Contents
Is it possible to change eating habits in adolescence? How to influence the child? About this book phytotherapeutist Laurent Chevalier “Feeding little wolf cubs.” We publish a fragment from it with the comments of a psychologist.
He has switched exclusively to hamburgers and Coca-Cola, avoids family dinners, and reacts irritably to all your attempts to somehow fix the situation. Is it possible to influence the eating habits of a teenager? We found this out from our experts.
No pressure!
It hardly needs to be reminded that the real meaning of food comes from what happens around the plate. Therefore, it is not worth discussing controversial and disturbing issues at this moment: school grades, money spending, wrong acquaintances … Let the meal become a pleasant respite when you relax together, laugh, exchange news.
If the atmosphere at home is already tense, do not put your irritation with you at the table. Use the time you cook or set the table to relax and unwind. Then you can defuse the situation, and it will be easier for you to communicate.
Set the table in style. A beautiful tablecloth, napkins, two candles… So little is needed to turn an ordinary meal into a holiday! Adolescents react very vividly to any manifestation of attention: they feel when they are appreciated, even if they do not say it out loud.
When you cook even the simplest dishes, you tell in this way about your family, about the place where you come from, about your traditions. Each of us has our own recipe for jelly, apple pie or a particularly delicious marinade, which we inherited from our grandmother. Teenagers, like small children, feel more secure when they are surrounded by family rituals, and if at some point they reject them, it is only to feel their loyalty to them even more later.
Avoid confrontation
Do they want to eat with their hands? Well, cook them a hamburger with salad one night. Do they like pies more than vegetables? Don’t force them to eat vegetables at any cost. Constantly fighting with their desires is not the best style of behavior. A teenager can boycott fried zucchini at home, and a week later swallow them with delight at a friend’s house. Your task is to offer everything to him, but at the same time respect his preferences. By accepting what he loves, you accept him for who he is and who is different from you.
Develop their critical thinking
Advertising, beautiful packaging… We have a wide range of research available to show how much influence marketing ploys can have on young consumers. In order to help them distance themselves from the rather aggressive manipulation of sellers and manufacturers, ask them how they perceive all these messages: do they convince them, seduce them, amuse them? .. Read product labels with them and help them decipher the inscriptions on them.
Be ready to listen to them
She refuses breakfast and dinner because she thinks she is too fat, he only eats protein foods because he wants to develop muscles … Analyze their behavior at the table and try to consult a psychologist and nutritionist. Teenagers often place more value on talking to strangers than talking to family members.
Explain to him what the sudden changes in the body and behavior of adolescents are connected with. If he is gaining or losing weight too quickly, discuss it with him, and then offer to consult with a specialist.
Think about range
Parents of young children are well aware of the need for a varied diet in the first years of life. But it is no less necessary for adolescents, who usually prefer to eat the same thing all the time, usually flour: pies, pizza, cakes, buns … Such a “mono-diet” leads to a deficiency of vitamins, trace elements and many nutrients necessary for a growing body. substances.
Why not have a competition: who can come back from the store and surprise the rest of the family with some new product, such as sprouted oats or a new variety of yogurt? However, there is a risk that a teenager, returning from a supermarket, will solemnly hand you a new … pizza – with a very original filling.
Psychologist’s view
“For each of us, “delicious” is something different, individual, part of our picture of food preferences, our personal gastronomic map.
Tasty for us, as a rule, becomes something that is associated with an explosion of good impressions. But in order to accept the good, you need inner openness, emancipation, the ability to listen and hear your body. And this means that food can be liked unexpectedly, unpredictably. It is useless to force a person to love a certain dish. But you can captivate with your sincere passion for it.
Our eating habits are largely shaped by the people we eat with. And more broadly – the environment to which each of us is ready to open up during a joint meal, since eating is an intimate process. That is why, when talking about food, we should not forget about relationships.
What is a family meal? The whole family is assembled, each of its members takes a certain place at the common table, and this arrangement clearly shows the position of everyone in the family.
It is no coincidence that the eldest son sat far from his parents: he is on the verge of leaving the family, an independent adult life. The youngest son is next to his mother, he is still far from autonomy. The middle girl next to dad is his favorite princess. Mom during lunch not only eats herself, but helps the youngest to eat. The head of the family generously allows his daughter to be the host at ease, despite the fact that everything betrays in him a man of strict rules who does not allow people close to his personal space.
The ways of interaction familiar in the family, the menu itself, the design of the dining table – all this is a real ceremony that creates the unique atmosphere of this family, its aura, which will remain in the memory of children and will accompany them all their lives.
Joint cooking and table setting chores, discussion of products and recipes, smells and, finally, joint tasting of cooked dishes and exchange of impressions – all this truly unites the family. If there is no such ritual in family practice, then eating becomes a series of uncontrolled, devoid of positive emotions snacks, which a person may not even remember, asking himself the question: “What did I eat today?” And moments of community, on the contrary, do not just make homemade dishes desirable – they become a real support in crisis moments of life.
About expert
Galiya Nigmetzhanova, child psychologist, lecturer at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov, leading specialist of the Moscow psychological center for family support “Contact”.
Excerpts from a book by Laurent Chevallier, nutritionist and phytotherapeutist, L’Alimentation des p’tits loups, Poche, 2006.