15/02/2022
Always so many fantastic tips over at Leah | Pediatric Dietitian]
How to talk to kids about food by Leah | Pediatric Dietitian] ⬇️
Want to help your kids learn to have a healthy relationship with food?
I've mentioned in my stories a few times that I don't recommend
using language such as "good/bad" "Junk/Healthy" when describing food around kids.
Whenever I say this someone always asks "how will kids learn to make healthy choices then??"
We have research that indicates labelling foods as "good/bad" doesn't lead to the outcomes of a child always choosing the "good" choice. It may unintentionally put foods that are labeled as "bad" on a pedestal making them more enticing. Then, when kids are exposed to those "bad" foods, they may not have developed the
ability to self-regulate, and may overeat. They may start to develop
feelings of guilt and shame if they are eating a certain food that's labelled "bad." This is recipe for a chaotic relationship with food down the road (1,2).
Plus what is "good" for one person and "bad" for another is relative.
To a little one going through chemo, ice cream may be the only thing that is palatable and nourishing. To someone else with dairy intolerance, ice cream is their worst nightmare.
If just labelling foods "good/bad" worked, as a society we wouldn't
have to worry about disordered eating, selective eating, or unhealthy eating habits.
Everyone would just KNOW what to eat, and eat it. Just so you know, removing "good/bad" labels around food, isn't throwing in the towel, and abandoning their kids' health. It just
neutralises that food, so we can focus on the strategies that actually help kids eat new foods down the road.
One of my first approaches to helping kids learn about food is:
1. Call it by it's name
2. Describe where it came from, how we eat it, what it tastes like,
what it does in the body
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