet with inspiring people sharing best practices at the forefront of creating change for our young people. We'll talk motivations that make a difference, and how their lived experience can help empower us to take action and make a difference in the lives of young people where we live. My name is CJ Sturmer, and this is the champions for youth podcast.

0:35  
What if we could teach kids to eat more fruits and vegetables the same way we teach them to read? In this episode, we sit down with Dr Molly Fernando, pediatrician and founder of the Dr Young project, to talk about what it really takes to build lifelong healthy eating habits for our young people. We'll explore how modeling behavior is just as important in nutrition as it is in reading and why exposing kids to variety of foods early in life can be just as foundational as story time. We'll also dig deep into barriers like stress culture and of course, access that shape how families eat and why. Rethinking how we feed kids is one of the most important and powerful tools in obesity prevention, whether you're a parent, educator, provider or simply someone trying to spark healthier eating habits in your community, this conversation is a reminder that every bite, every meal and every moment truly matters. Hi, namali, thanks for joining me today. I'm so excited to talk to you. Thanks for having me. CJ, so Molly, we've talked many times through the champions for youth summit. We've had you on webinars with the foundation before, and we've learned a lot about your amazing programs. We know that you have the Food Adventure Program and that you have the touch points program. You've done a lot over the years as a pediatrician and with the DR yum project to be able to provide resources and opportunity for healthy eating habits in a variety of ways, and really addressing some of the intersectionalities when it comes to childhood obesity. Some amazing programs, and I encourage everyone to definitely check them out on their website, drum.org incredible programs. Talk to me a little bit more about what inspired you to get to these programs. Where does a program like food adventure or

1:59  
touch points actually come from? Yeah,

2:01  
it's a great question. It's been, it's been such a years long process, but it really started back in around 2011 when I was starting to raise my own very young children, and saw how difficult it is to raise kids, to be healthy eaters, to really enjoy those Whole Foods. There's so much noise, and it's so easy to get caught up in these kid friendly foods. I was seeing that so much in my patient population, and then I was seeing it on this very personal level as a mother, and I really just felt like the toolbox that we had as pediatricians, you know, handouts, pamphlets, they just didn't do the trick. Parents really needed more. They needed a model, a guide, a toolbox, a playbook that was a little bit more detailed and a little bit more inspiring. And so I sort of set out to figure out what is that toolkit. And it just started with really sharing recipes, something as simple as a recipe I found could be so powerful, right? And then it sort of grew from there recipes to cooking classes to curriculum, and really sharing a much more robust set of guidelines and tools and modeling that for my patients as well.

3:17  
Talk to me a little bit more about modeling. When I think about the folks in public health, I think when people think about modeling, I don't always, I don't think people see it the same way in terms of how we represent nutritious foods or practicing fruits and vegetables.

3:31  
What is, what is the idea of modeling? Actually mean?

3:34  
Well, when we develop a set of skills as children, one of the ways that we develop those skills is to see other people doing those things right. And so the research really shows that modeling healthy eating behaviors for children really does lead to better eating, particularly in young children. So preschool aged children, there are a lot of great studies to show that what parents eat purely mothers, who may, in some families, be eating a lot of meals. Teachers, too. You know, people who are really with these children eating meals every day. They are taking cues, they are learning. And it does make a difference. You know, in America, only 9.4% I think, of of children, are getting the recommended servings of vegetables per day, but only 9.7% of adults are getting recommended servings of vegetables a day. It makes sense that kids maybe aren't getting the most nutritious foods because maybe we're not doing the best job of modeling. And it doesn't mean that we have to be perfect eaters, but we can show that we are trying and that we're improving and we're practicing, and that can also be really powerful for kids to see. I think you

4:45  
said something that really hit with me. It's from the modeling perspective, right? It's not just being a good role model, let's say maybe as a parent, but the modeling actually means looking at all of influence around like to your point, you said education teachers spend how much time. With their students at any age level. What power do we have to provide the right model of influence Right exactly?

5:07  
And I think what hit me early on is I was looking for a solution to how to get preschoolers to establish a foundation of healthy habits, and I had this aha moment that feeding is a developmental process. And if you think about child development, we sort of have a toolbox for most areas of development. Let's think about reading. For instance, we know roughly what it takes to get a child to read and what we might need to do if they're not reading Well, right? So we send them to school with teachers who know how to teach reading. We make sure that they have enough books at home. We read story books. We do that for years. And if things aren't going well with their reading, we actually then kind of know that there are next steps, right? We can get educational support, we can enlist the help of a reading specialist, but we never give up, right? Because we have that toolbox and we have that playbook, but with feeding, we don't really think of that necessarily as development, but it is. It's actually very complicated. There's oral motor skills, fine motor skills, cognitive skills, language skills, all of these important skills that come together over the span of years to create a great eater. And yet, when things aren't going well. Let's say we give children a taste of broccoli three times, we tend to label them as picky eaters without giving them the practice, right. Right? That label is so powerful, right? If we think back to the example of reading, we wouldn't necessarily say to a child after three times that they've tried to read a book you're a bad reader, right? And put them right in a corner with an iPad and say, this is the kind of learning you're going to have to do because you can't read, right? But we do that all the time with feeding because, and it's nobody's fault. It's because we haven't really, necessarily developed a playbook of what to do when kids aren't learning to eat on time. If they're not, you know, if it doesn't come easy, because sometimes it does come easy for certain kids, some kids, my own kids, are great example. I have one who really enjoyed food from the beginning and a wide variety of foods, spicy foods, text, different textures, and one who took a little bit longer, and that's how child development is. I can tell you, as a pediatrician, everybody has their own time frame, right? But we just like reading. Just like reading. It may take some kids a few months and some kids a few years, but I think when it comes to feeding, we don't think of it with that developmental lens, and so we don't come at it with the same sort of patience and encouragement, and we're quick to label and and stigmatize, and it's easy because there's the equivalent of iPads everywhere. What's that kid friendly food? Right? If kids are eating the veggies, the broccoli, we go, okay, well, there's Lunchables, there's chicken nuggets, or all these other foods that are perfectly fine, but aren't necessarily that nutritious. If we were to give those kids the time and support like we do with reading, so many of them would progress. And so I think that's what really informs so much of our work at the DR Yim project, is giving kids and families and teachers and communities really a bigger toolbox. And I can tell you, you know, when it comes to communities that may be under resourced, it's really difficult to raise kids that are great eaters, right? We tell families it may take 10 or 15 tries of broccoli before they learn to like it. Well, if you're if you have access to to food is difficult for you, right? If you're in a rural community, if you don't have the resources, that is a tall order for a family. So we think about this a lot when we're coming up with our programs and our content. Is, how do we help those families, particularly who are facing these barriers, to help these children through development? That's what the food adventure is about. It's training the teachers to help that development happen in schools, so that when kids finally learn to eat these foods, their parents can then, with a lot less risk, purchase some of the foods at home and try them without the worry of wasting resources, right? So I feel like this lens of development has really shaped a lot of our our work at the DR M project,

9:10  
the correlation between raising a happy, healthy eater and the reading. I think it's something a lot of people probably wouldn't click, but it's true if, if a teacher saw one of their students struggle a bit more with reading. I don't know that. I know any teachers, I'd be like, Yeah, well, you tried today. It's never gonna happen for you. Like, that's just, that's not a thing. And so I think you making that correlation is really, really interesting, kind of powerful to really, kind of think outside of the box. And how we address having young kids that eat is that why we recommend to start development with practicing early, no matter how reluctant they may seem,

9:43  
absolutely. So that's why so much of our work, too is focused on infants and toddlers, because it really isn't ever too early to start this practicing mindset. And I think you know, parents really are so motivated to help their kids learn to eat these foods or. Ly and luckily for most infants, they're very ready to try foods. There's this wonderful flavor window between six to 12 months. If you offer babies lots of different tastes, they're very eager to try and that sometimes gets a little bit trickier as they become toddlers. But if we can encourage parents to say, you know, their their appetite might slow down in these years. They may not enjoy some of these foods that they used to love, but this is why. Here's the playbook of how you get through these years. You have to keep practicing. You have to keep exposing, right? You have to try in different ways, right? It's just like the reading. Some kids really like a certain type of books. They might like mysteries. They might like scientific books you're going to offer in these years a large variety, a wide variety of different eating experiences to see what really clicks and then generalize right to other foods. So it is important, I think, to have this mindset as early as possible of development, so that we can give kids the practice from the beginning and form that foundation as early as possible. Now it doesn't mean you can't learn to be a great eater later. So if you're a parent and you have a pickier eating style and you're trying to model for your kids, know that practice still works at any age, right? You can learn to do a lot of things at a at an older age, and as you're learning, you're actually showing kids that you can do hard things too, right? So there's, I think, a lot that kids can learn from practicing adults as well. So not

11:32  
everyone is a perfect reader. Let's say we are at 1012, years old, and we have someone that doesn't read as well. How should we approach that behavior as kids get older, and we do have pickier eaters or maybe kids that don't read as well. How do we help to elevate those habits a little bit better in the same sort of context? I

11:49  
think exposure is everything right and and to do it in a joyful way, and to meet kids where they are, particularly without labeling and stigmatizing, just exposure. I will say, though, having worked with a feeding therapist and getting a little bit of a lens into her world, there are times when you need to call in the specialists, because there are picky eating styles that may need a really expert approach. If kids are having, you know, any nutritional issues, if they're having any anxiety around eating right? The toolbox that we have may not be enough, just like if a child has a very specialized reading issue like dyslexia, it may not be approachable in school, it may not be as fixable, right? We and so there are feeding specialists out there that can help those kids that have tried all of the things and yet they're not getting the nutrition they need. They're not making gains. So it's just like reading, right? If we're if we're doing all the things and it's not working, we need someone who really knows what the solution might be to help us. And that's the beautiful thing about, for instance, Dr M's food adventure is we are going into schools where teachers understand development, and we are giving them this lens, and we're giving them the training to understand how feeding develops when it goes awry. How do you recognize that? How do you problem solve not just with sticker charts and bribing kids to try food and things that we know in the research really don't work. What kinds of things can we do to help move the needle in that development for kids who might be getting stuck, teachers have 15 eating experiences a week with children, and so when they're seeing those mealtime issues, they're able to use this training that they get from our program to help those kids eat and enjoy eating and use this practicing language too. So if you go into a school that's using the food adventure, you'll hear kids trying foods and saying, Hmm, that's kind of sour. I guess I have to keep practicing it. And so they themselves are using that lens as children. And what's funny is the teachers will tell us they start talking about practicing everything right? Because they're using this language around food, they'll say, I gotta keep practicing tying my shoe. I've gotta practice my numbers. That's such a beautiful thing, that they are generalizing that to everything else, but also that they are really learning to be resilient, right, to do hard things, to overcome. You know, anxiety around food,

14:20  
everything takes practice, all the things that we teach children to do, eating habits, nutrition values, those kind of it's the same concept again, modeling. There are teachers that have 15 feeding moments a week. Is a lot of practice, and somebody that's already dedicated to helping them practice other things. I worked actually in a daycare for three years when I was in college, and I remember sitting down with this little girl named Annika, and we practiced tying her shoes every single day for weeks until the day she got it. And I remember the day that she got on her own. I still remember vividly. I could see her in my mind, standing up and jumping up and down with her arms flailing in the air. She was so excited. And when. Mom came to pick her up. She ran to her mom. She got on the floor, she untied her shoes and said, Mommy, watch and then tied her shoes. Now imagine if that happened with a kid eating pineapple. And

15:10  
what's beautiful is we go to conferences and we meet teachers all the time that are saying we're having breakthrough moments all the time, kids who come to the classroom with these picky eating behaviors, we're really struggling with their feeding, whose parents are exasperated, they are having these small wins that turn into big, you know, breakthroughs. And it's so exciting. It is because we've really given the tools to teachers and parents to not give up, to hold them by the hand and say you can do this to sit with them, you know, like you did, CJ, with that child, tying the shoe every day and watching them get better and better and and that's what's happening with food. And it's a beautiful it's a beautiful thing. Was

15:54  
there a moment that you were just really taken aback by the result? Well, there's

15:58  
a story about superpowers that I love. We teach children who are in the food adventure about the superpowers of food, so their vitamins, minerals, fiber and what, what those things do for their body. So when they learn about a fruit or vegetable for the month, they learn what their superpowers are. And so a teacher told us about a student that she had who was really hesitant to try a lot of foods she, you know, wasn't making the progress that some of her peers were making, but she loved learning about superpowers. And so in circle time, she learned that, you know, vitamin C fights germs and folate helps you grow, and there are 10 of them that we feature. So one day, she scraped her knee, and she fell down, and she had a cut on her knee, and she was so upset, and she finally stopped crying, and she had this realization. She said, Hold on, everybody, I need a kiwi. Why do you need a kiwi? And she said, It has vitamin K, and it heals my cuts and scrapes. So her teacher said, Okay, this is a breakthrough. So she called her mother and said, You better buy some kiwis, because she wants to heal her cuts and scrapes. So her mom said, absolutely. So she went and bought a bag of Kiwis. And every day, this little sweetheart would eat a kiwi, which was a food that she had never tried, but she really wanted these superpowers. And she would watch the progress of her knee every day healing and saying, oh my goodness, my cuts and scrapes Are you know, are healing because this vitamin K. So I think I thought that was a really cute story, because it shows you again. CJ, kids are smart. They understand. And she made this connection of what food could do for her body, and it motivated her to try that kiwi. And from there, she had continued to have breakthroughs and realized she could could try these foods and they could help her body. So I love that story of superpowers. I

17:48  
didn't hear that story. That's me.

17:49  
So thinking about this modeling and this correlation and the different programs that you've developed to help modularize that modeling, depending on the age, there's a whole life span of this idea of modeling and practicing and not giving up. Take the idea of reading example, that to not give up at a wide spread of age. If a child can't read at eight or 18, we don't give up. How do we empower people to think differently about approaching different problems differently, or sexualities differently, programs we're creating differently. How do we empower people to think outside of that box more?

18:28  
Yeah, I think if we can go back to that example of reading, it's not, it's not a simple prescription for how a child becomes a great reader. If you think about it, how holistic that approach is right? We have teachers. We have schools with great libraries, we have specialists, we have parents who are on board, right? We have all of these different exposures in those libraries and homes and schools where kids can continue to practice. It is community wide. It's school wide. It's giving parents a toolbox, and I think we can apply that really holistic idea to the skill of feeding as well. Right? We have to have teachers that know how to think of feeding as development and how to model and help kids develop the skills of eating, right? We have to have schools that really make a commitment to offering all of the ways that we can practice eating right, a cafeteria with great options, with a lot of ways that kids can practice right. And then we have to give parents the toolbox too to know how to think about feeding as development, how to problem solve at home, and how to not give up right, and how to have those same exposures as as many as possible at home, and then we have to have eating establishments in our community, right that have great options for kids so they can practice when they're having those meal exposures outside of the home, right? So it's not a simple answer, it's really a system wide solution that needs to be applied. If we're going to raise kids to be great eaters,

20:02  
it takes a village

20:03  
it to actually make things happen. And I think that that's a really good point, is when we're empowering others, and for those that are listening, how can you contribute to a system to make it better? How can you rely on what exists and maybe enhance it? How can you provide better access to something that we know is working to expand opportunity for others. Doesn't have to be reinventing the wheel if

20:26  
we can have professionals, educational professionals, medical professionals, parents, the greater community, all sort of on the same page, on the same team, using the same approach and same language and that same lens of development. These kids need practice. They need our support. They need our encouragement. I think we can do better on this area of development called feeding. So

20:48  
it's true, practice makes perfect. Something so foundational really does apply to everything. Thanks again to the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth and prevention connections for their continued support and save the date our third champions for youth summit is all set may 4 through sixth, 2026 in Reston, Virginia. You'll join me and hundreds of other professionals from around the US, inspiring us to improve the lives of young people across a wide variety of health topics. To learn more. Visit VFH y.org and don't forget to share that enthusiasm with others. The only way we can make real changes if we're doing it together. And as always, no matter what you do in this world, go out there. Go do good. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai