A Philosophy of Feeding Children
Should parents decide when, what and how much a child must eat?
Every unhappy family may be unhappy in its own way, but every family shares a common unhappiness: the feeding of children.
Why is feeding children such an unpleasant experience? The answer partially lies in the question. Do we ‘feed’ our wives? Or our husbands? Do we ‘feed’ our friends? But we do feed hospital patients, we feed dogs, we feed horses. What is the similarity between dogs horses and patients? They are all at the receiving end of our paternalism: we control them and give them food that we think is good for them. It may be justified in these cases because a dog or a horse cannot feed themselves, and a patient may be too ill or weak to feed themselves. But do children have to be fed?
No better example of parental paternalism exists than the whole food situation. We decide what children should eat, when they should eat it, and how much they should eat. We decide that they must eat an entire banana and we will not give up till every last morsel is in the child’s digestive tract. In many cases bowl manufacturers are deciding how much our children should eat: we will not give up, will not let the child go, and will pester and harass a child till they finish the entire bowl of food.
Nowhere in this process does the child’s preference make an appearance and if and when it does it is always on some coercive condition: ‘You’ll get ice cream if you eat your vegetables’ or ‘finish your fruit and then you can go play’. But we think this is justified because we know what ‘healthy’ is. We have been bombarded with this concept of ‘healthy’ and now we think everyone must eat healthy, be healthy. But funnily everyone has their own ideas of what ‘healthy’ is. Are you the no-carbs, high-protein kind of healthy or are you the vegan, no-processed-food, only-fruits-and-vegetables kind of healthy or are you the no-vegetable-oils, no-fiber, only-meat kind of healthy? Whatever you are, one thing is for sure: you will make your child follow your theories about food because it is for their own good and you are obviously right.
I want to give you a scenario: Imagine that starting tomorrow morning a small but loud dietician is placed on your right shoulder. This mini-dietician will decide what you eat for breakfast and how much. You have to eat exactly at 8:00 a.m. You have to sit in a chair, at the table, till you finish every morsel of the food on your plate. Any resistance will be dealt with by a range of responses from yelling and shouting, to threats of punishment, to emotional blackmail (‘You’re making dietician sad’, ‘You’re making dietician angry’), to continuous cajoling. He will pester and harass you till you eat exactly what, how much and when he tells you to eat. Overnight, he might decide that juice is bad for you, even though you love it, and never give it to you, except on ‘special occasions’ decided by him obviously. This dietician has decided also that sugar is poison and not a grain of it may enter your mouth from now till the end of his contract - which by the way is around 18 years. Except on ‘special occasions’, decided by him of course (the other day you made a beautiful drawing of a butterfly but that occasion wasn’t deemed special enough). Ice cream: The very mention of this horrific cold object makes your small personal dietician’s brain explode in horror. By the way, I forgot to mention that this dietician controls your movement, your money, and all your activities and will decide if you can play with your friends or go sit in a room somewhere for 8 hours a day doing things you have no interest in.
When you try to reason with this person you are told that he knows what’s good for you and that you are loved but some things are non-negotiable whatever and however you are feeling. If on the rare occasion, he decides to allow you some delinquency, he makes sure you know exactly what a big deal it is and what a sacrifice of authority he is making.
Now you tell me: what do you think your relationship with food will be like after even a month of this? And after years of this if he suddenly disappears and tells you that you’re on your own what will you do? Will you remember all his wisdom, eat the things he told are are healthy? Or will you feel a sudden release of pressure, go out with your friends and eat 2 kilos of ice cream? Or if you are lucky enough to have some mental wherewithal preserved, will you decide for yourself what is healthy and unhealthy and come up with your own theories and follow those?
People do what they think is right - this is how they live fulfilled lives. This is true with adults and is true of children. Coercing them into doing the things we think are right is a guaranteed way to get them to not do those things and worse, get them to do things that even they know are bad for them. Instead of coercing why don’t you try showing and explaining and sometimes taking no for an answer? You will be amazed at the results.