Key 1: Avoid Rewards and Punishments, Praise and Shame
A collaborative article by Jennifer House of First Step Nutrition and Lisa Kathleen of Full Circle Parenting.
Rather than focusing on WHAT to feed your child, we want to focus on one aspect of HOW to feed your child. Picky eating, emotional eating and eating disorders abound in our culture. How you feed your child will affect their relationship with food – positive or negative, throughout their lives.
As adults, we all have a relationship with food. Ideally, you can enjoy the taste of food and the socialization that comes with eating a meal, and eat until you are satisfied but not overfull. Eating to help yourself feel better when you’re feeling depressed, angry or anxious can lead to weight difficulties or illnesses. Many of these eating behaviours stem from how your parents offered foods to you as a child.
Offering any food as a bribe or reward, or taking it away as a punishment, makes certain foods (often “treat” type foods) extremely desirable. We all know that sugar and salt make foods taste yummy, and that they are not particularly good for us in large quantities. Research shows that when anything (activity, object, food) is offered as a reward for doing (or eating) anything else, the thing that is offered as a reward becomes more desirable, while the thing that must be done to earn the reward becomes less intrinsically interesting. When this dynamic is in place on top of the natural yumminess of sugary or salty foods, a child’s desire for those foods can easily get out of control. In many families, dessert is offered as a reward for finishing a meal. Considering the powerful dynamics at play, it’s no wonder that children these days don’t want to eat their veggies!
Another aspect of this dynamic comes into play when children are rewarded or punished, praised or shamed for eating. In our praise-addicted culture, comments such as “You are such a good eater!” or “Good girl! You ate all your vegetables!” are the norm. When we realize that these comments, when offered by a person the child loves, are felt as a reward, we can see how they end up backfiring. As the intrinsic interest in the rewarded behaviour decreases, the child eats to earn the praise, rather than eating simply for the sake of satisfying hunger.
If you have been using these tools in your family, you may need some help shifting to other ways of relating with your children around food. As a first step, consider joining us for our Makin’ Mama Happy Event, where we will explore the other 9 of the 10 Keys to Inspiring Your Child’s Relationship With Food, and help get you back on the right track with some ways to deeply inspire your child’s relationship with food.
Makin’ Mama Happy Event 2: Inspiring Your Child’s Relationship With Food
Wednesday, June 23rd, 6:30-7:30 pm, Planet Organic North
This is a free event with limited seating, and we expect it to be full. Reserve your spot now to avoid disappointment! Contact Jen or Lisa Kathleen or Planet Organic North 403-288-6700 to register.
