NEW LESSON: SPRING 2008

Trust your children to listen to their bodies when it comes to eating.  Your responsibility, as a parent, is to provide them with a wide variety of foods.

Parents naturally want their children to eat well and be healthy.  In today’s cultural climate, many parents are also very concerned about their children’s weight.  While it is important for children to meet their nutritional needs and to participate in physical activity, the focus on restricting foods for the purpose of weight control leads to disordered relationships with food. 

Studies demonstrate that children are able to regulate their own eating when provided with a wide variety of healthful foods.  Furthermore, when children are restricted from foods considered to be treats, they will eat them when they are available regardless of whether or not they are hungry.  Conversely, children who are not restricted from these foods will pass them up if they are not physically hungry.  Overall, children who are left to their own devices maintain an attuned relationship with food, while children who are controlled by their parents lose this innate ability.  Allowing your child to stay in charge of his or her eating also prevents the power struggles that can be disruptive to family life.

This does not mean as a parent, that you should stay completely out of the business of feeding your child.  To the contrary, it is important to make sure that your child has numerous choices available.  For example, offering a variety of foods such as fruits, vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, and sweets means that your child can select whatever he or she craves.  If you only offer fast food, you child will only eat fast food.  As is true with adults who are normal eaters, when you are hungry for a cheeseburger and fries, it feels wonderful to be able to make that match, but if you crave stir-fry chicken with vegetables and rice, it is important to be able to get that as well.

Honor your child’s hunger.  At a very young age, when your toddler or pre-schooler reaches for food, reinforce the stomach-hunger connection by saying, “Your stomach must be hungry.” As your child begins to assert desires for a particular food, you might respond by saying, “Oh, your body needs some protein,” or, “How does that feel in your stomach?”  These types of comments support your trust in him or her to listen to their body’s signals.  If you notice your child reaching for food after eating and suspect that he or she isn’t physically hungry, you might ask, “Are you hungry right now or are you feeling bored?”  Children can begin to use food at an early age to manage feelings.  Ask gently, and make sure that you do not berate them about weight.  Comments such as “You’re going to get fat if you eat that cookie” create more anxiety for children and set them up for the cycle of deprivation.  Help them to maintain a normal relationship with food by keeping foods available and by teaching and modeling the principle of attuned eating.

Meal times are an important aspect of family life.  With today’s busy schedules, it is impossible for most families to offer a home cooked meal every day.  At the same time, the structure of family meals provides consistency and security for children.  Knowing that food will be available at a certain time on most days is reassuring and caretaking to children, and offers the opportunity to connect as a family.  You will increase the potential for positive interactions by following a few guidelines

First, respect your child’s hunger.  Some children are very hungry after a day at school and require a snack that seems more like a meal.  Telling them to wait for dinner to eat leads to consequences such as irritability, an inability to concentrate on homework, and fights.  If they are less hungry at dinnertime, then they will just eat less; let them stay at the table with you and participate in conversation.  If you have a very young child who becomes antsy at the table, let him or her leave, and you’ll both be happier.  Over time, your child will appreciate the meal time structure and is likely to adjust eating patterns so that hunger occurs at that time.  Even though it may be that some nights are just too hectic to all sit down together, or that your spouse gets home too late to participate in the family meal, having that structure allows children to feel safe and secure that they will be fed.

Make sure that there are options at the table likely to appeal to your child.  We all have different tastes.  Being told you must eat something you don’t like is a negative experience.  Instead, offer your child foods that he or she enjoys.  This does not mean that you must become a short order cook!   For example, perhaps you are preparing an evening meal of broiled salmon, potatoes and broccoli.  This meets the hunger needs of yourself, your spouse and one of your children.  However, your other two children just don’t like fish.  On the one hand, you cannot possibly operate as a restaurant in which each family member gets to order a completely different dish at whim.  At the same time, when someone doesn’t like a particular food, it is not a rejection of you or meant to make you work harder.  Search for ways to meet everyone’s needs that are flexible and reasonable.  In the above situation, you might also buy a couple of steaks to broil for your two fish-hating, meat-eating children.  Or, you might boil some hot dogs while the fish is cooking.  Making these adaptations allows all family members to participate in an attuned eating experience.

Keep it simple, as you accommodate needs.  Ask your children if there is anything that they need before you sit down to the table.  Once you sit, you are entitled to relax and enjoy your meal. Older children are capable of preparing anything extra that they need.  If your child desires a snack before bedtime, this can be a reasonable request to satisfy hunger.  If, however, you believe that your child is using claims of physical hunger to postpone bedtime, establish a cut off for nighttime eating.

Younger children should be encouraged to try new foods because it can take time to develop a taste for something different.  Make sure that you offer the food in a way that feels supportive, rather than forcing your child to eat that food or starting a battle.  You might say, “I’d like you to try a taste of this, but if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”  If your child still resists, drop the issue for now and try again later.  Some children are naturally selective eaters and tend to choose from a very limited group of foods.  If you are concerned about nutritional requirements, add a multivitamin.  These children generally outgrow their selectiveness and incorporate a wide variety of food over time.  However, this is much more likely to happen if you continue to offer a variety of foods in a gentle and nurturing manner rather allowing the realm of eating to become a battleground.

Finally, make sure that food remains a means of providing nourishment, rather than serving other purposes.  Parents may use food as a punishment by taking away dessert from children who do not do their homework, or as a reward by offering dessert to children who eat everything on their plate.  Food may be misused for psychological purposes such as comfort when children are offered ice cream if they will stop crying.  Eating may also be viewed as an expression of love or rejection such as when you become upset because you baked cupcakes and your child wasn’t hungry for one.  These actions interfere with children’s attunement to themselves and foster the use of food for self-soothing or as a powerful means of self-expression, leading to power struggles.  On the other hand, children who are able to express their autonomy by staying in charge of their eating feel secure in their independence and maintain the ability to eat in an attuned manner. 

Activity: Trusting your children and learning from them too

Here are some examples of attuned eating that we have observed in children:

- A young boy decides not to eat a piece of birthday cake at a party because he is not hungry for something sweet at that time.  Instead, he has a glass of milk, and enjoys the laughter with his friends gathered at the table.

- A little girl who used to enjoy dairy products suddenly begins turning away from milk and yogurt.  At her check-up, it is discovered that she is lactose intolerant.  Her body wisdom and her ability to trust herself dictated her behavior in advance of the diagnosis.

- A pre-teen finds herself hungry for pizza in the morning.  She enjoys a slice of mushroom and pepperoni pizza before school.  Later that night, before going to sleep, she is hungry for a bedtime snack of cereal and milk.

Take a moment to think about your child or children that you know.  Write down some examples where they seemed to know exactly what they needed at a particular time.

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Reflect on whether there is anything you can learn about your own eating by observing this child’s relationship to food.

I do not like broccoli.  And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it.  And I’m the President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.

- President George Bush Senior