Raising Body-Confident Kids: A Balanced Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Body Shame and Diet Culture

Ditch diet culture and break the cycle of body shame with this simple, supportive guide to raising body-confident kids.

If you’re a modern mom, chances are you’ve struggled with body image in the past, and you don’t want to pass those struggles on to your kids. But protecting your child's relationship with their body in a culture obsessed with perfection isn’t easy. That’s where Raising Body-Confident Kids comes in. Written by pediatrician and maternal-child health expert Dr. Whitney Casares, this practical, affirming guide helps moms teach their kids to be body-confident: to respect the bodies they have, know how to care for them, and have the skills they need to navigate the pressures of a body-obsessed world.

With equal parts compassion and real talk—and recognizing that moms are often still struggling with these issues themselves—Dr. Whitney offers a shame-free, health-informed framework for body-confident parenting rooted in connection, modeling, and values. Rejecting both diet culture and toxic body positivity, Raising Body-Confident Kids offers a middle path: one that helps children appreciate what their bodies can do AND learn how to care for them. Through expert insights and real-world stories, readers will learn how to shift everyday conversations around food, movement, health, and appearance to help their kids develop positive relationships with food, movement, and body image, navigate challenges with screens, friends, and body bullies, talk about these issues within their extended communities, and more.

The book includes:

• Conversation guides for talking with kids about food, health, and weight
• Tips for building a more body-neutral home and media environment
• Strategies for managing your own body image while parenting
• A “Study Guide” at the end of the book, offering a total of 30+ guided exercises, family rituals, and journal prompts
• Support for navigating triggering situations like doctor’s visits and big family dinners

If you’ve been looking for ways to talk to your kids about bodies without focusing on weight or appearance, for support in healing your own body image trauma, and for tools to ensure that every conversation is supportive, safe, and grounded in evidence-based care, then this book is for you. Practical and compassionate, Raising Body Confident Kids is your actionable guide to ending the cycle of body shame and raising self-assured, healthy kids.

Whitney Casares, MD, MPH, FAAP, is a practicing, board-certified pediatrician, author, speaker, podcaster, and full-time working mom, as well as the CEO and founder of Modern Mommy Doc and The Modern Mamas Club App. She is a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), for whom she has authored two books, The New Baby Blueprint: Caring for You and Your Little One and The Working Mom Blueprint: Winning at Parenting Without Losing Yourself. Dr. Whitney is a regular speaker at executive-level conferences for multibillion-dollar corporations such as Nike and Adidas, and a medical consultant for large-scale organizations, including Good Housekeeping magazine, Gerber, and L’Oréal (CeraVe). Her work has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, Thrive Global, TODAY Parenting, and Psychology Today. Dr. Whitney practices pediatrics in Portland, Oregon, where she and her husband raise their two young daughters. You can find her at modernmommydoc.com and on Instagram @modernmommydoc.