Picky Eating in Children

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Do you remember as a child sitting at the dinner table with your family and feeling disappointed as soon as the plate was placed in front of you? Our parents worked hard to feed us (I hope), working, making sure we ate at all. But growing up as a fussy eater and regularly being served the things I couldn't bear was the thing that most baffled me. Kraft dinner was one of those dishes for me.

Eating mac and cheese

My parents did all they could because I was one of the unfortunate children in a low-income household. Seeing food go to waste was an awful outcome, but your parents made it the food knowing you didn't enjoy it.

It was a recurring theme. To the point where I didn't eat anything that night. I couldn't bear the stench, the noise of that squishy gross sound the noodles made with just a little movement, and the taste made me want to vomit. However, they continued to cook it. And it would be discarded the following day. Fortunately, my parents eventually stopped buying KD. There was no reason to when all the kids who liked it had moved out and the one kid who disliked it was too little to move out.

But that didn't stop my parents from cooking dishes they enjoyed but I didn’t like. I was a picky eater, and I couldn't eat things I despised. It wasn't the serotonin surge; it made me physically nauseous to eat anything my taste buds didn't approve of.

Now that I'm older, I wonder what the point is of forcing your child to eat foods they don't like. Obviously, there are some things you need in your body to keep healthy, but boiling broccoli the same way every day won't change how it tastes to someone.

Try a different recipe—and no, vegetables do not belong in brownies or smoothies—stop hiding veggies from your kid (This may erode your child’s trust). Experiment with other recipes for the item they dislike. It could be the way you cook it rather than the food itself.

Family putting away groceries

However, if your child is anything like me, any variant of Kraft dinner makes me want to cry. Talk to your kids about the foods they enjoy eating—of course, they can't have ice cream every day. However, communicating and preparing food that everyone appreciates reduces the likelihood of waste.

When children grow up, they will not buy broccoli and boil it as you did. They will purchase foods they enjoy eating and explore new meals they have not tried before. So, why are you teaching your child to force themselves to eat foods they dislike?

Why not teach them diverse ways to cook things, and explore other options? It is selfish to prepare dishes that we enjoy but that others dislike. We would never do that to a guest, so why would we do it to your own family?

Here is a recipe I loved as a kid even though I had a small palette. Remember, if you do not like anything in the ingredients list, swap it out for something you do. Nothing must be exact.

Spinach Strawberry Walnut Salad 

Ingredients

  • Baby spinach

  • Strawberries

  • Walnuts (or any type of nut)

  • Strawberry salad dressing

No need to worry about measurements, add portions you feel are right.

Directions

  • Add spinach to a large salad bowl and drizzle with the amount of salad dressing you desire.

  • Gently toss to coat.

  • Sprinkle dressed spinach evenly with strawberries, and walnuts.

Cat .M — I've grown so accustomed to my nickname that if you addressed me by my full name, I wouldn't respond. But just for the record, my full name is Catherine. M I'll mostly talk about the world's problems, but I'll only do the bare minimum to fix them. Maybe it's a lack of motivation, but when all you hear is how bad the world is, you grow up not caring. I hope you find a little bit of positivity in my posts!

Diet Culture

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(Trigger Warnings): Eating disorders, unhealthy eating habits, depression, weight gain

Growing up bigger than most people around you teaches you a few lessons. When you are among other people, you learn not to eat too rapidly. When you go out with family or friends, you learn to eat less than others to avoid hearing the same phrase, "You ate too much."

You will always feel as though you are taking up space, and you will be the number one victim of diet culture from an early age. 

Every day, you encounter diet culture. Most of the time, it is done on purpose. As you go through social media, you will find models endorsing waist trainers or "magic" mixes that lead you to lose weight in a month, as well as slimmer bodies. It might not be as evident if you do not have your phone with you. 

In movies, bigger individuals are shown as the most unattractive and loathed, and their whole identity is predicated on the fact that they are not skinny. In the actual world, you could see it on the streets.

There is always an unusually high number of slim people inside establishments that promote the latest lingerie, perfumes, and deodorants. If you do not appear this way, there is plainly something wrong with you, and you need to lose weight.  

That is what the world has traditionally considered the "beauty standard." People's dread of gaining weight because they don't want to look "different” increases eating disorders. Serious eating disorder patients also normalize self-starvation to the point that losing weight as a result of being continually unwell is viewed as a positive.

They will also feel that their bodily health is less essential than their body form. Diet culture has taught us that being slim is more essential and attractive. But why is it more appealing? 

Being overweight used to be regarded as a beauty standard since it signified you were well-fed and had money to buy food. If we look at sculptures produced by prehistoric human cultures and travel back in time far enough, we get a completely different sense of what the perfect female form would have looked like.

Because our ancestors lived in food-scarce conditions, persons who could rapidly grow their body bulk may have had an advantage in terms of health and even reproduction. 

What motivates individuals to go on diets? As I grew older, I wondered why my mother continually put herself through these severe diets; having her foods transformed into liquids, and even scarcely eating. The irony is that the diet she scarcely ate was prescribed by a doctor.

She was clearly losing weight, but sadly, all your body does is starve itself. She was informed that after the therapy finished, she would most certainly regain a significant percentage of the weight she had lost. So, when she started gaining weight again, she panicked.

She suffered from extreme depression while adhering to the diet. 

Eliminating foods enhances your desire for them. Because you attempt to restrain yourself, what could have been one slice of cake becomes three. As someone who suffers from a binge eating problem, cutting back on food is what causes you to gain weight.

The body's natural response to extended calorie restriction is known as "starvation mode." This might cause weight reduction to be delayed since it requires your body to burn fewer calories. 

Why do we subject ourselves to this? Why is food so powerful in people's lives? And answering that question is quite tough. I could sit here and write about how terrible diet culture is, but all I'm doing is neglecting those who are truly suffering. Mostly because they are unaware that they are in pain.

Everything boils down to what various individuals think. And when it comes to their own convictions, people may be quite obstinate. They will look for evidence to back up their claims and disregard information that contradicts their beliefs. They've already made their decision. And, while body positivity has improved, the prevalence of eating disorders remains high. There is a good balance between food, but diets don’t show that.

If you're having trouble with your body. I urge obtaining treatment because the situation will only worsen with time. Even if you do lose weight, you will constantly perceive yourself as needing to drop more.

For those struggling:

https://thebalancedpractice.com/

https://www.bulimia.com/topics/eating-disorder-hotline/

https://www.algonquincollege.com/studentsupportservices/mental-health/

Cat .M — I've grown so accustomed to my nickname that if you addressed me by my full name, I wouldn't respond. But just for the record, my full name is Catherine. M I'll mostly talk about the world's problems, but I'll only do the bare minimum to fix them. Maybe it's a lack of motivation, but when all you hear is how bad the world is, you grow up not caring. I hope you find a little bit of positivity in my posts!