My
mother bribes my daughter to eat, promising her ice cream and cookies
if she cleans her plate. Now, mealtime has become a battleground.
How do I get her to eat without the bribes? Children
are very quick to pick up on the ground rules in a family. If
their father refuses to eat carrots, you can believe that the
children are also going to turn their noses in the air when they're
served. Look how frightened the broccoli growers became when the
President of the United States said he refused to eat their product!
If Grandma promises dessert when the food is eaten, why eat if
there is no reward?
"Eat! There
are starving children who would love to have that food."
How many of us heard that when we were growing up? It was our
first taste of guilt. Eating became a moral issue. Years ago,
there was a comedian who had a weight problem. He used to say
that his mother told him to eat everything on his plate because
"children were starving in Europe." "So, I ate
everything. And when I grew up, children were still starving,
and I was fat!"
Others of us were
raised with families who lived to eat, for whom not having enough
food on the table was a mark of shame. And as adults, many of
us have eating disorders and poor dietary habits, and are obese.
It's time to break the pattern, and the sooner you break it the
better.
With our daughter,
we've been very careful to teach that food is something we need
to eat if we are going to grow and have energy to play and work.
Meals are sociable times when she is with at least one parent
who sets the example by eating good food in moderate amounts.
If she doesn't feel like eating, she is not pressured. If she
wants to eat more than usual on a particular day, she is not reprimanded
or overly praised. Food is never used as a method of reward or
punishment. Eating and all that goes with it, grocery shopping,
cooking, and cleanup, are treated as happy times instead of unpleasant
chores.
"Eat your
meat so you'll get enough protein to grow big and strong."
That was the common thinking back in the 1940s, '50s and '60s
when we were convinced that consuming meat and dairy products
was the only way to get protein and calcium. In the 1990s, we
now know that eating such high fat foods can lead to heart attacks.
We saw children with the beginnings of heart disease at one and
two years of age. Nineteen-year-olds were having strokes. Men
were dying in their forties from heart attacks. And it's all traceable
to the food we put in our children's mouths.
I urge you to take
a stand. Refuse to let your child be bribed into being overweight
and risking heart disease. You may need to have a talk with Grandma,
but you'll be giving your child a better treat than a piece of
cake after dinner. You'll be giving her the healthy attitudes
about food that will carry her through a long and active lifetime.
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