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Healthier relationships with food and body for the whole family (without putting more on your plate!). Family in Focus with Wendy Schofer, MD. Photo of family preparing meal together in the kitchen
Parents keep asking...

Where is

Weight Loss 101? 

 

Psst: Right Here!

Start the FREE Course Today!

I'm Wendy, and I struggled too...

 

Even as a board-certified pediatrician, I worried about my family's weight and health. I was determined to not bring diet culture into my home, but all of the "Eat Less, Move More" felt like I was controlling their food and activity, and creating so much friction with the kids.

I realized the medical recommendations I had made for years were just wrong. I was teaching families to diet under the guise of "weight management."

My frustration led me to look beyond the medical guidance and study the mind, psychology and motivation. I used these tools for myself and saw my relationship with food, body and family changing before my eyes.

My family's health changed because I changed.

The Family in Focus approach was born from my own powerful transformation.

I now help parents worried about their children's weight build a healthier whole family by using these same powerful, effective tools. 

More about Wendy

I'm Wendy, and I worried too as a parent...

Even as a board-certified pediatrician, I worried about my family's weight and health. I was determined to not bring diet culture into my home, but all of the "Eat Less, Move More" felt like I was controlling their food and activity, and creating so much friction with the kids.

I realized the recommendations I had made for years were just wrong. I was teaching families to diet under the guise of "weight management."

My frustration led me to look beyond the medical guidance and study the mind, psychology and motivation. I used these tools for myself and saw my relationship with food, body and family changing before my eyes.

My family's health changed because I changed.

The Family in Focus approach was born from my own powerful transformation.

I now help parents worried about their children's weight build a healthier whole family by using these same powerful, effective tools. 

I'm Wendy, and I struggled too...

 

Even as a board-certified pediatrician, I worried about my family's weight and health. I was determined to not bring diet culture into my home, but all of the "Eat Less, Move More" felt like I was controlling their food and activity, and creating so much friction with the kids.

I realized the medical recommendations I had made for years were just wrong. I was teaching families to diet under the guise of "weight management."

My frustration led me to look beyond the medical guidance and study the mind, psychology and motivation. I used these tools for myself and saw my relationship with food, body and family changing before my eyes.

My family's health changed because I changed.

The Family in Focus approach was born from my own powerful transformation.

I now help parents worried about their children's weight build a healthier whole family by using these same powerful, effective tools. 

More about Wendy

What Doesn't Work

❌ Mandatory exercise

❌ Threats about weight

❌ Diet, Restriction, Calorie counting

❌ Demonizing processed and fast food

❌ "Weight Management"

❌ Stressing out over our kids' weight

❌ Focusing on the scale

❌ Letting the scale tell if progress is being made towards lifelong health

 

It all leads to kids being taught to diet, that their bodies are wrong... and they reject having their food & bodies controlled (hello, food fights & sneaking food!) 

Learn What Works

✅ Help your child learn to listen to their body

✅ Build healthy relationships with food and body

✅ Create a home for healthy body image to grow

✅ Understand how targeting weight is not a helpful way to create healthy habits

✅ Use internal motivation to drive long-term change

✅ Learn the most helpful habits of thoughts, feelings and actions that lead to lifelong healthy weight

✅ Create whole-family healthy habits

✅ Shift the focus from what you're trying to avoid to what you actually want to achieve

✅ Healthy Habits, from the inside, out: What we can share with the whole family, for life

Most weight management programs for kids teach them to cut out foods and force exercise that the kids hate. They focus on measurements to determine if there is progress or success.

Success (and health!) is not based on achieving a certain weight or size. 

That, my friend, is diet mentality and leads to an unhealthy relationship with food and body.

Instead, the Family in Focus approach uses the professional guidance of a physician-coach who has worked with thousands of parents to build healthy relationships with food and body for the whole family.

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Success Stories

Lindsey, Mom of 3

"THANK YOU! For so long now I have felt like I had to control and fix everything and if it wasn't working I must be failing... what a heavy feeling. I entered this course to help essentially one child who struggles with weight but I've learned the weight struggle was mine. Her weight doesn't hold her back.... it was me. I was thinking by fixing this I could protect her from being made fun of or help her to look a certain way.... these were never her insecurities.... they were mine. It doesn't seem so overwhelming and hard now. 

In fact, in such a short time I've gained so much from your course beyond food and weight. It makes me a better person, Mom, and wife all around."

Anonymous, Mom of 2

“I am working through a resurgence of disordered eating with [my daughter], that showed up originally last year and returned after [her father] and I separated. 

I am approaching the conversations from the perspective I learned from you in the beginning stages of your journey with this program, and they have made ALL of the difference in the world to help me recognize behaviors and communicate with (my daughter) about the beliefs leading to them. 

It is powerful, powerful work you are doing. Thank you!”

Another Secret?

No one else is sharing this effective approach to family weight health. 

 

The weight-loss industry is hell-bent on having some shredded person sell you a pill or a quick-fix for our weight worries.

That is not the answer to help our children. It's not sustainable and it's flat-out dangerous, and it makes everyone hate the process.

But just imagine... when you have stopped second-guessing if you should have let them have seconds, when you have ended the food fights, and no longer worry about your child's relationship with food. Imagine when you bring the family together in a healthy way that you actually enjoy.

And you don't have to choose which family member to focus upon. You learn the tools and everyone benefits.

 
Work with Me

What's different with Family in Focus?

The traditional weight-focused approach (ahem, I see you "Weight Management" Clinics) looks at the scale as the definition of success. 

Family in Focus takes a holistic approach, seeing the whole person and the whole family.

I believe...

  • success is defined as progress, as growth, as learning, and connection.
  • in celebrating what exists now and what is possible.
  • in creating a community of likeminded parents, who focus on health and growth, not numbers on the scale.
  • your child is not broken. Every child and every family is whole.
  • no diagnosis determines your health.
  • in the power of parents to create an environment for children to thrive at every size and weight.
  • that healthy relationships with food and body are created in the home, not prescribed in the medical office.
  • there is no role for before and after pictures. There is no role for body shaming, including not shaming our current bodies.
  • relationships are the key to health.
Get Started with Family in Focus Today

We are actively collecting the evidence for this approach to whole family health

Novel, ground-breaking research in collaboration with colleagues at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University

Learn more

Host of the podcast: 

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Values

Values guide our way and are useful to make sure we stay aligned with what is true. At Family in Focus®, Wendy (she/her) values inclusion, play/fun, freedom, connection and growth.

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