When The Search For the Perfect Diet Goes Too Far

February 27, 2009

Serving your children good food is the best way to teach them healthy eating habits.

What happens when a parent’s concern for healthy eating goes too far, and her children become overwhelmed by the negative input that they receive from her about the food they eat?

That question was the topic of a February 26, 2009 New York Times article by reporter Abby Ellin entitled, “What’s Eating Our Kids? Fears About ‘Bad’ Foods”. The article interviewed several parents, children, dietitians and mental health care professionals about a growing and troublesome trend in which healthy concerns about foods then become a child’s unhealthy obsession.

The story’s findings are in sync with suggestions that were offered in John Gray’s 1999 best selling book, Children Are from Heaven, in which John cautioned that young children don’t have the ability to filter negative messages. So when a parent obsesses about a particular issue – in this case food – it becomes the child’s obsession as well.

One of the stories reported in the  Times concerned Laura Collins, a writer who lives in Virginia. Collins explained: “We didn’t serve candy, my kids didn’t have soda.” Ms. Collins’s daughter, Olympia, became rigid in her eating. She feared food that might make her unhealthy. Collins recalls that she was always “moralizing about good and bad foods.” By age 14, the Times wrote: “Olympia developed anorexia. To help her recover, the family had to rethink its entire approach to food.

“‘It’s a tragedy that we’ve developed this moralistic, restrictive and unhappy relationship” with eating,” Collins said. “I think it is making kids nutty, it’s sucking the life out of our relationship with food.’”

Parents may also project their concerns by sending messages dire negative consequences: a tool to ensure that the child bends to their will. “This applied in the case of diet, as you can see, can have some very dire consequences,” explains Gray.

Certainly the desire to give guidance about the consumption of good foods is a natural inclination for any concerned parent. “The critical issue,” John suggests, “is the way in which this message is delivered to the child.”

Beyond the scope of the Times story, is the question of what happens to children who resent and rebel against any form of parental control that is too restrictive of what they see as their individual freedom of choice. “Preteens and teens are going to naturally want to exert a degree of freedom over every choice they make from the clothes they wear to the food that they eat,” John explains.

As Gray suggests in Children Are from Heaven, “When children disconnect from their inner willingness to cooperate with their parents’ control, two very significant problems arise: either they act out, or they internalize the inner pain and turmoil of being out of their parents’ control. Boys particularly become unruly, and resistant to authority. The unintended consequences of this overexertion of parental control can be a general and greater loss of parental control.”

A middle ground to a parent’s dietary concerns, John suggests, is to see that your child has a healthy, high nutrient shake every morning. “Unless we act as prison guards or overstep our influence with negative messages, it’s all but inevitable that our children are going to consume certain foods that we prefer they not eat. What we should be hoping to achieve is balance. Knowing that during the day they have had some highly nutritious food and then take the portion of French fries, or the candy bar that they eat when with their friends, in stride.”

Three Tips for Getting Your Kids to Eat Right

Tip #1: Shop Fresh. 

So, you thing they won’t eat fruits and veggies? Think again. Berries burst in your mouth, vegetables are sweet and crisp, when they are fresh-picked. 

Tip #2: Make it look great.

It’s your job to showcase the taste, texture and color in imaginative way. It’s not that hard to do: cookie cutters, and mingling flavors – especially herbs – will go a long way to make great food look and taste great. 

Tip #3: Make them your happy little helpers. If they participate in the process of making their own meals, they will appreciate and enjoy them more. Give them tasks that fit their size: from setting the table to adding ingredients, your little chefs will be proud of the bounty they helped create.

_________________________________________

Other MVL Parenting Articles:

How an Empty Nest Can Improve Your Marriage

Sex Education, Part 1: What Both Parents and Teens Should Know

Sex Education, Part 2: Answering Tough Questions

The Five Essential Messages of Positive Parenting

Parents, Beware of the Feelings Trap

When Your Child Meets a Challenge

To learn more about the power of positive parenting, visit the John Gray library for your own copy of Children Are From Heaven

________________________________________

Posted in Diet & Fitness, Parenting, Personal Growth, Wellness