However, the range of foods, the amounts of foods and the ways in which children eat vary enormously. A normal approach to eating for a child is to pay attention to the signals from their bodies and to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full. It is normal for children to eat a balance of foods but not necessarily the same amount or range every day. It is normal for them to eat or not eat because they want to and not because you tell them they “should”.
Our bodies and our minds instinctively know that we need food to survive. We eat because we must live. We eat because we must grow. We eat because we must move. Both the tiniest baby and the most troublesome toddler instinctively know that they must eat simply because they are human.
However, we parents can often misinterpret or misjudge our children’s hunger and so even when they don’t want to eat we encourage, cajole and force them to eat anyway. This is often the root of where eating problems develop.
For most children who refuse to eat, somewhere along the way, their experiences with food have been negative. The messages they have received about food have become confused. Resistance has built up that is as much about the dynamic of their relationship with their parents as it is about the food on their plate.
The reality is that if most children were left completely unhindered and with a range of different foods available to them they will eat – guaranteed. What the children and babies would choose to do is to determine what they eat, how much they eat and when they eat. In other words, like a grazing animal they would eat as hunger came upon them and they would stop eating when they got a message from their stomachs that they were full.
Of course we don’t have the luxury or the time for leaving food constantly ready and prepared in case our children feel hungry. So, over the centuries we have developed the practice of eating at defined times of the day; breakfast, lunch and dinner typically.
While this practice works for parents who need to develop routines and structures for the day, it doesn’t always work for small babies and small children. So, while I think regular family mealtimes are crucial to the happy functioning of families, I do accept that not all children will want to eat during the mealtime. This is why I always say that the focus of the meal should be the conversation and communication that occurs and not the food that gets eaten.
In next month’s article I’ll look in more detail at how children develop those negative associations with food and begin to point to simple changes that parents can make to return mealtimes to an occasion of relaxed enjoyment and away from the battleground that they may currently be.