The sheet-pan chicken and roasted broccoli are out of the oven, and white rice is steaming on the stove. Virginia Sole-Smith, who has spent a decade writing about how women think and feel about their bodies — and how they pass along those feelings to their children through food — is about to serve dinner to her daughters, Violet, 10, and Beatrix, 6.

Sole-Smith tries not to be a short-order cook. “Respect the labor,” is how she puts it, reminding her children that if they don’t like what she has prepared, there’s other stuff to eat in the house. A pullout shelf in the pantry holds Tate’s chocolate chip cookies, Goldfish crackers, pea snaps, and chocolate kisses. There are raspberries and grape tomatoes in the fridge.

What…