Last nights dinner was very tasty. I made spaghetti squash. I'm finally starting to like it, it just took about a year to grow on me.
I mixed the squash with a few spoonfuls of plain Greek yogurt and topped with mozzarella cheese. For my side, I roasted broccoli and carrots then mixed them with spinach & artichoke hummus. Kind of random, but it was delicious!
You're probably wondering what the title of this post is all about. Well, have you ever watched a toddler or baby eat a meal? They tend to eat slowly, will smile or make a face if they really like the food, and always stop when they're full. Sometimes a baby will refuse to open his mouth for another spoonful if he's full. What happens as they get older? Most of them end up in the clean-plate club, cleaning their room for an extra snack, or eating their broccoli for ten more minutes of tv time. I know I did. I never ate for hunger as a kid. Honestly, I've screwed my hunger signals up so bad that most of the time I can't even tell when I'm full. I found this article with some tips from Cari Corbet-Owen, clinical psychologist and author cum presenter of Mind over Fatter Workshops in Cape Town, South Africa, on how to avoid passing on bad food behaviors to your children.
My favorite tips from the article are:
- Don't use food as a bargaining chip. I like this idea because I don't think children should associate food as a reward for cleaning their room or if they finish their carrots they get extra tv time.
- Be careful about the message you portray about your own body. If you're always on a diet and saying bad things about your body in front of your child, they'll think of food as something they should feel guilty about and start turning a self-critical eye on their own body.
- Don't try to control how much your kid eats. Sure, you might worry that they aren't eating enough, but if you're always making your kid clean his plate, they may end up doing it every time they sit down to eat just out of fear that they won't be able to eat when they're actually hungry.
18 comments:
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm wearing a bit of green but not much. I think my mom would be disappointed. :)
Glad you had a good run. I love the idea of a quick cold bath to relieve your mus-kles. I rarely have the time for a long ice bath.
I agree with the suggestions above for not passing on bad food behaviors. I think another thing I would try to do is to focus on natural, whole foods as the bulk of their diet while allowing for small regular indulgences.
Those tips are so great, because I feel like they appeal to adults too! Another thing my Mom always did was to not deprive us if we wanted to try something. She always made meals with a ton of good, healthy ingredients, and we always tried a bite of everything. But if we were out and we wanted to try some crazy candy snack she would let us have a bite. Most of the time we didn't even like it, but if she hadn't let us try it, we would have craved it like nobody's business! Now if I crave or want to try something I do, then I decide if I like it and move on. No deprivation here!
I forgot to wear green today too!
I definitely think that parents should let their kids stop eating when they are full. I always had to "clean my plate" and trust me that was not a good thing as I got older ;-)
Uh oh...I hope you don't get pinched! :-)
This is something I think more and more about now that my husband and I are inching towards having kids. Great tips!
I'm wearing green! I didn't last year, but this year I did. :) I can't wait to go outside at lunch today either...it's going to be so nice to enjoy the good weather! I'm glad your run went better today.
I don't really have any tips...but I think the ones you listed are really good! I always overloaded my plate as a kid, especially on holidays, and only now do I realize that if I do that it's okay not to finish it (and that I should've taken less to begin with!)
shittt i gotta put on smoe green! thanks for the reminder. & i think that you should never make food seem like the most important thing. I knew a family growing up where food was ALWAYS teh center of discussion and now all the kids are overweight.
What a great point!
you know most of my bad habits come from my childhood. My mother would say she had a bad day and consume a bag of oreos. I just learned that when things go wrong you eat more to make up for it. Im 26 years old and I am an emotional eater.
Obvi...im trying ot change this but its hard. And my goals for my future when children are involved is to have more natural options...i wont even say healthy. My neice and nephew cry for yogurt...not ice cream- i want my kids to cry for brccoli.
Great tips! I never had to clean my whole plate but I got yelled at for not wanting to eat my mom's meals. Then she would let me eat sugary cereal or chicken fingers.
I've always read that we should eat like toddlers. They eat when they are hungry, stop when they are full and make it look so easy in the process.
great post!
Great tips!! A good reminder for all!
You're not wearing green! I am pinching you....
My tip to avoid passing on bad food behaviors also kind of has to do with the reward concept. I read about it in one of my nutrition education texts. When one says "you have to finish your vegetables if you want dessert", that gives a negative connotation to vegetables. However, if you use healthy foods to reinforce good behavior, kids see it more as a reward: "great job putting your toys away! Here are some carrots" so the vegetables take on a positive image in the kid's mind.
toatlly agree with you, about some of the kids comments you made. I think that controllign what your kids eat will turn out not so good on the oposite end of things...you should teach them abotu eating healthy, and of course let them splurge a little...they are growing kids with fast metabolisms, everything in moderation!!
Im glad you are liking speghetti squash!!
I am going to be organizing a blogger meet up mid-end of april!!
Those are great tips! Both for kids and for adults. I have thought a lot this, especially since getting pregnant. I particularly like the tip about not using food as a bargaining chip. I think its things like that that make kids lose that innate ability to regulate their food intake.
I like those ideas for kids. We really have to be careful about the habits we establish in childhood especially the way we show kids we feel about our own bodies.
Do you have a foam roller? That takes away a lot of my soreness :)
I am still not brave enough for the ice bath! The bath itself sounds painful - but if you say so, maybe I'll give it a try after my long run on Sunday.
Interesting thoughts on kids and unhealthy habits. It's amazing to listen to the kids in my class during snack. They often ask about whether snacks are healthy or not, but then you can hear them talking about calories, etc. I don't think I knew a thing about calories when I was 5! They also bring up how their mom's are on diets, etc. If only the parents could understand what they are taking in...
I forgot to wear green today too.
As a kid, I constantly heard my mom talking about her weight and dieting and it definitely impacted my eating habits negatively as I got older.
These are great tips. I really try everyday to eat like a toddler. It's so true that we were born with an inate ability to eat intuitively. We need to bring that ability back! It's hard after years of being surrounded by a society that focuses on food, food, food.
I gotta say, Melissa, that I am surprised you kept eating spaghetti squash until you finally liked it. That doesn't sound like you! You seem to be the type of person that doesn't try to learn to like something, but instead just try something and doesn't eat it again if they don't like it. Why were you so committed to liking spaghetti squash??
@Gina: Haha! You're right! I don't know why I was so determined to like it. If I think about it, it could be because I enjoy making it. It's fun to try to cut that sucker in half and then scraping out the strands after it's cooked. I didn't want to give up the fun that goes into making it. I think I want it to taste more like actual spaghetti and that keeps me from enjoying it as well. Once I stopped doing that I enjoyed it for what it is. You're right, if I want spaghetti, I should just eat spaghetti hahaha!
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