What Is an Almond Mom and Why Is it Problematic?
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You may have heard the term “almond mom” recently in social media and news platforms, especially Tik Tok.
Many people use this term in a lighthearted, joking manner without considering the negative impacts that having an almond mom may have had on your body image and relationship with food. Before going into detail about the influence of almond moms, let’s first answer this question:
What is an almond mom?
This is not as simple as “a mom who eats almonds”. The term “almond mom” was coined after Bella and Gigi Hadid’s mother, Yolanda, was caught on camera making comments about her daughters body weight and food intake. Recently, videos from the family’s reality television show have resurfaced and people are noticing alarming behaviors, such as constantly criticizing the food that her daughters eat, their body size, and the amount of exercise they do.
While it’s important to explore the impact that mother’s have on their children when it comes to food, body image and the development of eating disorders, disordered eating and poor body image, it’s important to note that any caregiver can be an “almond mom”. Whether it is a mom, a dad, a grandmother, uncle, etc., any person who serves as a parental figure in a child’s life can demonstrate these same problematic behaviors. And no matter the adult, the behaviors are harmful and can lead to the development of an eating disorder or disordered eating as kids and into adulthood.
What are the behaviors associated with an almond mom?
The behaviors associated with almond moms (caregivers) are:
Obsession with becoming thin and physical appearance
Frequent commentary on their own weight or their children’s weight
Strict diet regulations for themselves and their children
Frequent commentary on what their child is eating in terms of quantity, quality, calories, fat, sugar, etc.
Restriction of certain foods or food groups in an effort to maintain a certain weight, size, status, and/or appearance
Locking cabinets or prohibiting entrance into places where food is stored in order to prevent children from having access to food
Frequent rotation between different diets that are enforced on the children
Going on diets or programs together with their children
How can I tell if I’m an almond mom?
Many moms and caregivers are not aware of their own behaviors and the impact that they may be having on their kid(s). It is important to self-reflect as a parent to ensure you are not unconsciously exhibiting behaviors of an almond mom.
Some questions you can ask yourself to determine if you’re an almond mom are:
Do you frequently comment on your children’s eating habits, weight, or appearance?
Do you have intense diet restrictions in your household?
Are you often talking to your children about your eating habits and efforts to stay thinner?
Do you tell them that they shouldn’t wear certain clothes because of the way they look or where they have more fat on their body?
Do you make comments about how much your kid is eating? Or how much weight they are gaining and/or how they distribute their weight?
If you’re answering yes to any of these questions, please keep reading. These behaviors have serious implications for your children, and it is so important for both you and the child to begin to heal.
Why are the behaviors of an almond mom problematic for children and how might this have impacted you as a kid?
Firstly, these behaviors with food and body teach children that eating “bad foods” means that they are inherently a bad person. When almond moms teach their children to separate foods into “good” and “bad” categories, they cause children to believe that they are bad people when they consume “bad” foods. This causes children to feel deep-rooted shame in their relationships with food, their bodies, and themselves.
The truth is, food is not a moral issue and from this perspective there are no “good and bad” foods, just different foods that offer different nutrients and experiences to kids and adults alike.
If you had an almond mom, you likely feel like there’s something wrong with you or you’ve done something wrong when you have foods that are deemed “bad”.
Secondly, by restricting a particular food or food group from a child, an almond mom is leading the child to believe that food is scarce. Human bodies are not able to tell the difference between a food being restricted and not having access to food. In this way, rom a biological perspective, your body may experience a need to overeat those restricted foods because you feel as if you may not ever have them again.
Patterns of binging, restriction, purging, etc. can arise for kids and continue into adulthood because of food retraction and rues in the household. This causes serious physical and emotional distress. Additionally, when adults restrict foods from their children, common behaviors are hiding food, feeling anxiety at the table, food avoidance, and a high risk for the development of an eating disorder.
If you had an almond mom, you likely feel like every time you eat a “bad” or “forbidden” food that it’s the last time you’re going to eat it and/or that you need to eat it quickly (sometimes hiding) because you shouldn’t be having it.
Thirdly, when almond moms hyperfixate on the physical appearance of their child, they teach their children that being thin is important and that they care a lot about their child’s body shape and size. This is detrimental to a child’s mental and physical well-being. A parent’s obsession with their child’s weight or appearance impacts the child’s confidence, self-esteem, self-image, and overall relationship with their body. This can limit all kinds of experiences for children that then carries over into adulthood, such as:
Ability to play sports
Anxiety while participating in groups
Struggling to speak for themselves
Difficulty standing up for themselves
Difficulty maintaining grades at school
Greater levels of anxiety and depression
Low confidence in dating and relationships
If you had an almond mom, you likely feel like in order to be loved, cared for, or respected, you need to be thin or be in the pursuit of thinness. You may feel like you are only valuable if you’re thin.
What if you had an almond mom (or caregiver), but it feels bad to think about the impact that it had on you?
You may be thinking, “But I was raised in a loving home with a roof over my head. Does this mean my (almond) mom is a bad parent?”
No. Not at all. Oftentimes, the behaviors of an almond mom are unintentional and she may not have meant to cause harm. And, remember that intention doesn’t negate impact!
For (almond) mothers, their behavior can be rooted in their own trauma, their experience with food and their body, generational cycles, mental health disorders, and/or fear that something bad will happen to their kid if they allow their body to freely grow and allow their kids freedom with food.
In fact, if you’re questioning the integrity of your parents and their modeling of eating, it is likely that your parents had their own version of an almond mom or caregiver in their childhood and/or they may have struggled with their relationship to food and body.
Diet culture has existed for many, many years demanding women, men, children, and people EVERYWHERE to conform to its ridiculous rules and impractical expectations. Millennials and Gen Z’ers are not the first generations to experience this issue, they are simply the first to give these tendencies a trendy name and a hashtag.
You teach what you know. If you only know what your parents have taught you or what diet culture has caused you to believe, then you get caught in the lies of a broken system that sets you up for failure. Remember, diet culture is not a friend even if it feels familiar and safe at times.
How do you recover from the diet mentality and disordered eating behaviors that almond moms and caregivers have passed onto you?
The best thing you can do is challenge diet culture head-on, process the impact that having an almond mom had on you, and unlearn what was taught to you. Here are some ways you can do this:
Explore intuitive eating. The concept of intuitive eating can be scary and intimidating for individuals who have suffered from eating disorders or disordered eating. You’re re-learning how to trust your body’s internal cues for hunger and fullness and allowing all foods to fit, which goes against everything you have been taught by diet culture. Intuitive eating can be overwhelming, but the benefits of a having peaceful relationship with food much outweigh the feelings of guilt and shame that your almond mom or caregiver may have passed on to you.
Get support from a weight-inclusive eating disorder dietitian. Having the support of an anti-diet dietitian who specializes in helping you to heal your relationship with food and your body is invaluable especially if you grew up with an almond mom. It can take time to understand how your home food environment is impacting your relationship to food and your body as an adult. At Bravespace Nutrition in Seattle, WA our dietitians are skilled to help you with this!
Learn more about Health At Every Size. Health At Every Size (HAES) is a weight-inclusive model that brings attention to weight bias in both healthcare settings and societal culture. HAES supports body neutrality while challenging weight-focused healthcare and size-based discrimination. The five key pillars of the HAES movement are 1) Weight inclusivity, 2) Respectful care, 3) Eating for well-being, 4) Life-enhancing movement, and 5) Health enhancement. By practicing these 5 pillars, you can not only heal your relationship with your body and food, you can also promote an inclusive community that will help others to do the same.
Ditch the need to label foods as “good” or “bad”. Food is connection, culture, community, and so much more. Assigning labels to food does nothing but cause confusion, stress, and shame in what is meant to be such an enjoyable experience. Allow space in your life for all foods without placing them into categories. True food freedom can be an extremely liberating experience when recovering from an eating disorder or disordered eating.
Diversify your social media feed. Social media platforms use an algorithm to give you more of the content that you already interact with. The more you like, share, and comment on a specific type of content, the more it will be shown to you. If you are struggling with diet-culture on social media, it can help to diversify your feed to allow space for non-diet related content. Many eating disorder dietitians have various social media platforms that exist to help you recover. Here are some additional tips to help you diversify your social media:
Unfollow or block accounts that do not align with your personal beliefs and goals
Completely reset your feed in specific apps (like Instagram) by clearing your search history
Re-frame your feed and follow anti-diet and body positivity influencers and accounts
Check out this blog to read more about how to change your social media feed to be more anti-diet culture
Start listening to podcasts and books that challenge your inner diet mentality. It often takes many resources for you to heal from disordered eating and eating disorders; books/podcasts can be helpful additional resources to learn from! For books that will help you reclaim your relationship with your body and food, visit check out our list of anti-diet, eating disorder recovery, and food freedom books. If reading isn’t for you, click here for a list of podcasts that can kickstart your journey to food freedom.
Challenge diet-talk in your life. If you find yourself in a triggering conversation with a parent or caregiver, know that you can use these tools and resources to educate them on the negative effects of disordered eating behaviors. If this is too difficult, you can also redirect conversation to a topic that is completely unrelated to food or body image. If all other efforts fail, you can remove yourself from a triggering situation. Sticking up for yourself may be tough and setting boundaries may be tough, but you don’t deserve to continue to suffer.
Saying no to diet-culture and the toxicity of almond moms and caregivers is difficult, but it’s a rewarding experience that will bring joy back into the food experience, free up headspace and make food and your relationship with you body much more peaceful. You deserve to have food freedom!
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Looking for eating disorder or disordered eating nutrition counseling in Seattle, WA?
Recovering from an eating disorder/disordered eating can change your life and it can feel scary and overwhelming to know where to begin. You deserve support to develop new eating patterns and improve your body image. The dietitian nutritionists from our Seattle, WA-based nutrition counseling practice would be honored to help you to overcome your struggle and help you to heal from the eating disorder and disordered eating. To get support today, please contact us.