Taking Childhood Nutrition in Small Bites with Jennifer Anderson from Kids Eat in Color

How can we use social media as an effectively tool for positive change in childhood nutrition?

We sit down with Jennifer Anderson, registered dietitian, public health expert, and founder of Kids Eat in Color. We explore how short-form storytelling rooted in empathy helped her become one of the most trusted childhood nutrition influencers, followed by millions of families online.

What began as evidence-based public health work evolved when Jennifer realized that best practices alone aren’t enough. To truly connect, we have to meet families where they are. That means trading polished messaging for real stories and compassionate content that reflects the lived experiences of not only kids, but parents as well.

We talk about how she turned personal insights into a national movement, why connection comes before education, and authentic storytelling can go farther than advice alone. Because behind every child’s challenge is a parent doing their best.

This conversation isn’t just about content, it’s about trust, listening, and leading with heart.

Transcript

C.J. Stermer (00:00)
thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Jennifer Anderson (00:02)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

C.J. Stermer (00:03)
So Jennifer, you have this amazing career in nutrition. You have a great education. And I'd like to hear a little bit more about that.

Jennifer Anderson (00:10)
So I had just finished my master's of science degree in public health. I knew so many best practices. I'd also just finished my dietetics certificate at work. So I knew a lot about nutrition and child feeding and boy was I so prepared. And so when I started my dietetic internship and I did my rotations at WIC, I got into the point of where they were letting me meet with moms by myself.

And I remember this mom coming in, she's telling me her daughter's a picky eater. And I was like, ⁓ you know, do you eat together? She was like, well, no, not really. And so I'm thinking, my gosh, the research shows eating together with your child is one of the best things you can do to help them if they are a picky eater. So I start to essentially share that with her. Well, if you can find a time where you can eat with her together, it's gonna be so helpful. ⁓

And all of sudden I realized her tear, her eyes are welling up with tears. She has got a tear streaking down her face. And I was like, my gosh, I have seriously messed up here. I hadn't asked her any questions. I hadn't asked her what was dinnertime like or why she didn't eat dinner with her family and find out that she was working, that she was a single mom, that it literally was not possible.

for her to eat dinner with her child and here I am totally disempowering her. Of course, there's so many tools to feeding your child, not only eating dinner with your family. And here I am giving her the one that is giving her the biggest guilt trip and really ultimately disempowering her. And of course I walked it back and tried to fix it as much as I could, but you can't take something like that back.

C.J. Stermer (01:49)
Do you find during that time, and even as you've gone up into the point accidentally creating kids in color, that, you know, there was just all these best practices and all these templates and things that we should be doing. Did you find that those you felt were always trying to just box people in and trying to paint everyone as this everyone category?

Jennifer Anderson (02:09)
Yeah, I think so. And I think we have to differentiate between public health recommendations and what we read in research and individual recommendations and what we live as people. So when we're doing research, we're looking at groups of people. What happens if more children eat vegetables because they did not have the TV on? That's one thing. But that doesn't mean in that study itself that

C.J. Stermer (02:16)
Hmm.

Jennifer Anderson (02:35)
every child ate more vegetables when the TV was off. That study, every study is also going to show, hey, there's some kids who ate more vegetables when the TV was on, but less of those. as a public health recommendation, I can't recommend turn the TV on to get your child to eat more vegetables because in the study it showed, you know, 80 % of the kids ate more vegetables when the TV was off. But there was also that 20 % that ate more.

So at the public health level, I'm gonna stand there and I'm gonna confidently say, is gonna help you get your child eating more vegetables if you turn the TV off. But I also know in the back of my mind that it's not gonna help those 20 % of kids. They're actually gonna eat less vegetables. That's what public health recommendations are. What are the recommendations that we're gonna put out there on the big level that are going to help the most people? But on the ground,

In reality, we have to give more allowance to parents for their own circumstances, for who their child is, because that child feeding research may not actually apply to their child. And then we also have to just acknowledge the limitations of research, which is, let's say their child is neurodivergent or their child is ethnicity or whatever, you name it. Those kids may never have been in this study.

might have changed had that been different. So I think we need to keep those differences in mind because when we get so tied up in the best practices at the public health level, we forget that people are real and that people have different circumstances and that research may actually not apply to them and may make their situation worse.

C.J. Stermer (04:14)
That's a really good point people try to paint with one broad stroke on this canvas to create this idea of what a big picture should look like when in reality, there are a lot of colors that go into creating an image, right? Like to your point, and that color is something that I think within your content has sort of benefited you.

Jennifer Anderson (04:25)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

C.J. Stermer (04:33)
And

You have started this incredible organization called Kids Eat in Color. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. And how did you get here?

Jennifer Anderson (04:41)
it really started as I was standing in the pediatrician's office with my amazing chubby little baby. And she said, he's not gaining weight. And I was floored. That was like the moment that everything changed for me. I suddenly had to become concerned about his weight and his growth. And it began several years of worrying about keeping him on the growth chart, high calorie diets, all of that stuff.

And a couple years later, fast forward, I'm standing in the kitchen. I'm making him this adorable little cute bento lunch that he would take. And because it was cute and interesting and novel, he would sit down and eat it. Sending that to preschool with him. Meanwhile, my second son had been born. He was showing beginning signs of being an extreme picky eater. So lucky for him, I'd already ramped up my child feeding skills with my first kid. So he just got ramped right into it.

And that was where it started. And I thought to myself, as I was standing there with that little lunch, I cannot be the only parent struggling feeding my kids. And a couple of months later, I started an Instagram page. I posted little pictures of those bento lunches that I was sending with a caption of why I did what I did, just to help another parent. I'm like, I actually spend time learning about this stuff.

There's plenty of other parents who don't have time or know how to know some of these child feeding things. Maybe I can help another parent out. And within a year and a half, I had 10,000 followers and I learned, my gosh, I am not alone at all. And now of course today with millions of followers, there is, I have no doubt, no doubt in my mind that we struggle with this as parents.

C.J. Stermer (06:12)
Right.

so you started creating this content and just almost by accident, it's like, well,

Jennifer Anderson (06:26)
Yeah.

C.J. Stermer (06:26)
I'm just going to start taking photos and videos of what's working for me. Like talk to me a little bit about that content. Was it because it was working for your child and you just wanted to share that experience?

Jennifer Anderson (06:36)
think I wanted to be heard. I think that was part of it. It was not just for other people. It was also like, I don't want to be alone. don't want to be alone in This is really hard for me. I'm putting a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of angst, a lot of sleepless nights into helping my child eat what they need to thrive. And I can't be the only one, right? It's that, that like, really don't want to be alone with this. So part of it was

wanting to find community of other parents, but also realizing, hey, I might have something to give. I might have something to offer parents and we can all kind of be in this boat together. I wanted it as much as other people wanted it. I think that all of my efforts a little more authenticity because it was very, it's true. It's like, this is the reality.

C.J. Stermer (07:22)
Yeah.

Jennifer Anderson (07:23)
I'm here because I am you, right? And we need help together on this.

C.J. Stermer (07:28)
you find that as you started sharing that experience, you did build this community. I you now have millions of followers, right?

Jennifer Anderson (07:33)
some people call me an influencer. I've literally had people just think I like sit and write Instagram posts all day and that's what I do and that's my job. I'm like, no.

C.J. Stermer (07:43)
It's a lot bigger than something that happened to happen.

Jennifer Anderson (07:46)
it's a lot bigger than that. Of course, that's where it started, but yeah, right.

C.J. Stermer (07:47)
You didn't wake up one day. Right. You didn't wake

up one day and brush your hair and say, today I'm going to be the best nutritionist influencer I can possibly be. That's not really how it happens.

Jennifer Anderson (07:58)
I very first started, I don't know that I had actually heard the term influencer. When I started an Instagram account, I just started it. Like that was it. I didn't have an account and then I opened one.

C.J. Stermer (08:03)
Interesting.

a real person at the end of the day, not this. Right. What you see is what you get.

Jennifer Anderson (08:11)
gosh. Yeah. is nothing doctored in my images. Except for

C.J. Stermer (08:17)
I'm going to put that on my dating profile.

so did you find that you were getting this feedback from other parents of, my gosh, me too. wait a second, this also works for me. Was that comment for you?

Jennifer Anderson (08:23)
Yeah. Yes. Constantly.

Constantly. And that's what I got addicted to.

it went from just a hobby into like, okay, what products can I create that will actually help parents solve the problems that they have so that I can also support my family and quit my day job? Because I can't do both of these. And my day job is not feeding my soul in the way that this is.

C.J. Stermer (08:42)
Right. So it's right.

I think a lot of people can probably relate to that. So that you had this passion project turned hobby turned now full-time job

Jennifer Anderson (08:55)
chance

C.J. Stermer (08:56)
did it

being an online persona and creating this community to now we need to develop programs to actually be able to help

Jennifer Anderson (09:03)
Yeah,

I'm sitting there, I'm thinking I need to create this business. I need to turn this into a business. had kind of experimented with sponsorships and partnering with some brands that really aligned with my values and what I thought would be helpful to my community.

I created a program for the parents of picky eaters because I was like, now it's time for those parents who are really struggling to systematically go through something that they would then be able to learn therapeutic techniques, everything going on behind the scenes with their child so that they can actually make progress potentially.

avoid feeding therapy or even do it alongside therapy or if eating therapy didn't work. And so I created that program initially. And then I also created a meal plan because had who was going into school for the first time requiring a lunch and two snacks that I had to pack every day. I was starting this business, which meant I was still doing two jobs, right?

C.J. Stermer (09:57)
Wow.

Jennifer Anderson (10:01)
like the chaos of feeding a family. And I was like, how am I going to make meal plan and cook for my family in this context? This is not like I can't do this. And so I sat down and put on my dietitian hat. It was like, OK, I'm to make this meal plan for my family. I'm going to put everything together. And on a whim, morning put something on answers like, hey, is this something that would be helpful to you? And a huge portion of my audience was like.

my gosh, that's exactly what we're looking than just making a meal plan for family, I made it a meal plan for everybody, for kids in color. was really the product that enabled me to quit my job, support my family, and kind of move forward with kids in color. And people are like, you you just kind of made this thing.

Like, no, I use this

C.J. Stermer (10:48)
so you're creating this content finding is that it's really short burst, right? It's designed to be really digestive, almost repetitive in some ways. So you have, know, it's not like this long 30 minute recipe that you're posting. Tell me a little bit more of the type of content and how you're finding that people are actually relating to this and finding it useful.

Jennifer Anderson (11:04)
think a great example is where we've come from and where we are now. And so when I started my first program, it was a live one to two hour, you know, session where I was talking to parents and, you know, we had four of those over the course of a people's feedback was, this is too long. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. the next year I made it smaller and now we have 20, 20 minute sections of information.

C.J. Stermer (11:15)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (11:29)
And people were like, this is too long. And so over time, those chunks of information have really stood out against what has worked really well in social media, which is small pieces of information that are drifted out over time. Whether it's a static post, which is what all of my feed was when I started Instagram to now videos, our attention span has gotten so much shorter.

So, we're thinking about education, about a handout that takes 5-10 minutes to read, with lot of detail. Yeah, so many words. Too many words. And we think, ⁓ let's make a video. Now, YouTube is interesting. YouTube can somehow suck people in for 15 minutes if they're YouTube-sour person, but if they're a

C.J. Stermer (11:58)
Yeah, sometimes it's just so many words, yeah.

Jennifer Anderson (12:16)
TikTok, Facebook sort of person, you're not going to get them for 15 minutes. You're only going to get them for a very short amount of time. When in

C.J. Stermer (12:24)
or mom with

three kids and maybe one that has a neurodivergent need and maybe one that's trying to balance life and right, she's probably not sitting down and watching 30, 45 minutes of YouTube.

Jennifer Anderson (12:28)
Yeah. Exactly. I mean...

No, absolutely not. And in fact, couple of years ago, released Reels, right? To compete with prior to that, in where most of my people hung out, I could do a video of myself that was, you know, me and myself talking to my a minute, things like that. And I had plenty of people watching it.

After the introduction of Reels, where people started to get videos in 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 15 minutes of watching a video in stories became a long time and all of a sudden people stopped watching stories. And it's been true ever since then that I rarely will post a 15 second anything in stories because I know people's attention span is much more like

six to seven seconds of I think it's tricky we're thinking about educating people, when we're talking to people, to capture their attention for quite a bit of time is very difficult. It depends on the medium, of in my now, know, parents are maxing out with a five to 10 minute video. That's too long now. And so we constantly are finding

new ways to meet parents where they're at with small, small, small drips of information over time that's really relevant and worth their time.

C.J. Stermer (13:54)
Right.

you find that the programs that you're creating now with these small trips of information, it like a topic area is broken up many times and it's repetitive? Does it change a little bit? How is that content sort absorbed to the point to where You're starting to see behavior change within these families, the parents and even the kids.

Jennifer Anderson (14:14)
Yeah, so I think families want to change. I want to change. I want to change things all the time. And it's not until I've heard messages a couple times that I am willing to actually consider making that change. It's not that I'm not willing to really, it's just that there's a lot of things going on and it takes a bunch of, you know, saying things and hearing things for me to be like, I could actually do that myself. So,

When I think about this on social media, I rarely talk about something, I rarely do a series of something. Like, I'm not gonna say, okay, gonna talk about fiber for the next four weeks, because you might be interested in fiber once. You might be interested in fiber two days in a row, but do really wanna hear about fiber three days in a row? Probably not.

you're going to lose interest because you have a whole bunch of other options on your for you page or your explore page or whatever, giving you novel things that you haven't thought about for a long time. So when we are presenting education, often it's like, okay, we're going to talk about the vegetable group now. And then we spent four weeks on vegetables. You've lost people, right? I would lose my audience so fast in terms of their attention.

Instead, if I talk about fiber today and I talk about your child's relationship with food disorder eating tomorrow, and then I talk about how to handle candy, and then I talk about how awesome broccoli is, and then I talk about this really fun toothpick magic where if you stick a toothpick in just about anything, kids will eat it. You know, if I talk about a variety of things, I'm going to keep people more engaged. Like, what's she going to talk about today? We forget.

C.J. Stermer (15:49)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (15:51)
that we as a society now get bored And if we were in school, 10, 15, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, however long it's been since school, we learned a totally different way of communicating that does not align with who people are now and how they learn and what their attention spans are.

C.J. Stermer (16:09)
do you think that it's because also everyone's not a one size fits all, So many different topics may relate to different audiences. Do you think that that's also part of it?

Jennifer Anderson (16:17)
think that's part of also I think people hate learning stuff that's not directly relevant to them. If it's interesting and engaging and that sort of thing. So it can be mixed together. So we can speak to a group of people. So I speak to parents of kids who are roughly to 10, but we're also getting into the teens, I'm talking to those parents.

C.J. Stermer (16:23)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (16:41)
And not all of those parents have the same issues across the board with feeding their they can all find enough of something they get it, And I think there's also this element that parents know now that there's stuff that they don't know. And the older your kid gets, the more you realize, hey, my kid could get something. My kid could have a problem that I'm not expecting. What am I gonna do then?

C.J. Stermer (16:56)
you

Jennifer Anderson (17:06)
So I don't really hate learning things now about kids because I don't know when that information is gonna become useful to me. I have parents coming back to me all the time now. They're like, I followed you my kids were now they're a little older. all of a sudden this is making sense what you've been saying relating to, I don't know, candy or.

exposure or whatever. So I think there's also this element of like parents understanding what I'm learning now from you might actually serve me well later. And I think when it comes to education though, where we're talking about, you know, parents also being neurodivergent, if we're tackling a specific issue, so let's say I'm tackling extreme picky eating in my program, something that had not occurred to me until this summer.

C.J. Stermer (17:35)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (17:51)
which is incredible to me, is we know that kids who are neurodivergent are more likely to have eating challenges. We know that. But what had not occurred to me is that means that the parents of those kids are also more likely to be neurodivergent. Now, I knew that these eating challenges can have strong genetics. Some of them are highly heritable.

just like ADHD is or just like autism is or things like that. But it never really clicked for me that if you're trying to help a parent who has a neurodivergent child with an eating problem, we need to create a program for a neurodivergent parent they may or may not be neurodivergent. But if something for a neurodivergent parent, it's gonna be simpler, it's gonna be clearer, it's gonna be easy to follow. So that means

C.J. Stermer (18:13)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (18:40)
It's going be easier for all parents, but it's going to be accessible to a parent who's got that kid with the eating challenges. we, at nobody, at any point of all my education, I've read so many research papers. I can't even tell you. Never, never has it come out that like maybe we should really be thinking about how parents

our neurodivergent here and creating resources for them. Never. Not once.

C.J. Stermer (19:07)
Right.

wait a minute. it's,

what you're saying is that we've always tried to create this content or these programs for getting children to eat better and stop being picky eaters and how we can combat these issues. unintentionally, what we're realizing is we also need to be empathetic to these parents. These parents have a lot going on and because of the, you know, not everyone has the same issues and there's all these other variables in people's lives Is that what we're saying here is that there's almost this switch to being even more empathetic to the families?

Jennifer Anderson (19:32)
Yeah, absolutely. I think we must, we must either be those families own our own lived experience or getting to know families well enough that we really unless you have had a child with an eating problem or stood in a pediatrician's office when they said, hey, your kid's not gaining enough weight, talk to any has had that

crying in that moment. I have seen parents just instantly, you talk about that moment with them and they are back in it. The idea that your child is not doing okay and maybe failing to thrive is just sickening, so unless you've had that experience, unless you have somebody close to you, unless you've gone out of your way to learn that, if you either don't have kids or

C.J. Stermer (20:11)
Right?

Jennifer Anderson (20:21)
had kids, but it was so long ago. There's so many you might not kind of be in touch with that. You can't create a program that's going to meet them where they're at. And you can't create a program that is going to to families in a way that they'll actually be able to change because I'm not going to trust you, just me as a person. So as an example, I've been in a debate with my publisher about the name of

C.J. Stermer (20:31)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (20:46)
my book that's going to be coming out. And I think the name is don't know, it feels a little judgy to like, I don't feel great when I hear this title. Meanwhile, my publisher is got a great pulse on like, what's judgmental and what's not. my publisher is a mom.

and about my age and has But based on my understanding from her, actually really well she hasn't had some really serious feeding I stood in the pediatrician's office and was the one who got told that my kid was really in a challenging So I think there's this if you haven't...

experienced it or gone out of your way to learn what it's like to experience not going to be able to communicate that group of But think every time we communicate with a parent, like every time I'm writing, am I thinking about the parent who's doing really well? The answer is no, no, I'm not. I'm sitting there. I'm thinking about the struggling parent. In fact, I have

C.J. Stermer (21:39)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (21:43)
pretty substantial series that I make anybody who writes for me go through to understand research, how to actually in a way that is compassionate and that I make it really clear in that we are not writing for the parents who are doing

really well. They have plenty of resources out there. We are writing for the parent who has a struggle, who does have those moments where they're like, gosh, I am not doing a good job feeding my kid because they're or I'm doing my best that's And also, I really want to make some improvements. So that's who we write for. That's who we talk to. But we do so in a way that is very empowering. We don't say, you really need to do family dinners. We don't say that

C.J. Stermer (22:24)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (22:27)
we do say is family dinners can be great for so many people. And if that's not accessible to you, here's a list of other things you can do.

C.J. Stermer (22:27)
Right.

Right. We talk about that a lot in public health marketing as well as that sometimes when people want to be so equitable in their messaging or campaigns, they can sometimes actually be inequitable because they're creating such broad strokes trying to be empathetic, but they forget everyone can do that here are some other things that you can do what really hit home for me, what you said is

Jennifer Anderson (22:48)
Yeah. Yeah.

C.J. Stermer (22:55)
These parents can sometimes feel guilty. They feel like they're failing at good parents. People know that they want to make change. They're not. I don't know any parent that's like, I don't want to help my child. Like, that's that's not a thing. Right. And so being a little bit more understanding of it's not the one thing we need to talk about that may apply to some. But here are some other things to consider. I think that's super important. Right. It's like this change doesn't happen overnight because we say this one thing over and

Jennifer Anderson (23:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Right, right. And I think what's tricky, especially when we're thinking public health, is I think we need to be out there promoting family meals really pushing people. Like I dedicated a whole chapter in my book to here's the thing, husband and I, we have moved mountains to make family meals our We've gone to extreme make this happen. At the same time,

I'm not going to expect that every other family can or wants to do that. And that's okay. There's so many other powerful things you can do. I don't think we always have to dilute the message, which is what can happen where we're like, well, I'm scared to make any recommendations.

C.J. Stermer (23:59)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (24:01)
I don't think we have to do that. We could still on a bus wrap, put a family eating around a table, laughing together and say, sit down and have a meal with your family. That is powerful. Those images are powerful. And we can also be doing other messages out there that's like, okay, if family dinners don't work for you, let's read a book together when we have a moment on a Wednesday morning or it think it's okay for messages to be targeted.

I just think in our portfolio of messages, it's important that we are acknowledging limitations at the same we're both pushing people, but also granting people accommodation. And it's always that pushing people and ourselves to do better. And also we're saying, sometimes we just can't, we can't do it. So we need an accommodation here. We need another alternative.

C.J. Stermer (24:49)
I think that's a really good message of how we can empower people to think differently about when they're creating content or creating programs still being able to do that, but be a little bit more, and like you said, intentional about those different messages and making sure that they're reaching different audiences for different reasons, and then creating that content in smaller sections so that people can digest it over

Jennifer Anderson (25:08)
Absolutely.

It's also in the words that we use. We can say, family meals will help your child. That you are brave to say that because you have no idea what's gonna happen if they do that. Also, they may not be able to even have family meals to see what's gonna happen. There's so much. But if you say, family meals can help your child.

a lot of, that's a different Or you could meals may help your child. Okay, well, that's a different statement together. You can also say, what if family meals could help your And now you introduce a totally different mindset where you're like, that's interesting. if I did that? the curiosity on them. You've put...

C.J. Stermer (25:29)
That's a completely different message.

That's a different one word.

Jennifer Anderson (25:51)
them in a different head space can try new things. And if it doesn't work, it's not necessarily on me, but also if it does work, what a so I think it's sometimes in those little words that we can introduce this idea people space to experience real life and empathy and not putting guilt on them, but also giving them the idea that they can do things differently.

C.J. Stermer (26:13)
giving them the space. I like how you said that it's adding a little bit of grace the idea of your messaging, which I don't think we always think about that, but that's such a powerful approach is understanding the grace as well as your intentionality. And that helps to provide that empathy a little bit more. That was a big aha moment for actually really fascinating.

Jennifer Anderson (26:17)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

C.J. Stermer (26:33)
know, we have all these different people, whether they're educators, public health professionals, community members, people that work in medical professions, how do we empower them to think differently in the way that you have done in terms of content and messaging and this idea of empathy and grace? How do we empower to do that?

Jennifer Anderson (26:53)
It has to be an intentional decision on the part of the individual. You have to want it because there's actually some funky research out there that shows like when people go through a hard time, sometimes they have less empathy because now they know you can be okay on the other side. And so as people are going through this hard time, they're like, ⁓ I did it. ⁓ I got through feeding my kid. Or you you talk to any one of the grandparents now they're like, you just ate whatever. And I'm like, yeah, that's not how I remember.

C.J. Stermer (27:08)
Hmm.

Jennifer Anderson (27:20)
I just ate whatever. But you have to have an intentional willingness to listen to people and what they're going through now to really listen to their stories. It doesn't matter what part of your job that you're doing, get out there and meet the people that you're serving. no way around that. no way around actually meeting the people you're serving. Whether take up a volunteer thing or you go out of your way to meet some people at a

C.J. Stermer (27:36)
Right.

Jennifer Anderson (27:45)
event, whatever it is, you have to go meet people. You have to meet them enough that you can have a conversation with them, or you need to really go out of your way to be listening to these voices online. Every community has a channel out there. And if you wanna reach them in small, short chunks of information, you have to go be on social media. much as I,

C.J. Stermer (28:05)
have to be on social media.

Jennifer Anderson (28:07)
You have to do it. You don't have to consider it part of your job. Do it while you're at work. Like pitch it to your boss. It's important for me to scroll social media, the people that we're serving to find out what they are seeing, what they are listening to, how they are learning. Because unless you can kind of do that, you're just not gonna get it. You're just not gonna get how to do it. But it's gotta be really intentional. Really, really intentional. You have to want that.

C.J. Stermer (28:30)
Right.

And hit a lot of important parts within that broad stroke, right? It's not just like fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber, fiber. Like it's got to be more than just fiber. Always has to be more than just fiber. So at least on and maybe some sugary beverages. Right. to the I think that's really important is that in order to hit that empathy, in order to hit that grace.

Jennifer Anderson (28:36)
Yeah. Always has to be more than just Piper. ⁓ At least add on some fluid to that.

you

C.J. Stermer (28:55)
In order to hit that intentionality of this content though, you have to meet people where they are by listening and understanding the storytelling within that. I think that's super powerful because a lot of times people just create for the sake of creating. But, we talk a lot here about the seat at the table and literally just some of the last episodes is you can have the seat at the table, but are you actually allowing people to speak at that table? And then

Are you allowing people to be a part of the journey of this content as it evolves while they're at that table? It doesn't stop there. The storytelling has to continue with their involvement.

Jennifer Anderson (29:28)
That's right. That's right.

Yeah, it's so I just want to put one plug for personal development. you can believe all this academically. have my bachelor's degree was in cultural anthropology where all we talked about was how other people think, how to understand what people think. And that's great. And that's important. We can talk about the seat at the table. People can learn and be like, rah rah, I'm going to bring them to the table. I'm going to do the thing.

C.J. Stermer (29:33)
that's very

Jennifer Anderson (29:56)
But if you want empathy, which is what will actually change your message in the end, you have to do your own soul searching and realize your own biases, your own privileges that you have. You have to be willing to go back to the place that's really uncomfortable, where you are listening to stories that are really, really uncomfortable. You don't wanna be there. You're going back to the hardest times that you've had in your you're writing while you're in that mindset.

C.J. Stermer (30:01)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

That's a great point.

Jennifer Anderson (30:23)
sort of thing is like, it's not just academics. It's not just doing your job. It's also who you are emotionally as a person, spiritually as a person. Like those sorts of things actually come into play here. And so you have to work on yourself as you are creating this content. otherwise it's just gonna come off as, it's just not gonna come off to the same not gonna be authentic.

C.J. Stermer (30:38)
Right.

It's not going to authentic. It's not going to be intentional.

Yeah, it's not. You have to include own intentionality and the grace within yourself to really get uncomfortable. That's such a powerful message. I a hundred percent agree. My therapist tells me to do that all the time. I really appreciate please go and take.

Jennifer Anderson (30:49)
That's right.

Yeah, yeah.

right, that's right.

C.J. Stermer (31:04)
a peek at this content that Jennifer is kids dot eat dot in dot color on Instagram and kids eating color.com. Check out these amazing programs that Jennifer and her team are creating these incredible strategies and approaches to see actual change within our communities and getting kids and parents to live healthier lives.

Jennifer Anderson (31:22)
That's right.

C.J. Stermer (31:23)
Jennifer, thank you so very much. This was a great conversation. I really enjoyed our time today.

Jennifer Anderson (31:27)
Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much.