preface: i experienced a lot of food restriction, food moralism and food insecurity as a child, and i believe that these factors led to my development of an eating disorder (orthorexia), which i am still recovering from. i am saying all of these things as a parent who wants to innoculate my child against the food moralism that i suffered.
what i do:
i don’t ever force her to eat anything. i will try to persuade her to try something, or to eat more of a thing she knows she likes, but if she still won’t eat the thing, i don’t push it. parenting involves a lot of choosing your battles, and it’s more important to me that she feels respected by me than that she has another bite of a carrot at that particular moment.
we don’t tell her “eat your veggies first” because we don’t want to present eating vegetables as a chore. she likes a lot of vegetables already, and there’s no need to set them apart from other food. we give her a multivitamin to make sure she gets enough vitamins and minerals
we’ve never treated candy or chips or any food as a special reward that she has to earn. if she can have it whenever she wants, then it doesn’t take on any kind of enticing sense of “this is forbidden.” and if she wants to eat an amount of candy that might make her sick, we tell her “i don’t think it’s a good idea to have any more right now because you might get a tummy ache.” and she trusts our judgment.
we will sometimes make small snack trays that have crackers, cheese, raw vegetables and sliced deli meat, and she’ll munch on them. we teach her that she needs to consume carbohydrates, protein and fat to take care of her body, and if she’s been eating exclusively carbs, we remind her that she should eat something with protein and fat, like cheese or peanut butter.
if she doesn’t like a food, we don’t make her eat it. we might ask “do you want to try it again” but we respect her “no.” if she doesn’t like the dinner we made, we’ll let her eat cereal or a sandwich (or something else quick to prepare). because we don’t want her to associate dinner time with conflict. she’s much more willing to try new foods if we don’t pressure her or make it a big deal.
we don’t describe any foods as good or bad for her, because we don’t ever want her to feel guilty for eating. we teach her about the comparative nutritional value of foods without judgment. since we’re not disallowing her from eating any particular foods, she won’t have a drive to eat tons of forbidden “"bad”“ food when she’s older and we’re not present.
While I agree with the sentiments here, some foods are healthier than others, this is undeniable to any reasonable person. Eating a garden salad with no oil, croutons, or cheese, is healthier than a triple bacon cheeseburger or a 750mL soda. As long as the foods aren’t being represented as being equally healthy then, all things considered, this seems like what’s described in this post should work. Good post though, other than what I’ve mentioned
if you are living on the street, a triple bacon cheeseburger with a 750mL soda will keep you alive longer than a pile of lettuce. “healthy” is relative to your life situation.
i want to teach my child that skipping a meal or having insufficient caloric intake is objectively worse for the body than eating fast food. do not teach a child that fast food is worse than starving.
at the height of my eating disorder, i believed that it was healthier for me to skip meals than to eat fast food. i don’t want my child to ever have that belief. i don’t want her to ever think fat and cholesterol, which are necessary in the body, are objectively bad. especially because fat and cholesterol are very important to the growth and brain development of a child, for absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, and for synthesis of various hormones.
we teach our child that any nutrient in the body can be harmful in excess. we do not hyperfocus on fat, cholesterol or salt. especially because we specifically need to make sure that she gets enough.
tldr: do not ever teach a child that skipping a meal or having insufficient caloric intake is healthier than eating a fast food meal. that is the belief that spurred my eating disorder.
Someone who has clearly put a lot of thought into this: describes how they’re deliberately raising their child in a way that doesn’t assign moral value to food, because that’s the way to a healthier relationship with food as an adult
Some jackass who has uncritically swallowed a fuckton of diet culture nonsense and it shows: good job except for the part where you’re not assigning enough moral value to certain foods. Have you considered emphasizing moral virtue for some foods and shame for others?
Today in “Sea Shanties I Have On Repeat”, what dark magic did this man have to perform to get this voice?? This is the voice of Poseidon himself. Damn.
It’s like if a foghorn came to life and had perfect pitch, it would be that guy. What a goddamn delight.
Shkorse. Shark horse. Really friendly, excitable friends who just want to run, swim, and roll in some mud. Thanks to @naimlyarts for letting me use them 🤘
who fucking litters. why do i ever see litter. who thinks that’s okay. who. who NEEDS to throw their fast food bag out the fucking window instead of waiting until they get somewhere with a trashcan. what kinda clown behavior. get fucked.
hmmmmm…. perhaps apathy is boring……. & perhaps passion is cool………. being excited about things is endearing……..having interests makes one more interesting…….perhaps mocking and finding flaw in everything makes one’s world less saturated and enjoyable……..hmmm……..just been thinkin about it….
