parenting irl
Whitney Andrus
BY AMANDA MILLER
F or Whitney Andrus, motherhood isn’t about perfectly curated moments. It’s about paper rainbows, hodgepodge Christmas trees, family adventures, and learn- ing to give yourself—and everyone else—a little more grace.
WHAT DOES LIFE LOOK LIKE FOR YOU WHEN YOU’RE NOT
Occupation: Founder of Whole Heart Health, certified nutrition coach, and certified personal trainer Husband: Ben Hobbies: Creating, traveling, and trying new things
WORKING OR SERVING THE COMMUNITY? WHITNEY: My husband’s a pilot, so he’s gone a lot. The good thing is when he’s home, he gets to be home. Those weeks look very different because we get to do things as a family. We love hanging out in the communi- ty and try to make a point to do family date nights and stuff like that. My oldest is in college now, so that has looked very different, too. I feel like this piece of our family is gone, but she’s just living her best life. One day, we might be like, “Let’s buy a rock tumbler!”We live on a gravel road, so we tum- ble rocks. We just try to think, what are we into? What’s piquing our interest right now? And move into that. But we always make a point to travel and take a trip. And when we take a trip, that’s definitely an off time. Nobody’s working, nobody’s doing anything.
roof over your head or food. It’s about how we do it and how they feel when we do it. Are we honoring humans as humans, or are we diminishing where they are right now? So when I realize I’m doing that with my kid, I try to remember how it felt when I was a child and not do that. HOW DID YOUR PERSONAL JOURNEY SHAPE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT HEALTH AND WELLNESS TODAY? WHITNEY: I was nine years old and compar- ing my body to this girl named Jennifer at the pool. Growing up in the ’90s was wild because there was no concept of, “Oh, food is like the gas you put in a car. You need it.” Food was public enemy number one because my body didn’t look like Jennifer’s. I thought, if I was going to eat, I needed to go to the gym and work out. As I got older and found a love for food, I started thinking, how do I balance that out? And I realized, I’m not alone in this. We all grew up with some kind of similar story of chasing a certain body type or hearing the adults in our lives always talking about being on a diet. That’s what shaped my desire to go into schools and talk with kids. I wanted to be part of changing the way we talk about food and dieting. As I talked to kids, they would say, “That’s great, Miss Whitney, but we can’t
afford it. Eating healthy is expensive.” A lot of the adults I coached told me the same thing. So I thought, “I can build a healthy meal at the Dollar Tree.” And that’s kind of how it started. Instead of just saying, “Here’s food,” it’s “Here’s balanced food, here’s how you can recreate it, and here’s how you can make it work.” All of that still roots back to being nine years old and comparing my body to some- one else’s. I don’t want my girls doing that, and I don’t want other girls doing that. How do we let them know that food is not public enemy number one? It’s not reserved for a certain income level. No matter your income, even if you’re re- ceiving social resources, you can learn how to fuel your body in a preventative, longevity-fo- cused way. It can taste good. It can be dinner with dignity. It can be something that feeds your soul as much as it feeds your body. WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU COULD TELL MOMS WHO ARE STRUGGLING WITH THEIR OWN RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD, THEIR BODIES, OR THE PRESSURE TO “DO IT ALL” PERFECTLY? WHITNEY: From watching my mom, I learned more from how she messed up, fixed it, and picked herself up than I ever did from all the things she did perfectly.
HOW HAS MOTHERHOOD SHAPED THE WAY YOU SEE YOURSELF AND
THE WAY YOU SHOW UP FOR OTHERS? WHITNEY: My oldest is my stepdaughter, so I learned to be a parent quickly. Then I was pregnant and had to deal with my own physical health. My body did not love being pregnant. I think I brought that into how we talk to our kids about health, but also from being a daughter. We’re all just doing the best that we can. Being a daughter and being a mom, you realize it’s about more than just providing a
14 NOVEMBER 2026 | BRPARENTS.COM
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting