All parents want their children to grow up strong and healthy and worry when they don’t eat enough. But in an effort to feed, adults often resort to manipulation and double messaging, which can negatively affect both the child’s relationship with food and his future in general.
Incorrect eating behavior in children is often formed by the parents themselves. How exactly? I asked several acquaintances to write down what they were told at the table as children. Let’s look at how these messages are perceived by the child.
The secret meaning of parental messages
Parents’ love must be earned
- «Spoon for mom, spoon for dad»
- «Let’s eat, mom tried, cooked»
- “Eat, don’t hurt your grandmother, otherwise I won’t love you”
To form a healthy self-esteem, a child needs the love and acceptance of parents in any situation, just like that. But such messages form the belief in him: «I will only be loved if I am a good boy / girl and eat everything, even if I do not want to eat.»
As a result, a person loses the innate feelings of hunger and satiety that are inherent in everyone. And this can provoke weight gain and even eating disorders. A child who has been overeating from birth to please his mother and grandmother simply will not have a normal, adequate attitude to food.
Delicious food is the reward
- «Got a five — well done: here’s a chocolate for you»
- «First soup, then candy»
- «If you behave well, I’ll give you a chocolate bar»
Parents divide products into those that are available just like that, and those that need to be “earned”. In adulthood, such children begin to «reward themselves» for success with food and eventually overeat.
To get what you want, you need to eat
- «Eat the soup — go for a walk»
The child eats soup not because he wants to eat it, but because he wants to walk. He has no way to feel hungry and stop when he feels full. He has to eat because otherwise he will not be allowed to do what he wants.
Delicious sweet food is dangerous
- “The butt will stick together from sweets”
There is a noticeable contradiction: the parents gave the child a sweet that he “deserved”, and then they immediately say that this is a dangerous food! He develops distrust of his parents (at first they praised and gave delicious food, and then it turned out that this food is dangerous), distrust of food (delicious can be dangerous) and generally misunderstanding what food is and why it is needed.
Delicious food is a solace for something unpleasant
- «I’ll buy you ice cream, just don’t cry»
- “Now aunt will make an injection, and then I will buy you a chocolate bar”
A connection is formed in the child: unpleasant emotions can be «jammed» with something sweet, tasty. In adulthood, instead of finding solutions in stressful and unpleasant situations, he will resort to this method.
I don’t feel my hunger
- «You Can’t Be Hungry»
- «Go eat, you’re hungry»
The child is forced to eat not when he feels hungry, but when it is convenient for parents to feed him. In adulthood, such people often overeat because they do not hear the signals of the body, and eat only when more than 5-6 hours have passed since the last meal, when hunger is already strong and uncontrollable.
To grow up, you have to eat. To stay small, you must not eat
- «If you don’t eat, you won’t grow»
- “You leave all the power on the plate”
The child eats through force, because he is afraid to remain small. He may unconsciously change his attitude to «to stay» small, you need not eat «, and begin to refuse food. In adulthood, this can transform into a fear of gaining excess weight and lead to a dangerous eating disorder — anorexia.
How to develop healthy eating behavior in your child
- Review your eating behavior. If you don’t listen to your hunger, if you eat irregularly and unbalanced meals, your children will do the same.
- Tell your children about everything related to food and cooking. You can read books about the human body together, color pictures, and collect puzzles. Tell and think about what this or that product is useful for, how it gives us strength, dexterity, health.
- Go shopping together. Show how to make a shopping list for the week, choose products.
- Cook with the kids. Choose an interesting video recipe on the Internet and decide when you will cook a dish according to it and what products you need for this. Then buy them together and show them how to peel, cut, what seasonings to use.
- Let your child create menus and choose foods. Perhaps at first he will eat only pasta and fried potatoes. But if there is a vegetable plate on the table and the parents put food out of it for themselves, the child will also begin to do this.
- Do not scold and do not forbid. Remember that by doing this you form restrictive eating behavior, and the child will «diet» in the future.
- Healthy and simple food should be available. If he is hungry, he should have the opportunity to make himself a healthy sandwich, pour muesli and pour milk, eat fruit.
- Trust the child. Perhaps he has already eaten or is not yet hungry, and can decide for himself when he will be ready to eat and prepare a simple meal for himself. But there are exceptions: when children are not able to feel hunger signals, they always eat little, they do not gain weight well. The only sure way is to see a psychologist.
Of course, we will not change the past, but by understanding where our eating habits have grown from, we can change them and take care of a healthy future for ourselves and our children.