Okay, look, as a parent, I can tell you you have to tread a fine line. If you don’t “force feed” your kid (specifically, aren’t allowed to leave the table or eat anything else), they’ll end up eating nothing but chicken nuggets, fries, mac & cheese, and apples. That is not a balanced diet.
However, forcing them to eat absolutely anything and everything is extreme, too. I don’t like everything. I wouldn’t want somebody to force me to eat mushrooms.
So at any given meal, they can choose one and only one thing they don’t like and don’t have to eat. And I do try to avoid giving them things they obviously don’t want to eat (not even going to try putting broccoli on their plate even though it’s delicious).
Plus it’s a sliding scale: if I could get my 3-year-old to eat, and it wasn’t junk food, I was happy. When he turned 5, he had to start expanding his food out a bit (turns out he’s basically vegetarian except chicken nuggets, but he loves cucumber, carrots, salad, oranges, apples, etc because we made him eat them for a bit). Our 11-year-old, hoever, is expected to eat what we eat (minus spicy or overly spiced things, kids’ palates are different), but can make small exceptions. If she’s like “I don’t like any of this,” that doesn’t fly, though.
All that to say “Force feeding kids is so fucked up” is ignoring a lot of necessary nuance.
My philosophy is that a kid won’t go hungry with various options of healthy food in front of then every day if that’s what they’re used to.
They will eat what their bodies need as long as its available to them.
It’s when kids are used to eating lasagne /pizza/ burgers constantly that they becomes less interested in veggies.
I take myself as an example, I’m often not hungry at 8pm, but if you lut lasagne in front of me I’ll eat everything.
If you put chicken & veg in front of me I won’t, but 2h later before bed I’ll eat it all because then I’ve actually become hungry
Okay, look, as a parent, I can tell you you have to tread a fine line. If you don’t “force feed” your kid (specifically, aren’t allowed to leave the table or eat anything else), they’ll end up eating nothing but chicken nuggets, fries, mac & cheese, and apples. That is not a balanced diet.
However, forcing them to eat absolutely anything and everything is extreme, too. I don’t like everything. I wouldn’t want somebody to force me to eat mushrooms.
So at any given meal, they can choose one and only one thing they don’t like and don’t have to eat. And I do try to avoid giving them things they obviously don’t want to eat (not even going to try putting broccoli on their plate even though it’s delicious).
Plus it’s a sliding scale: if I could get my 3-year-old to eat, and it wasn’t junk food, I was happy. When he turned 5, he had to start expanding his food out a bit (turns out he’s basically vegetarian except chicken nuggets, but he loves cucumber, carrots, salad, oranges, apples, etc because we made him eat them for a bit). Our 11-year-old, hoever, is expected to eat what we eat (minus spicy or overly spiced things, kids’ palates are different), but can make small exceptions. If she’s like “I don’t like any of this,” that doesn’t fly, though.
All that to say “Force feeding kids is so fucked up” is ignoring a lot of necessary nuance.
My philosophy is that a kid won’t go hungry with various options of healthy food in front of then every day if that’s what they’re used to.
They will eat what their bodies need as long as its available to them.
It’s when kids are used to eating lasagne /pizza/ burgers constantly that they becomes less interested in veggies.
I take myself as an example, I’m often not hungry at 8pm, but if you lut lasagne in front of me I’ll eat everything. If you put chicken & veg in front of me I won’t, but 2h later before bed I’ll eat it all because then I’ve actually become hungry