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EVERY TIME Carlee D., 35, calls her dad, he tells her about a new health and fitness pursuit. “He’ll talk about, ‘Oh I’ve only been eating sardines and peanut butter,’” she says. For as long as she can remember, most of the conversations with her dad have revolved around food, exercise, and bodies. “And if he’s not talking about his, he’ll ask me and my siblings about ours,” she says.
If Carlee’s dad were a woman, there’d be a label for what he is: an almond mom. You know, the female guardian satirized online as always counting calories, obsessing over her and her kids’ size, and bragging about how little she ate that day. (The term appears to have originated from an old episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills where Yolanda Hadid tells her daughter Gigi Hadid to “have a couple of almonds, and chew them really well,” after Gigi said that she was feeling weak.)
A lot of the time, these moms are simply (and unhealthily) dealing with the impact diet culture has had on them, says Sadi Fox, PhD, a therapist and eating disorder specialist at Flourish Psychology in Brooklyn. They might be experiencing disordered eating or an eating disorder themselves—but their comments and behavior could result in the same conditions for their kids.
Less has been said about how father figures can play into this dynamic, even though experts say they can have an equally devastating impact on their kids’ relationship to food and body image. In Carlee’s case, having an almond dad “absolutely led me to develop disordered eating patterns,” she says. Case in point: where he might have been restricting his diet to sardines and peanut butter, Carlee remembers a bout in 2022 when she only ate hardboiled eggs, apples, and black coffee. Following her dad’s lead, Carlee fell into a trap of restriction to specific foods.
This is an example of modeling, says Rachel Rodgers, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Northeastern University. Modeling is the idea that a child notices and internalizes a parent’s behavior and then recreates it themselves—whether that behavior is healthy or not.
“Children learn by watching their parents, even when their parents don’t say anything,” she says. “So, with parents who are still on a body image journey and whose eating patterns are reflective of rules and choices that are made based on appearance pursuits, children will pick up on those and develop similar ways of thinking about their appearance and eating.”
Even though dads might fly under the radar more, it’s equally important to understand how they can impact their kids’ relationship with food, fitness, and body image. Social media did a great job naming and identifying almond moms—but it’s time to widen the lens.
Why Dads Have Escaped the ‘Almond’ Label for So Long
Why does it feel like being an almond parent is typically reserved for moms? First, “there’s a higher prevalence of eating disorders in women versus men, so you are more likely to encounter an almond mom,” says Kelli Rugless, PsyD, a therapist who specializes in eating disorders at Flourish Psychology in Beverly Hills, California. Still, “that does not mean that almond dads do not exist and do not have a pretty significant impact on the way that their children and families relate to food,” Rugless says.
And though eating disorders are less common in men than women, they do happen. One in five boys and men meet the criteria for an eating disorder, per a 2025 study in Eating Behaviors.
When you encounter an almond dad in the wild, you might find that they’re similar to their female counterparts: they talk about food in a shame- or guilt-based way, they focus on weight and body size, and they fixate on their food choices. But, there’s more to an almond dad—and that’s why they can be so hard to spot.
“It gets to a point of almost health perfectionism.”
For women, society’s ideal body type is thin, but for men, it’s strong. “I would say the majority of boys and men I treat for anorexia, they really are not idealizing thinness, they’re idealizing leanness,” says Roberto Olivardia, PhD, a clinical associate in psychology at McLean Hospital and author of The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsession. For men, it’s about muscle—and this can make it harder to spot when there’s a problem.
You might see a built guy who works out regularly and hits his protein goals and miss the fact that he’s under-eating, obsessed with food, and invests a lot of self-worth in how his body looks. Where the almond mom might focus on calories, an almond dad might focus on macros; that shift can make the behavior seem more fitness-focused or performance-driven, and therefore, less problematic, but experts say the underlying mindset isn’t much different.
“What’s particularly worrisome about those eating styles is that they’re often not framed as being disordered or put on the same continuum as behaviors that in women would be recognized as dieting,” Rodgers says. “This is partly because they’re associated with physical activity, and our current culture very strongly emphasizes that physical activity can only possibly be healthy, which of course is not the case.”
Fitness can get unhealthy when it becomes obsessive, ritualized, and extreme, Rodgers adds. If someone’s whole world revolves around the next time they’ll be in the gym—or if their entire day seems thrown off by missing a workout—that’s a sign it might be too obsessive for them. Fitness can also turn unhealthy when it’s driven by weight and body size goals.
Red flags: Having some or a combination of the above qualities does not necessarily mean that a dad has disordered eating or an eating disorder, Olivardia says. When he’s talking to patients, he looks for a sense of rigidity in eating and exercise and how closely he connects those things to character. “It’s one thing to say ‘I want to be healthy,’” he says. “We encourage healthy eating, but where I see that slippery slope is when it gets tied into morality and being a good person.”
Despite the focus on muscle gains, body image might not actually be the primary force driving almond dads. “In general, a big difference I’ve often seen with the almond mom versus almond dad is that with the almond mom, a lot of times it tends to be focused on aesthetics and appearance, but with the dads, and with patients I’ve seen who’ve had dads like this, it’s really around the sense of control,” Olivardia says.
While control has long been an underpinning of eating disorders, the word has new meaning these days, with controlling food intake becoming a sign of strength and virtue. “I would say over the last five years—and this is where culture certainly plays a role—I’ve heard that messaging more and it’s very aligned with the manosphere and stoicism that you see in social media,” Olivardia says. There’s this sense that deprivation and restriction leads to pain, which makes men more tough and more masculine, and “of course it can spin and spiral out of control,” he says.
Online, the almond dad ethos is shaped by more than control. Influences from movements like Make America Healthy Again are also at play, sometimes even introducing an air of misogyny. When it comes to missing a workout or eating something sugary, men might feel as if they’re “weak,” or “like one is becoming a woman in some ways,” Olivardia explains.
Some men might have lengthy supplement regimens (à la biohackers), emphasize things like productivity, especially as it pertains to getting workouts in, and are skeptical of chemicals and additives like fluoride. None of these behaviors are inherently concerning on their own, but they can escalate or be taken to the extreme. “I’ve had patients who sometimes are taking 30 to 40 supplements a day,” Olivardia says. “It gets to a point of almost health perfectionism.”
How Dad’s Habits Shape Kids’ Bodies—and Beliefs
Whether through direct comments or modeling, any parent, no matter their gender, can have an impact on how their kids’ relationships to food, fitness, and body image. “I always say to parents, ‘your kids are watching,’” Olivardia says. “I’ve worked with boys and men whose mothers had eating disorders and I’ve worked with girls whose fathers were the ones who had eating disorders.”
Today, male guardians are more involved in raising children compared to previous decades, including in how much time they spend with their kids, per data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. As a result, the way that they approach eating and working out can inadvertently have a big impact on how their kids feel about those very things. “They have an equal influence on their kids, and it would be unfair to tell a dad that they don’t,” Fox says.
When that influence is intertwined with unhealthy relationships to food or fitness, it can take a harmful turn. Many factors contribute to the development of an eating disorder or negative body image, plenty of which are connected to parenting. Research has shown that parenting styles, attachment styles, and negative comments from parents can all play a role in a child’s eating disorder. If parents themselves have an unhealthy relationship with food, fitness, and body image, it’s likely that they can pass that onto their kids, says Fox.
“I’d love to talk to my dad about other things going on in my life rather than what my leg press is.”
Both of Jessi O.’s parents struggled with diet culture, and that led to some extreme ideas about food, she remembers. Theirs was the kind of house that had low-fat salad dressings, and no butter. “My dad was always, always very health conscious,” she says. “Growing up, we didn’t have bacon in the house, or beef, or higher-caloric, higher-fat foods.” The result? Fear of the consequences of eating those foods.
Beginning around 15 years old, Jessi, now 44, ended up in treatment for anorexia and has been in recovery since, which she says indicates the impact of growing up with an almond dad. “I think that the male voice—especially our dad’s—is so influential for young women, teenagers, and middle schoolers,” she says. “We look up to them.” Throughout the past decade, Jessi and her dad have had more conversations about that impact. “He admits that some of the comments that he made or some of the examples that he set when I was younger were actually really detrimental to my viewpoints and how I navigated the world of health and food,” she says.
Beyond approaches to food and eating, critical body talk can result in disordered habits. Making comments about your child’s body—especially about their weight—can reinforce the idea that your kid should look a certain way, says Rugless (when in reality, they’re children and they should be growing). This might result in disordered eating or an eating disorder if a child starts to feel like they need to lose weight. These comments also just stick with kids. Jessi remembers comments along the lines of, “That’s going to go straight to your thighs.”
Body talk (including the way dads talk about their own bodies in front of their kids) and fitness conversations can also overshadow other elements of your relationship with your child. For Carlee, most interactions with her dad still revolve around physique and food. Whether he’s sharing his new goals, stories from the gym, or asking her personal questions about her habits and weight, it can get in the way of a deeper relationship. “I find it exhausting,” she says. “I’d love to talk to my dad about other things going on in my life rather than what my leg press is.”
That’s what can happen with so-called almond dads: over time, food and fitness can start to feel less joyful and more utilitarian. Instead of thinking of food as something that can be enjoyed or bring a family together, it’s fuel, says Olivardia. The approach is more along the lines of: food is something I have to eat, as a means to an end, so I’ll do it. The same can be said for the gym; even if it’s painful, you have to do it.
It’s about ignoring what you want to do and struggling through what you don’t, and there’s a sense of pride in that for the dads. “We can see how food becomes a metaphor for a lot of other things in life,” Olivardia says.
Untangling the Almond Dad Effect
Now a parent herself, Jessi has a lot of conversations with her husband about how to approach food with their son. The overall goal is to remove the judgement from choices and to help him honor his body’s hunger cues. In her household, there aren’t any foods that are bad or avoided, though you probably won’t find any of the “low calorie” or “low fat” diet options. (This kind of approach, an “all foods fit” mentality, is recommended by eating disorder specialists, says Fox.)
Instead, Jessi and her husband focus on talking about nutrition and getting a variety of vitamins and minerals with their kid. They also don’t focus on the quantity of food that he eats. “He is a growing, energetic child,” Jessi says. “His body needs more nutrition some days.” (Also a sentiment co-signed by Rugless. A child absolutely needs to be eating enough to support their activities and growth.)
As for where she stands with her parents, there are some days when she can have an open conversation with them about food, but they’re not entirely on the same page. At the end of the day, they’re in their 70s—and haven’t done nearly as much therapy as she has. “I can reprogram myself through therapy, but I haven’t necessarily been able to always reprogram my parents,” Jessi says.
If you’re someone who is dealing with an almond parent, the best thing you can do is reflect on how it’s affected you—and open up a conversation about it, experts say. Spend time thinking about your relationship with food and fitness. Then, if needed, you can set boundaries with your parent using short, direct statements that share how you’re feeling or explain what you’re wanting, Fox says. “You could say something like, ‘I’m noticing my relationship with food is tense, so when you restrict in front of me, it makes me uncomfortable,” she says. “Or, ‘I’m trying something new where I don’t judge food as healthy or unhealthy,’ or, ‘I don’t restrict my eating.’”
That said, it’s not so easy to change a parent’s behavior—especially if it’s been that way your entire life. So, it’s important to continuously check in with yourself, rely on others for support (including a therapist!), and remember that you don’t have to subscribe to your almond parent’s views. “At the end of the day, we can’t control what somebody else does, but we can work on being aware of, ‘how does this affect me? ” Olivardia says.
When Jessi’s parents make comments about her son, she is able to step in and correct them. She explains when comments aren’t helpful and tells her parents the impact words can have. “Raising my son in a healthy environment around our bodies and around nourishing them and taking care of ourselves, it’s really important,” she says.
Treatment for her eating disorder has given her a lot of tools to do so, and it’s also helped her develop some empathy for the way she was brought up, which will ultimately help so that her child won’t have the same experiences. “I have a lot more compassion for my dad because he just didn’t have the language, the understanding, or the knowledge that I have,” she says. “I get to be that cycle breaker and I get to move forward in this life knowing that that is the case.”
Olivia Luppino is an associate editor at Women’s Health. She spends most of her time interviewing expert sources about the latest fitness trends, nutrition tips, and practical advice for living a healthier life. Olivia previously wrote for New York Magazine’s The Cut, PS (formerly POPSUGAR), and Salon, where she also did on-camera interviews with celebrity guests. She recently ran the New York City Marathon.