You won’t be forcibly fed: why you can’t force a child to eat through force

Do you know that there is a direct correlation between how the child was fed in childhood and how he will eat in the future in adulthood? What is the overwhelming number of problems with weight (excessive or, conversely, insufficient) in adults occur from infancy? Have you ever wondered if you are feeding your baby correctly? Or do you seriously think that this is simple and understandable, a matter of course, routine? No matter how! The mechanism of the psychological perception of food, which determines the strangeness of eating behavior, is now an extremely relevant topic.

Poor hungry child!

I will begin with the fact that sometimes eating disorders are found precisely ... in parents! Yes exactly. Unhealthy attitude to food and psychological problems in relation to it, when an adult cannot “make friends” with food in any way - this is the real root of evil.

How does this usually happen in life? I will give a simple example:

“Anya lived very modestly in her childhood. Even poor. There was always not enough money in the family, all the more for sweets and children's joys. And now our Anya grows up into an adult woman, she now has a stable, well-fed life, prosperity and peace in the family. But what does she do when she herself has a baby? As if deciding to transfer his own childhood to him, to make up for what was lost, Anya continually feeds the first-born to all that he only asks. And what does not ask - too. Chocolates, donuts with condensed milk, cookies, chips, soda ... An endless list of gastronomic abundance, which she herself could hardly have dreamed of as a child ... "

In fact, hyperprotection is the most typical and frequent deviation in most parents (especially compassionate grandmothers). They literally think that a crowded stomach and health are somehow interconnected. That a well-fed child simply cannot be unhappy.

Think carefully about whether you are making such a mistake. Do not you transfer long-standing problems, experience of negative feelings to your child? The rule of the golden mean is still relevant in our world, and regular overeating is no less harmful than a meager or monotonous diet. And yes: most nutritionists tend to assert that at times overeating is indeed much more harmful than malnutrition. Remember this, if once again you want to force (or typical tricks and bribery) to put the last spoon "for mom" into the child.

Why do not children eat

Let's look at the picture from an objective angle. A hungry person will not refuse food. In addition, any doctor will explain to you that the biological rhythms in our body are arranged in their own way, and if your child had a particularly good appetite yesterday, then today it can be normal. Or even bad.

Our body regulates needs. This helps not to gain excess weight, to get exactly as many calories with food as necessary to actively move and feel good. Direct evidence of this is a sick child. He lies in bed, does not feel well, his body simply does not need to demand large amount of food. Even a pediatrician from the district clinic will ask you not to pester the child with attempts to feed (meaning overfeeding), but to leave alone.

Another example - a thin child eats a lot (from the point of view of his parents), but at the same time remains the same thin, stubbornly refusing to round up and delight grandmothers with bulk cheeks. What's the matter? Just watch your baby carefully. How he runs around the apartment all day, how he jumps on the street in the courtyard, dances to the music of cartoons and makes a number of other active movements. Everything that such a child absorbs from food, he processes into energy. And it is right! He does not need to put off unnecessary calories for a rainy day in the layer on the stomach or in the second chin. Such a child is completely healthy. He has no worms (yes, don’t worry), there are no hormonal disorders and God knows what else the worried parents are ready to invent.

In a number of rare cases, it is really worth paying attention to the appetite of your beloved child (and his health in general), for example, if:

• The child suddenly began to eat little or completely refuses food, quickly loses weight;
• The child looks excessively pale, most of the day he is inactive and lethargic;
• He flatly refuses food and treats he previously loved, does not show any interest in food;
• You notice that the child looks exhausted or exhausted.

Thus, I logically bring you to the conclusion that if a child’s appetite suddenly decreases, but he remains habitually cheerful, active and does not complain about anything - just leave him alone! As soon as he is hungry, he will ask you to feed him, otherwise it cannot be.

Food is the body's natural need. Hunger and thirst are the primary instincts of self-preservation. Try to forget to feed the baby. He will notify you of hunger with a loud cry and will not calm down until he is fed. The child knows better when and how much he needs to eat.

From the dummy to the living skeleton

Parental hyper-custody threatens not only obesity for a child. Increasingly, in the practice of psychologists and nutritionists, cases have begun to come across when anorexics and people with severe eating disorders come to them. Where does this come from?

A child fed as a slaughter grows up, goes to school ... There no one finds his plump sides or pink cheeks cute. On the contrary, an overweight child is subjected to universal pressure, they can cruelly scoff at and mock him, he feels like a black sheep day and night among classmates. He develops durable settings: food is overweight, overweight is an unhappy life.

While such a person is in the family circle, it is impossible to break this vicious circle of endless gluttony. But now he is finishing school, growing up, breaking free from parental care ... And he stops eating. He seems to be gaining wings - losing weight in front of his eyes, receiving compliments and positive reviews from his acquaintances and friends, he can no longer stop. And the nightmarish experience of the “hospitable childhood” spurs him even more.

“A twenty year old guy came to me. Rather, he was practically dragged into my office. His weight at that time was about fifty kilograms with an increase of 179 cm. At the first session, it turned out that a thin young man had recently entered a university and went to a neighboring town, and then problems started. He left as a chubby teenager, returned exhausted, exhausted to the bones. Relatives sounded the alarm, first tried to feed him on their own, but the young man refused to categorically absorb at least any food. Here it became known that he had lived all his life with his grandmother and mother. Lonely women made the boy the center of their world, bought sweets for him in kilograms, constantly treated them with pies and cakes. The child was terribly complex about his excess weight. When the hyper-custody of mother and grandmother was left behind, he decided to end this ... "

As you yourself can guess, in this most typical situation, the parents are directly to blame. In this case, mother and grandmother. And the specialist had to work with the whole family. To prevent this situation from happening again, it was important to convey to women the idea that problems with their adored son and grandson arose and developed directly through their fault.

“But why not force him? But he himself will not eat anything all day! ” “Of course it won't.” If he was previously constantly forced to eat, and then suddenly left alone, for some time the child will enjoy the right to eat nothing and defiantly move the plate. But then the self-preservation instinct will prevail over ambition. It is important that at the same time there are no cookies, sweets and other sweets in the public domain. Otherwise, the child will eat only them.

Fear that the child will remain hungry? Believe me, the child is not an enemy to himself; he still has no contact with his body. Eat when hungry.

The golden mean - where is she

Probably a certain category of readers will think that I urge their families not to feed their children, to let their appetite drift, to allow the child to do whatever he pleases. No, it is not.

Food is an important link in the life of any person, and even more so in a child. The diet must be balanced, your child should receive all the nutrients, calories and vitamins with food in order to grow healthy and active. But proper nutrition is not at all synonymous with overeating. On the contrary, an overly tight dinner harms the body, interferes with a full night's sleep, and causes significant damage to the digestive system. You need to be a wise and judicious person in matters relating to the nutrition of a child. To be able to consider the situation with an objective gaze, and not be guided by a blind animal instinct, to fill the children's stomach to the dump, so that it even loses its ability to move.

If your child is choosy and often refuses your dishes - try to treat him to others. Even from such a banal product as potatoes or buckwheat, you can cook a huge number of variations, and from them something, let your child enjoy it. Try it, experiment!

Do not neglect the appearance of the food that you put on the table in front of the child - this is also important! If you show a bit of imagination by decorating a dish and come up with a fascinating story about it, then a rare child will refuse to try it.

In conclusion: do not force your children to scrupulously collect the last crumbs or lick a white plate. Leave the child the right to decide how much he has. In the end, he is a separate human body with its own unique biological rhythm!

We also read: rules of conduct for children at the table. Lessons in Etiquette and Good Manners

What are the complications for the child fraught with "another spoon for mom." The Study of Julia Lumeng

Children should never be forced or persuaded to eat if they do not want to. According to scientists, our persuasion to eat an extra spoon really works, but they don’t bring any benefits to the crumbs.

And obedient children as a result suffer from excess weight.Today, when childhood obesity is stepping confidently on the planet, it is especially important to instill the right eating habits from an early age.

But it’s even more important not to kill the natural instincts in the kid, which suggest which piece is superfluous for the body. And our persuasions to eat a little more just kill these healthy congenital instincts in the child.

Such conclusions were made by scientists from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and led the study by Julia Lumeng. For the experiment, scientists invited 1218 mothers with babies to the laboratory.

Moms and children were filmed while feeding. The experiment was repeated three times with the same families: when the child was 15 months old, 2 years old and 3 years old.

And it turned out that the mothers, who persuaded the baby to eat another spoon, had larger children. This trend was observed regardless of family income.

As the author of the study, Julia Lumeng, noted that the main problem is that babies are too capricious in food, and therefore parents worry that children are malnourished. And so they begin to persuade them to eat a spoon for mom, because a spoon for dad.

But just doing this is not worth it, because during such persistent feeding, the child's natural instincts are dulled, which save them from overeating. Figuratively speaking, a child's ability to pick up signals of satiety is dulled.

Another interesting observation was made by Julia. It turns out that children whose parents worry that the children are malnourished and gain weight too poorly have very normal weight for their height and age. The report on the experiment, scientists published in Reuters Health.

Opinion of specialists of the Russian Research Institute of Food and Nutrition of the Department of Science and Technology

Children cannot be forced to eat through power - This conclusion was reached by specialists of the Russian Research Institute of Food and Nutrition of the Department of Science and Technology. In their opinion, children and adolescents refuse to eat this or that food, due to many factors, both psychological and physiological. For example, babies from one to three years old are very sensitive to the color of their food, taste, texture, temperature, and also to the atmosphere in which they have to eat this food.

Experts at the Research Institute have developed a set of recommendations that can help parents feed their child. This list contains such well-known tips as “always eat with your child”, “mix baby-favorite foods with your loved ones”, or “often change recipes” and “approach creatively to food design”.

1. Never force a child to eat. This will lead to the fact that he will even more actively refuse food.
2. If a child does not like vegetables and fruits, offer them when he is very hungry.
3. Encourage your child in the menu planning process and in cooking. Then the child will definitely want to try what he has prepared.
4. Food is a necessity. Therefore, it should not be used as a reward, or to deprive a child of lunch as a punishment for something.
5. The relaxed and friendly atmosphere at the table increases your appetite.

From the forum

http://www.woman.ru/kids/medley5/thread/4197311/

I don’t have children, I’ll write right away. But my best friend has a son 1.10. Like she was visiting her and accidentally caught feeding. The child didn’t want to eat soup, and my girlfriend made him eat this soup and, in my opinion, didn’t act very well ... At first, songs and books were used, then my friend was visibly nervous and began to raise her voice, hit the table ... The child was already twisted, his whole face was smeared with soup and bread. Then he knitted his hands and began pouring this soup into him! He spat out everything and a girlfriend just roared tossed the plate onto the kitchen table and kicked the child out of the table. Just pushed with the words “Well, go, go hungry.” I do not care". Then I could not stand it and asked why she was doing this, if the child wants to eat, eat, and why force? To which she replied that he was just acting up, showing character, and had been arranging a concert for her at any meal for several days.I’ll bite the food a bit, then spit it out, maybe even refuse food, etc. I don’t understand how it can be so ... After all, you can frighten your child with his behavior and he will never touch the plate himself. Here is the rule she has: if soup is made, then the child must certainly eat it, and it is at that many hours. Or the child may not want soup, but want pasta for example. Why can’t you cook some dishes? Personally, I have left a bad sediment from that day. Is it possible to mock a child like that?

>>> it seems to me that while you don’t have children, it’s easy to reason whether he ate or not, but when you already have one, you’ll worry whether he is hungry, but it affects the stomach that he didn’t eat, etc.))) so here everyone has their own truth, someone shoves food, someone does not. my sister also scolded with her nephew, and I scolded when I lived with them, why he doesn’t eat and is still dead, of course you worry that he didn’t eat and will be even worse))) he’s 11 now and started eating, although he’s still walking, but already male appetite breaks out. I don’t know how I will know with my children, but maybe I’ll start to make me eat too)))

>>> I have two children. But I never faced a similar problem. We had a schedule: breakfast, lunch, dinner. Between them are small fruit snacks. Children always ate normally, apparently had time to get hungry. If someone started to wander: “I don’t want and I won’t”, I never insisted. If you don’t want it, it means that you are hungry, free, go for a walk. But unfortunately, in the families of my friends there were battles for food of the type described by the author. I never could understand how parents bring the feeding process to such a state. Well, I don’t understand. The child does not want to eat - let him go play. Only until the next meal do not give him anything, no cookies, no sweets, or other garbage. He will come running and ask for the same soup.

>>> I had a husband in my childhood (he told) he ate semolina with onions, because he was sick of the smell of semolina, and his mother stood and forced me to. So he ate, choked, cried and ate. Now he is very picky about food. He doesn’t eat milk, boiled cabbage, just can’t stand it, too, the mother made the borscht eat, and he was sick. Here are the consequences. The mother-in-law herself told how he refused, and she put his face on the plate. I decided for myself: I won’t torment my children like that.

>>> What a horror. The mother does not know, it seems that food consumed in a state of extreme stress is worse than no food at all. There will definitely not be any benefit from this soup. It’s better to wait until dinner and offer the hungry child the same dish as for lunch - and then judge whether the child was capricious earlier or really can not eat what is offered.

>>> author, of course, can not be forced so. I don’t understand how a purely physiological process can be initiated and controlled by force ... I was also fed by force in childhood, I still remember how terribly it was and hated all this, how food was associated with crying, with some inevitable violence. Well, as a result, I was completely cold with food until adulthood, as a teenager I couldn’t eat almost anything (in a children's camp I threw off 7 kg per month, because I just stopped eating, because no one forced them there, but she was already thin). Only after 25 years I began to eat some things that I could not stand before (milk, fish, cereals - everything that was stuffed). I always weigh little and little (but it just suits me))). But since childhood, stomach problems - gastritis and all things, gastrointestinal sores very easily develop if food is associated with stress and childhood stress is associated with food.

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