Week 2: What to Avoid

Eat Happy Project (2016). Healthy Eating: An introduction for children aged 5-11. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMHVEFWNLMc 

For week 2 of my Genius Hour, I wanted to focus my research more on what not to do when trying to develop children’s healthy eating habits. My initial Google search, then, was things to avoid when teaching children how to eat healthily. I wanted to understand why some people may grow up eating unhealthily, and how a negative relationship with food may have occurred for certain adolescence and adults. My main end goal was to gain a better understanding of how to prevent such negative food encounters for children.

There seems to be a lot of consensus throughout the literature on what to avoid when teaching children to eat healthily. One of the most important points that I advocate it to not, no matter the circumstances, restrict the amount of food that a child is eating. Children need a certain number of calories and nutrients each day to grow and learn (Family Doctor, 2018). Another obvious finding is that children should be taught to limit the amount of sweets that they are eating by explaining to them that too much excess sugar can harm their body. For young kids, you can claim that too many sweets will make them feel “yucky” (Booth, 2005). This is great advice since it allows parents to be honest with their children, since sugar overdose will, in fact, lead to an energy crash and can make you feel unwell. Offering foods high in natural sugar, like fresh fruit, is also a good way to keep cravings in check.

Another habit to be cautious of is focusing on specific foods. Emphasizing proper nutrition in one’s overall diet is a much more positive way to look at food and helps prevent children from developing negative relationships with certain foods. In other words, if a person is told to avoid cookies, for instance, studies show that this will likely only make them want cookies more (Carr, 2020). This leads to my next point: do not explicitly prohibit your child from enjoying certain foods, as this is a sure-fire way to cause food cravings in the future (familydoctor.org, 2018). It has been suggested that food restriction and dieting can contribute to a higher risk of binge eating later in life (Fraga, 2020).

Another major understanding is to avert from putting terms on certain foods. Kids should learn that there is a place in their diet for all foods. “The way we talk about food gives it power” which can increase someone’s desire to eat more of the so-called “bad” foods (Fraga, 2020). Stephanie Booth (2005) recommends labelling foods in ways that don’t suggest they are “good” or “bad”. Instead, she suggests allowing kids to “green light” on foods like whole grains and skim milk, and “slow down” with less nutrient-dense foods like waffles. These foods do not need to be off limits, but children should be encouraged to think about the health benefits of what it is they are eating.

Fraga (2020) also acknowledges the importance of avoiding a power struggle with what your child can – or cannot – eat, and when they can eat it. A good way to tackle this is by reminding them that these “unhealthy treats” will be available the next day, which helps escape the “black-or-white” (all-or-nothing) thinking that often leads to eating disorders later in life (Ramacciotti et al., 2008).

            Lastly, adults should forget the “clean plate rule”, which forces people to finish what is on their plate, even when they are not hungry (Saladee, 2019). There is no reason to pressure children with normal development to eat or not eat (Swanson, 2014). If it seems like a child is approaching fullness, they can be advised that leftovers are okay, and food can be saved for the next meal. Children should also be permitted to eat when they feel like it, since they know a lot more about their own levels of hunger and fullness than adults think they do. A final caution when teaching children how to eat healthily is to never use food as a reward or bribe. This can lead to children growing up thinking that food will always be a “reward”, which can make them feel like they may not “deserve” to eat certain things if they do not “earn it” (Segal, 2019). In contrast, this can also lead to overindulging on such foods when the individual feels that they have “earned it”.

BRIGHT SIDE. (2018) 18 Harmful Foods We Keep Giving to Children. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf5AkskQr1w 

References

Ramacciotti, C. E., Coli, E., Bondi, E., Burgalassi, A., Massimetti, G., & Dell'Osso, L. (2008). Shared psychopathology in obese subjects with and without binge‐eating disorder. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 41(7), 643-649.

Segal, J. (2019). Healthy Food for Kids. Help Guide. Retrieved from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/healthy-food-for-kids.htm

Swanson, W.S (2014). No More “Clean Plate Club”. Healthy Children. Retrieved from https://www.healthychildren.org/English/healthy-living/nutrition/Pages/The-Clean-Plate-Club.aspx

Unknown (2018). Overeating in Children and Teens. Family Doctor. Retrieved from https://familydoctor.org/overeating-in-children-and-teens/