Make your bed. Clean your room. And eat your veggies!
I often hear parents lump kids’ eating in the same category as other chores. But eating food is different — very different. As we discussed in the other post on rewarding kids with food, the way we feed our children imprints their eating for years, even after they leave the nest.
So what are the long-term effects of forcing a child to eat? Let’s take a look…
The Research
After digging into the research I found a study published in the 2002 issue of Appetite surveying over 100 college students. Of these young adults, 70% said they had experienced forced-food consumption during childhood. Most often than not, the forcer was a parent and the common forced foods included vegetables, red meat, and seafood.
The scenario goes something like this: the forcer coerces the forcee to eat the target food for reasons such as health, variety, and waste. The most common tactics used were threats such as no dessert or staying at the table. In over half of these cases there was a stand-off lasting an average of 50 minutes!
What is most interesting is the internal conflict the forcees experienced — 31% experienced strong conflict, 41% moderate conflict, and 29% slight conflict. Forty-nine percent said they cried, 55% experienced nausea, and 20% vomited. Most of the responses to the experience were negative with feelings of anger, fear, disgust, confusion, and humiliation. The forcees also experienced feelings such as lack of control and helplessness.
Will they freely choose “that” food?
When asked if they would now eat the food they were forced to eat in childhood, 72% said they would not. The researcher’s explanation is that when a child finally gives in and eats something he doesn’t want to, he “loses” and the parent “wins.” So later in life, when he can freely choose the food on his own, he chooses to “win.”
Also, forced food consumption that results in gagging, vomiting, and overall disgust can cause food aversions. Pickier kids tend to be more sensitive to different textures so being made to eat something that offends them can make that item displeasing for many years, if not a lifetime.
When asked if the forced consumption changed their overall eating habits as adults, over one-third said yes. Of those who said yes, 73% said it limited their diet and 27% said it made them more open to new foods. While this is only one study, and it does not prove cause and effect, it’s an important food for thought.
The Opposite Effect
After studying the feeding literature over the last few years, it’s clear that many of the feeding strategies parents employ have the opposite effect. Forcing and pressuring causes kids to eat less and dislike certain foods. Restricting children makes them want to eat more.
I think a lot of it comes down to distrust. Parents have trouble believing their children will eventually learn to like a variety of foods on their own. When kids are highly food neophobic (afraid of foods), which peaks between 2 and 6, they can be very adamant about new foods, saying things like “I’ll never eat that!” If a parent doesn’t understand the child’s development, and that this is normal and will lessen with time, they’ll be more likely to fight against it making the stage last longer.
So as you can see, eating is different from other habits such as cleaning and brushing teeth. It involves taste, texture, appetite, temperament, listening, and trust. It’s not about making or tricking a child eat what’s in front of them, but creating the circumstances that will help a child eat well today, and 20 years from now.
So tell me, were you forced to eat food as a kid? How does it affect your eating today?
Got a picky eater? Get the latest research and tips in my book From Picky to Powerful
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http://karenlebillon.com/books/
I think there is more to this that just “not forcing” kids to eat certain foods. You would be shocked at what kids eat here (I am an American living in France). And its not because they like it at first. But, then as they grow they learn to appreciate variety in food. I am sure positive societal pressure plays a role as well, but in my view, you can’t just let your kids only eat what interests them. You can’t let them stay on a “beige” diet just because you are afraid of turning them off from other food. I think you should expect them to eat like adults. I don’t know, I can just tell you, it works here.
I grew up in a blue collar just barely getting by after the house payments and taxes kind of family till i was in middle school. Kids need to be reminded that sometimes you have friends or people you don’t know who are starving and parents who can’t afford to feed their kids. We survived on Aldi and cheap foods, sometimes even junk food. If there was a sale or a coupon that’s what we ate and we were grateful that our father was willing to work 60-100 hours a week just to make sure even though he lived a short miserable life that ended at 53 with a heart attack that we could as a family of 6 plus pets could survive and never missed a single meal. I knew kids who would come over and their first meal in two days when school was out was at our house, so we also never turned away kids from the neighborhood or school. So to see this post or these following posts of complaints about being over fed or forced fed or being made to eat things kids don’t want…. You tell the kid hey I am not asking what you want to eat, there’s no options, you eat when I say you eat, you eat what I cook, there’s not going to be cooking in between meals and snacks must be healthy and only necessary so no random binge eating. OR you end up with what my nephews and nieces look like, sick and spoiled and fat. Undernourished yet sickly and fat. Tired all the time, addicted to soda and sweets. I’ve seen some horror stories, my mom loves to spoil her grand kids with trash, and tells them to over eat garbage or she’s not happy. I’ve seen both sides of the coin with all this. Keep it healthy, have routines and if the kid says no I don’t want to eat that, remind them of the people who go hungry every night and if they can’t understand that concept send them to bed no food at all and show them what being hungry means. What starving means though no, that’s abusive to the kid, but to be hungry opens their perspective on what life is and how harsh it can be. How we should be gracious and thankful.
Agreed 100%.
That’s something most whiners — not just picky eaters, but all whiners — have in common.
They don’t know how to shut up and be thankful for what they have, and yes, I think a reminder of what a crappy life actually looks like would do such people a world of good.
Whining is a highly destructive habit that should never be permitted to become entrenched. It’s hard to think of a (legal) behavior that has more negative ramifications on a child’s future than a habit of whining carried into adulthood.
Yeah, no. The kid being forced to eat something they don’t want doesn’t help starving people at all. Nor does forcing them to go to bed hungry help at all; it’s childish and vindictive. If they choose not to eat, that’s fine, even if you have no other options for them to eat. Just say you have nothing else, and let them either eat it or not, no battling needed. I grew up with a mother who did that crap, and guess what? I didn’t give a crap about starving people elsewhere — I resented them, because she was constantly bringing them up. My thought was she should send the food to them, since she was so concerned about them not having this nasty, slimy okra.
Oddly, I never fought my grandmother about food — she didn’t try to make me eat food I didn’t want, and was smart enough to put smaller portions on my plate, knowing I’d ask for a second helping if I was still hungry when I finished the first. Tabby
I agree with most of what you said, but I believe that if the kid doesn’t want to eat, then let them be. Just warn them that their next meal may not be guaranteed.
I am a kid and my mom thinks i ate a box of cereal in 2 days and she is mad but i thought that she ate it, not me, and i have no idea how i ate it all, what should i do? i dont want to be grounded 4 the rest of my life, but by the way things are looking, i already am
Try getting through a force feed when you’re 5 years old and tied to the chair and your psychopathic Mum shovels the food down you till you choke and throw up. See if you can come out of that without some kind of traumatic and adverse psychologically distressing effect.
Forcing food on children is child abuse. They weren’t asked to be born so if you have them you better treat them with decency and respect.
So sorry FrankâŚjust try to forgive her even though you will never forget. Build your own life and use you values, and self love. We all go thought some traumatic experience in life, some are more severe then other . But we have to build our self up, even if takes a life time, just make sure that you do good for your self and other. I try counseling bc of my insecurity and didnât work. So I decided to learn psychology, spirituality and physiology trough books, articles and YouTube. Has been a wonderful journey, and little by little I am getting wiser and kinder to myself and others. Just find what works for you. Take time to reflect and get to know yourself, find positive ways to channeling your anger. We are the master of our mind! You can do it Frank! God bless! Be well!đđ
Wow! I love your comment! I totally agree with you. I am from Brazil from a working class as well . My father had 2 jobs, and die at 59 with heart attack. We were a family of 6 kids and we never skip a meal. Well fed but not abundance like our days. We eat home make meals, our snacks was fruits, cake and Coca Cola only on the weekends and special days!!! Thanks God! All the kids were lean and healthy. Today I feel sad for the kids the doesnât know any better and some parents either! Cooking home made meals is a struggle they say: âI donât like to cookâ, and good to cheap fast food! I cooks my meals almost everyday. As I age, I am more health conscious, and I try to raise awareness to my nephews and in laws about the importance of food in our health. Too bad that this country does to the job to help society to eat better and be healthier. Force feeding is bad and your advise is just PERFECT!!!!
I want to add, that if food culture in America in general were better, I would say you could trust your kid’s tastes to grow, but its not good, and you can’t really trust that they are going to grow up make good choices on their own. Statistically, they probably won’t.
@Healther — Thanks for your comment. If you read other articles on my blog, you’ll see that I do not recommend feeding kids just what they like. The key is for kids to provide a variety of food and make feeding positive. In some cases, a one taste rule may work for the right child. According to one study, 85% of American use such strategies such as bribing to get kids to eat so I don’t think most are following the Division of Responsibility like I recommend. I think what happens is parents try to get their kids to eat, it doesn’t work so they give up and feed them “kid friendly” food. There isn’t one right answer — I do wish our culture of feeding here was more like France in that everyone seems to be on teh same page (schools, families etc.).
Loved this article!
We are raising our 3 year old to hopefully have a positive relationship with food. It is hard though to let go of the anxiety and control and guilt around food. It takes a LOT of humility to truly trust your child and follow her lead.
The result is amazing though. She doesn’t like a lot of veggies yet, but her favorite foods are watermelon, sardines with lentils, rice and freshly baked bread. And meat.
Sometimes I fret about the food waste, but our city has mandatory composting so the only waste is on our budget which I could manage better. Nowadays too there are so many better products and recipes that one doesn’t need to give up treats. Sugar free ice cream, sugar-free paleo cakes and cookies…. These are my daughter’s treats and I have no issues with her eating these whenever because they’re nutritious.
When I read some of the comments above, it is obvious that the issue in many families is not just limited food but deeper issues of control and power.
‘Sugar-free’ isn’t nutritious due to the fake, processed sugars that are used. ‘No Sugar Added’, however, especially for popsicles made of fruit juice, are pretty good for a treat.
Well, I would like to know what EXACTLY to do when your kid won’t eat any vegetables or fruits. !! All this research sounds fine theoretically, but I can only conclude that you do not parent my child. My child is incredibly strong-willed and incredibly constipated. I’ve done everything I can think of or read of. I do all home cooked meals, I arrange food in interesting colors and patterns. I’ve done popsicles. Smoothies. Zucchini bread. Carrot cake with maple syrup or honey. Brownies made with dates to stimulate digestion. I read, read, read. No matter what I do, she will not drink water or eat a vegetable or fruit, whether raw or uncooked, unless prompted…repeatedly. Basically, forced. I’m super annoyed at all the dieticians and researchers who say “don’t force food” because, in the end, you have to do that if your child will not eat fiber or drink water and has a digestive, health issue. In addition to trying every creative, pleasant strategy I can think of, I’ve also tried restricting certain foods like gluten. My #1 priority is my child’s health, both mental and physical. I will not allow her to hurt herself by only eating the bread off her plate. And I will not allow her to complain whenâheartbreakingâsome children do not have access to food. While that is not directly why my child ought to eat the majority, if not all, of the food on her plate assuming that the portion is appropriately sized, and while I have no desire to promote unhealthy eating beyond the portions she needs, I think it’s absurd to just let kids eat whatever they want off their plate and not understand the value of appreciating what they’ve been given. I just think these online posts about “not forcing a kid to eat” are so ridiculous and unhelpful about what TO DO. I’ve tried all the suggestions. I’ve tried explaining, at her level, the value of vegetables. It’s not an allergy. My kid just prefers bread and has a hard head.
You may want to consider if your little one need help. This post might help https://maryannjacobsen.com/the-nagging-question-every-parent-of-a-picky-eater-asks-part-2/
My son is WAY beyond the typical neophobic stage–he’s 10–but he still refuses to even try any fruits or vegetables. We’re talking none: zero fruits, zero vegetables. It drives me nuts, but I haven’t ever tried to force him. I’m ashamed to admit I did once try to bribe him. I offered him 20 bucks to just try a bite of broccoli. I even said he could spit it out if he didn’t like it and he still refused!
What makes this even more frustrating is that I’m studying to be a holistic health coach because I’m so passionate about nutrition and wellness, and yet I can’t even get my own kid to eat a healthful diet. I have three older children (all of whom are now grown) and this wasn’t an issue with any of them. They all ate a varied, nutritious diet from a very young age, and still do. It’s just this one.
He lives on cereal, sandwiches, meat, crackers, pizza, and mac and cheese. He will eat rice or quinoa as a side. That’s it. And this has been going on for YEARS. His pediatrician told me once not to worry about it, but that was a long time ago.
I’m beginning to despair that he’ll ever grow out of this and clearly my hands-off approach hasn’t been working. If forcing and pressuring (and bribing) doesn’t work either, then what will??
Denise — it sounds like your child may have sensory issues. Has he had an evaluation by a feeding therapist (usually OT or ST)? See this article for more info http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2010/05/picky-eating-part-1-how-to-tell-if-your-picky-eater-needs-help/
Hey, it sounds like your kid could have sensory issues. My little brother has autism, and his diet is extremely limited. He does eat a couple fruits and sometimes takes tiny bites of broccoli, but other than that itâs pizza, spaghetti, Mac n cheese, cereal, and occasionally oatmeal. He has pretty bad sensory issues, so my family will do at home food therapy with him (and sometimes with my little sister and I). Basically, we just gave him look at the food, touch it, smell it, and touch it to his lips. We donât force him to actually eat it or anything, but sometimes weâll tell him to put it on his tongue if weâve been working on that food for a few weeks and heâs been doing well. Itâs how weâve gotten him to try broccoli. Eventually, you could try and work up to having your child take a bite of the food, but that might take a while.
Iâm not an expert, this is just what my family does. Hope it goes well!
I was forced to eat – even through high school. I recall choosing to be grounded over eating something when I was maybe 18 years old. Ironically, last night I forced myself to eat fish, which was a food I used to be forced to eat as a child. I do not like it to this day and I have negative feelings toward it, but only try to eat it now because I am aware of its health benefits.
Thanks for sharing Kim. I’m sorry to hear this still affects you. I used to not like fish either but was never forced ot eat it. Once I moved to New Orleans I caught the seafood bug. Good luck!
I was never forced to eat. I also had a deep tendency towards eating foreign and unusual things as young as 5, and my favorite foods as a young child were liver, eggrolls, Red peppers, polenta, and Italian handmade raviolis. I still live liver of all types. No one had to bribe me on liver. I also was never texture sensitive and still not, and believe if I can be a cultural eater at 5, anyone could.
It’s not really this simple. I am glad you are a varied eater, but even children from the same family have different eating patterns throughout their lives. My two girls are 1.5 years apart and had gone off one type of food, some food or all food altogether, or suddently started eating everything indiscriminantly for months, depending on life changes such as starting nursery, school, holidays, trips abroad, friendship breakups, losing teeth and teething, switching to homeschooling over COVID and even change in swimming lessons timetable! At the moment none of them having any appetite following being ill with COVID and I am not sure how long it will take them to get back to normal, but we are working on it.
I completely agree wit your take on this issue and with the fact that forcing food involves trust issues and power issues that can last so much longer than one bite of broccoli.
Funny enough, as a kid, my mom “required” us to eat a minimum of certain vegetables every night at dinner. Typically it was four green beans or four carrot sticks – vegetables that my sister and I tended to like anyway. But there was a minimum and we had to eat it. I remember it distinctly but I don’t have bad memories or associations with it at all. In fact, I’m a huge vegetable eater today. And I serve all kinds of vegetables to my kids, though they don’t always eat them. I struggle with whether to impose minimums, as I experienced as a kid to try and broaden my kids’ variety but as of now, haven’t gone that route.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the concept of minimums of veggies that are already approved options.
Thanks for putting this out there!
Gillian — you bring up a good point. I wish there was one right way to go about piquing interest in fruits and veggies but different things work for different children. A more stubborn child might rebel against miniumums where another one might not. The fact that you’re a vegetable lover probably has nothing to do with the minimums your mom set and more with your exposure to veggies (or something else entirely). The fact is most children will grow up eating the foods they were exposed to growing up. They may have periods where they get off track, but most will come back to this. So don’t be afraid to try different things to see what works for your children. Remember that children are more sensitive to the bitter taste in many veggies, so may take more time to accept them. We’ll be digging into this in my upcoming series on vegetables!
I was exposed to all kinds of fruits and veggies growing up. But I never like onions, green peppers and okras. I learn to like green peppers and onions at the age of 13. I ate for the first time a hot dog in school . It was made with well cooked sliced onions, green peppers and tomatoes, like a sauce over a hot dog with some MayoâŚabout okra I developed the taste when I was about 9-10 y.o., by seen my grandma growing on our back yard. They look like little buttons when they start to grow, and I loved! When they were ready to be picked, she prepared and I ateâŚend up loving it! Teach kids to be in contact with nature, plant in a pot, tomatoes, basil, etcâŚbring them to the kitchen, cook with than, make it a fun loving time! They will associate food with love and fun time with family! Namaste đ
My parents forced all ten of us kids to eat everything she prepared (at least equal number of bites for each year old we were). We were fed a wide variety of fruits/veggies/ethic foods. We all eat all our food now. There weren’t angry standoffs, she just stayed calm and said once you have your bites you get down you can go. If kids don’t try food when they are young they are missing nutrients they need now during the critical ages of neurodevelopment. I’ve talked to lots of moms who said they wish their mom HAD made them eat veggies because they don’t have a taste for them now. I’m sure a research study based on people’s actual behaviors rather than their perceptions of their habits the results would be different. But http://www.ViviLeDish.com has a great a approach—start young, get creative rather than angry, and get kids involved works. (P.S. I didn’t see the whole research design, but this does not appear a generalizable study or findings based on the audience sample alone so I would be really careful to point that out to readers who might read more into the conclusions than warranted).
Thanks for your comment MamaG. You are right that this study is only one — and there are very few that follow feeding to adulthood (5 total that I have found). There is another study that found half the time, young adults didn’t eat the food they were forced to eat as kids. I don’t know anyone — and Karen Lebillon incuded — that recommends forcing a child to eat. You might ask them to taste it or have a one bite or lick rule, but the research on children shows that pressuring makes kids eat less, not more. In this study, a smaller percent report that being pushed to eat actually helped them. So again, it depends on the child and the appraoch. Obviously a stand off, crying or gagging is not a good thing. A positive approach may work fine for the right child. But regulation of food intake matters too. And if a parent makes a child take a certain amount of bites they may end up being more focused on that, over listening to internal cues. The research I’ve read shows that having healthy food available, being a good role model and having regular meals increase the chances that a child will eat a variety of healthy food and maintain a healthy weight.
So what’s the alternative? Just let the kid eat nothing but cake and crackers for 5 years straight?
There are many resources here for how to feed your child. If they only eat cake and cracker then they may need professional help. The key is to offer a variety of food at meals and snacks without repeating the same food two days in a row.
I wish my mom made me eat vegetables when I was younger becuz I still hate them and have to force them down 30 years later the only vegies I did get made to eat was carrots and corn from my dad and those are the only ones to this day I will eat. Also my bf has his oldest at least take 1 bite of vegetables to see if she likes them and shes 12 now and she eats nothing but cheesy food and junk and complains about her tummy hurting and having trouble pooping I told him have her eat vegies but he said “studies say that leads to eating disorders” well shes having health issues now so that whole making them eating healthy is bad is a bunch of bs to me ya shes super skinny but she hardly eats and again health issues I agree making them eat a tiny portion every night is a good thing because even I’m having health issues from not eating them growing up
Also—check out Karen LeBillion’s book, “French Kids Eat Everything.” I lived in Europe for 3 years and she has nailed it—things don’t have to be the way they are here if we get kids eating their fruits and veggies early. It’s a great book that all Americans struggling with the inner conflict about “should I make my kids eat this” should read.
http://karenlebillon.com/books/
One more thing MamaG. This article reviews the research on feeding styles and is written by my writing partner Jill Castle. http://justtherightbyte.com/2010/10/whats-your-feeding-style/ The research shows the most effective feeding style is an authoritative one (same one discussed in Karen Lebillon’s book) summarized below:
Authoritative, or the âLove with Limitsâ parenting style, promotes independent thinking and self-regulation within the child, but also sets boundaries within which the child is expected to operate. The authoritative feeder determines the details around the meal (what will be served, when it will happen, and where it will be served), but allows the child to decide if they will eat what is prepared, and how much they will eat. Trust and boundaries are the basis of this parent feeding style. Children who have authoritative parents in the home tend to be leaner, good at self-regulating their food consumption, and feel secure with food and eating. The most current research advocates this style of parenting/feeding as an effective childhood obesity prevention approach.
From everything I’ve read on your site, heard from parents, read in research, it essentially it all leads back to this: ANY technique performed by an angry parent will backfire in the end. A CALM, loving parent requiring a set number of bites will not have the same negative lasting implications on a child as who applied that very same technique using anger. In fact, they will likely have a positive association with the experience (as did I-I felt like my parents cared about my health).
I, like my parents before me and most Americans, just cannot financially afford to offer multiple choices of fruits and veggies at every meal or have the time/expertise to cater to each child’s personality. It can be very discouraging to all the advice from well meaning experts who advise people to cater to each child’s personality and/or offer multiple choices etc. because it’s just not realistic to execute financially or logistically for most people. Which is why so many turn away from trying at all — I hear this over and over again from moms.
After living abroad and seeing how powerful the impact of a shared culture is on the french eating habits — I think our grandparents approach had a lot in common with the french/germans (they were immigrants afterall!) PROVIDED we do so in a non-angry/forceful way. We need to find a way to make parents feel supported for trying – and that’s what I’m trying to do with Vivi LeDish. Create an approach moms can use to add some fun into the process and feel supported at the same time-to create a culture for moms trying to turn this generation of kids around.
A majority of parents with young children were raised on processed food-they are starting from scratch—tasting and preparing produce right along with their kids. Whatever experts can do to decrease the intimidation factor will be much appreciated!
So far Vivi LeDish is getting a great response from a growing number of moms- and we’re just going to keep trying. We are just one of many approaches that parents can take – but our approach is to designed to build healthy habits and warm memories that will last a lifetime. 5 minutes/day, 5 ingredients or less (always served with a side of giggle).
The particular study you referenced in the article just hit a chord with me because it’s ungeneralizable conclusions are so strong compared to what you are saying easy to over-interpret compared to the point I think you are trying to get across to the audience. (Which sounds reasonable to me and I completely respect and admire what you are trying to do for your audience). I wasn’t disagreeing with your point, I’m just overly sensitive to how/what research is presented and shared because there is so much potential to misinterpret. I wish research methods was a requirement for all Americans…but that’s a mission another lifetime for me. My mission to get parents and kids in the the kitchen enjoying all the amazing food the world has to offer is all consuming!
In any event, keep up the good fight! Every voice and every bit of energy will help us turn this nutrition related health crisis around!
I was raised on a mix of canned, processed, and fast food. I don’t remember fresh fruits and vegetables in our refrigerator. I do remember 2 liter bottles of cola. I give my mom a pass as she has issues with eating and she was a single mom working three jobs. If I were going to have a home cooked meal, I had better make it. It left such an impression on me, and I currently struggle with weight, that I was determined to raise my children differently. Before I had kids, I had an employee whose children always ate their fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins. I asked her how she did it, and she said she didn’t give them any other choice. They ate healthy food for all meals or they ate nothing. Like earlier posts, I agree this should be handled in a calm matter. If you don’t yell at your kids about it, it won’t be a battle. There is one more thing I’ve always done that seems to work for my kids. I explain why. I actually tell them the health benefits and I’ve also explained the negatives to eating junk food. My 5 and 7 year old girls can tell you about antioxidents, vitamins, protein, benefits of colorful food, organics, etc. They are involved in the cooking/baking/making of our food, too, which always helps. Another VERY important thing in my house… balance. They aren’t restricted to always eat just the good stuff. If they’ve been doing a good job on food, we will share special treats as a family. You need a cookie now and then too, right? đ I am not sure if this would work for all kids….and I don’t pretend that it’s easy, but I thought I’d share my thoughts since it’s such a passion of mine.
Maryann – Great article on such an important topic. Too often I hear of parents using food as rewards, bribes and threats which is the beginning of a very unhealthy relationship with food and rarely does any good.
We don’t keep a lot of treats around the house (more so to keep them out of my hands!) but my kids certainly get their fare share. They have a very healthy diet so I don’t mind letting them have treats.
So, are you proposing that kids should get dessert and all the carbs they want at dinner without eating the healthier options? Many kids choose that because parents don’t guide them in the right direction, then those kids become obese. Shocker. Guidance includes consequences (e.g., don’t eat your veggies, don’t get seconds on mashed potatoes or any dessert). Why should we withhold those consequences? It seems natural to me.
Thanks for your comment Karen. I am not proposing that at all. In fact, I don’t recommend providing dessert every night. If a child is really hungry for dinner, and there is something that they like, they will eat it. I see no reason to make a child eat more than they are hungry for, in order to get dessert. Research shows that kids learn to prefer the dessert over the healthy items when this happens. The research shows that was is most important for children and eating habits is exposure to health foods and role modeling.
Do you have any research showing that kids get obese when parents don’t guide them the way you say? The research I have read show that an authoritative feeding style, one that provides limits with food but allows reasonable choice for kids, is associated with healthier body weights and diets in kids. More controlling or permissive feeding styles are associated with higher weights and poorer diets. This is food for thought as feeding styles need to change with the environment — one that provides food at every turn and huge portions of food. Teaching kids to listen to their internal cues of hunger and satiety is more important than ever before.
My son in law Insists on holding his son in a vicegrip while holding his
mouth open to force. It down. The child eeats extremely meals so why treat him lime a dog and forcing the food despite tears. I will say ht is a
good size totter who eats plenty. Is this necessary by 6’5 daddy showing who is stronger or is this correct behavior. My children are in their mid20-30’s and eat just fi
As a child I wasn’t allowed options, I had to eat what was given to me. There were many foods I wasn’t crazy about and I still ate them. It was a way of life and it was simple. today I eat everything and i will try anything. And I don’t view my childhood eating experiences as negative. I am grateful because one I am healthy and two I appreciate healthy eating. Yes, there are vegetables I don’t like, yet I can eat salads all day and everyday. Now I have a three year old son who didn’t want to eat as an infant and I listened to people and his Pedi, who all said don’t worry he will eat. Well he never wants to eat. What about people who don’t have the money or people who live in poor counties? They don’t have the money or resources to go with what the child wants. The child either eats or starves. I met a mother who son didn’t want to eat as an infant, he would fight her. She said she didn’t give in to his tantrums, she was calm and pushed back. then he pushed back, and she pushed back. Now he is in his teens and eats everything. I think the problem is that we have listened to the research about what the child wants to eat, wear, and when it wants to go to sleep instead of listening to parents who have actual experience. We parents are at the mercy of our children. This is the problem, we have allowed society to tell parents how to do their job. How on earth did we do this before the “experts” came into the picture? The other problem is that grandparents or other other elders are not able to share what works and doesn’t work with new parents. Now we have a nightmare on our hands. We have children who are not disciplined, children who don’t eat healthy, children who are not healthy and children who either drop out of high-school or finish and can’t read, write or do math.
Thanks for you comment Sequoia. If you read more of my site, you will see that I don’t recommend a permissive feeding style as you suggest which means kids get to choose what is for mealtime and when. Instead, I recommend an authoritative feeding style where parents do their job of decide what, when and where children eat but children decide what and how much to eat of what is offered. Research shows that children do best with this approach in terms of nutrition and weight over more controlling or permissive feeding styles. This does not mean a child who grows up having to eat food will turn out bad food wise, but it is more likely they will do well with a more supportive, warm and structured environment.
If you son didn’t eat as an infant (not sure what that means exactly), the key is to find out why. Most children will eat anything from 6 months to 2 years when growth is high and the mind hasn’t developed to the point of rejecting food (unless there’s a problem of course). Around 2 when growth slows way down and the mind grows children are more skeptical of food. This is actually an evolutionary trait helped keeping children from being poisoned. It’s normal for children to become picker but it is not normal for children to eat only a few foods and have major tantrums around eating. That may indicate there is another issue like a food allergy (affecting the GI tract so it’s difficult to tell), sensory issues or oral/motor problems.
Back in the early 1900’s when children were fed in a very prescriptive manner infantile anorexia was quite high — meaning many parents were experiencing children not eating and growing well. Research shows that one potential consequence of forcing a child to eat can result in early fullness and under-regulation of food (overfeeding can also result). A famous study in the 1930s showed that children thrive when they get to decide what and how much to eat between the wholesome food offered. This changed the medical community’s take on feeding young children.
What I do on this site is not tell parents what to do, but help them make the best decisions for them based on the best research available. Thanks for stopping by and good luck with your son.
Here red flags he may need some help
http://www.sosapproach-conferences.com/articles/red-flags
i was force feed red meat which i gagged on every time(except hamburger) i can’t eat the red meat today because every time i think about it i remember the gagging (gross)
Thank you for writing this. The funny bit is, I was never forced to eat as a child. However, as my parents have a bad relationship with food (fried, sugary, salty snacks abound in our house), I developed comfort eating as a habit too. Yet, as i began to understand my own body, I began choosing to eat only to feel satiated and as an energy source for my body. However, recently I began feel very irritable about eating over at a friend’s place where her mother forces me to eat. Since visiting their home is frequent, I cannot even avoid this. yearsI am 26, not 2 years old. And what scares me is how the mother sulks, whines or tells me her children do not eat, but at least i should be eating. While the mother herself eats light, diets and works out, I am forced to eat a lot because I am overweight and probably she assumes that I am feeling hesitant to eat more. I enjoy the food at their home and I keep telling her that. I also have been politely telling her for over 6 months, that I will try a bit of everything offered and help myself to what I want. But I do not like being forced into eating beyond what my capacity to eat is. She quietens down for a while, but eventually gets bossy again when she notices my plate is empty. Her husband and children have given up asking her to leave me alone. I am wondering if this is an Indian thing only, forcing people to eat, or is something the matter with my friend’s mother. Or if I am being bullied. I honestly am reaching the limits of my tolerance and am going to retaliate with unhealthy anger very soon. What can I tell the mother to back off politely?
Sharada,
I’m not sure I have the answer. But I do know in some cultures, like my own Serbian one, not eating heaps of food is taken as you don’t like the food. I think all you can do is tell her that while you love her food, you are listening to your body and don’t like eating past full. Make sure she knows it has nothing to do with her cooking etc. Good luck!
yea you are right…. feeding guests is one of most important cultural thing in india….wen yu eat a little they feel like they havent treated you well or that you arent very comfortable at their place or the food isnt that good….you cant stick to your diet when you are a guest in a indian home…especially with senior people around đ
Why are you tolerating this? Tell her that you are a grown adult, and if she has so little respect for you that she can’t restrain herself from treating you like a toddler, you will no longer visit.
Ridiculous.
I love this! I have such a hard time understanding why people feel the need to force thier kids to eat. Is there a link between our parenting views on food and the obesity rate in the US?
Lindsey — there are a handful of studies (including this one) that show a link between how people are fed and how they eat as adults. This study showed adults remembering more food rules as kids, including clean your plate, were more likely to be obese as adults. http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/01/what-clean-your-plate-looks-like-20-years-later/
But we need a lot more studies! It definitely plays some kind of role but we cannot say that it causes obesity.
I definitely feel Clean Your Plate and obesity are linked. I think that those parents that don’t take the time to appreciate their children as individuals who have genuine taste preferences run the risk of creating anxieties in adults-and yes, eventually, those anxieties (especially if centered on food) can result in eating disorders (of which obesity is one).
It is a parents’ job to help their children learn to navigate the world but I think Clean Your Plate is the equivalent of standing over your child, screaming at them to finish their homework when the real problem is they are struggling with English. You haven’t fixed the problem. You haven’t done anything except demean them. You have not only taken away their power but you also haven’t given them the tools to “do it better next time.” The only thing they have walked away with is the idea that they need to “win” so that you “lose”; the only thing you’ve done is create a power struggle.
Clean Your Plate creates a win-lose dynamic with consequences reaching far beyond just getting your kids to eat their vegetables.
I definitely feel kids should be exposed to a variety of foods (and that they need to be exposed repeatedly) but in all honesty, sometimes there’s just a food you don’t like. I HATE green beans. There is not a form of green bean that I enjoy. I don’t even like green bean casserole and that’s mostly sauce. Nearly every flippin night for my entire childhood there was a green bean option at my family dinner. Yes, I did have incidents where my mom put a small (like maybe 3 total beans) forkful on my plate and sometimes I just ate them and said nope! still don’t like green beans. Or sometimes I ignored them and they were thrown away. No fighting, no crying, no problems. And I greatly appreciate that my parents, although being parents had the responsibility to at least PROVIDE me with the green beans, also had the respect to let ME chose whether or not to eat them. A lot of adults get caught up in the “I’M the parent” mentality and think that being in charge is what they’re supposed to be doing; forgetting that it’s not your job to teach your kids to listen to YOU, it’s your job to teach your children to listen to THEMSELF.
Thanks for your comment. Very well said!
I found this website after getting an ‘aha’ moment. I am 50, my parents went through WW2 and their idea of healthy eating was to buy the cheapest and most disgusting cuts of meat, buy huge cases of cheap (read ripe) fruit which went overripe quickly so all you could smell was rotting plums or apricots, and eating all the food you were given was a sign that you respected your parents. We were forced to eat gristle, fat and gnaw meat bones til all the meat was off them, I used to eat the meat under duress, and chew it until it was white and hard and then go and spit it out in the bathroom.
We had legendary standoffs. My little brother and I were skinny kids. My parents and older siblings were all overweight. Not really obese, just chubby. However, I hated certain foods like fish and meat. I had no trouble eating things like sausages and mash, but hated stews and casseroles which my mother made from the leftover roasts because the cuts of meat she bought were inevitably bad and since she was not a very good cook, and frankly didn’t enjoy cooking, the food was pretty awful.
My ‘aha’ moment came today when I suddenly realised every time I eat, I think of stressful situations and kind of go into my imagination and start stuffing food into my mouth while I am thinking about the painful or difficult situation in my mind. I finally know why that is now. Mealtimes were always stressful for me, my parents always made an issue out of eating everything on my plate and used to get angry and hostile if I didn’t. They took it personally, especially my father, who was a big guy, and used to run around the house looking for pictures of starving kids in third world countries telling me they would eat what I was not. So, now, I was not just a bad person for refusing to eat my mother’s cooking and disrespecting her, but I was a terrible person for not eating something some starving child would like to eat. Frankly I have my doubts whether even they would eat what my mother was serving.
So, the connection between stress, literally having food stuffed in my mouth by my parents and guilt and shame were heavily linked from my early childhood. I now realise that the reason I finally became overweight was because I began to stuff myself every time I felt stressed and upset despite the fact that I always felt sick from overeating. I had learned early to ignore my body signals because my parent’s power and authority as adults was far more important, and frankly, pretty scary.
As a child I would often feel nauseous and vomit after meals. My mother thought this was pretty amusing because I had apparently eaten more than I could handle. Her favourite saying was that my eyes were bigger than my stomach. In fact, they weren’t, I was very good at leaving food on my plate when I had had enough, but got so much abuse from my parents or older siblings because of it that I ended up just stuffing it in my mouth to keep them off my back. You simply coudln’t win in my house.
I was forced to “clean my plate” ever day as a child, eat what was cooked when it was cooked and allowed no more than one snack a day. I am nw thirty years old, 5’10 and 140 lb female, eat very healthy and don’t see any of this as negative in my past. The idea fo letting your kid pick and choose is rdiculous. I know peope that have kids that do this. Th kids are unhealthy, unhygienic, and tend to have tantrums. My own daughter is 5 years old and we have strict food rules. She eats what is cooked, no option, but we start her portions small. She tries everything on her plate, no option. She gets a small treat if she cleans her plate. If she doesn’t clean her plate, no dessert. Thats her choice. She is healthy, active and one of the healthiest kds I know. Of course I think this goes back to breastfeeding as well. I breastfed exclusively for 8 months and in combination with solid food for two years. No formula ever. No baby food ever. Through breastmilk she got a “taste” of all my foods. Bottom line, the parent should decide what the child eats, period. They’re children, they don’t know what they need yet. That’s why it’s called parenting, folks.
Amanda,
Thanks for sharing your story. I do not recommend having the child be in charge of the menu or run the show. But I do, along with major health organizations like the AAP, recommend that once the food is served that children decide how much to eat and whether or not to eat items (called the Satter Division of Responsibility). Sometimes a one-bite rule can work depending on the child’s age, stage and temperament. It’s also important for parents to structure meals at the the table, so no grazing on food or alternative meals.
The research shows that controlling practices such as clean your plate, having children eat more and/or restricting food intake and those that are very lax, have a negative impact on eating habits and weight over time. This does not mean that every child told to clean their plate will grow to be overweight, but it will increase the risk that the child will grow into an adult who eats due to external cues versus internal ones. I have worked with patients getting weight loss surgery and a majority of them had to clean their plates as children. They didn’t understand what full meant and many were thin as children. I discuss the research in this NY Times post http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/saying-goodbye-to-the-clean-plate-club/?_r=0
What I do on this blog is try to help parents make the best feeding decisions based on the latest research. I always ask parents what they are trying to teach their children when it comes to their feeding practices. If you have your child always clean their plate, even when they are full, what are you teaching them? If they always get sweet as a reward, what are you teaching them about the role sweets play in the diet? If you are okay with what your are teaching your daughter, then go for it. I discuss this in more detail here http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/08/the-no-clean-plate-mom-comes-clean/
Doesnât always work that way.
I. never had a tantrum, never screamed, & has never had trouble eating. Ate thinned Cream of Wheat & purĂŠes from 6 mos. to 7, & then I gave her everything from a food mill. By about 1½ I. could eat even little pieces of steak. Ate moderate portions & still does. Had chronic ear-infections at 5â6. Hygiene OK for a 14-yr-old. Has mild asthma & hay fever, & extremely high tendency toward heat exhaustion. Endomorph w/ lg. build, & active, e.g. 2nd-deg. black belt in Taekwondo.
A. was born w/ chorio (i.e. once, b/f solid food, was very ill), has FPIES (intestinal food-allergy), started tantrums & screaming around 9 mos. (b/f possibility of being manipulative), once had seizures (from a fever, not from being a picky eater) it took drs hrs to stop, loves baths, loves to brush her teeth & have them brushed, & is upset by getting just a few drops of food or drink on her clothes.
A. started w/ thinned Cream of Rice at 7 mos. & gagged. Could eat only strained purĂŠes, & soon baby-cereal, but was severely allergic to oats. The dr told us she could eat anything at 12 mos. Gagged on both tiny specks of apple & on purĂŠes w/ lumps. I got her a silicone feeder & filled it w/ berries but she just sucked them out & tore the feeder w/ her teeth. I gave her bits of banana & she smashed them against the roof of her mouth w/ her tongue. I showed her how to chew bits of soft cinnamon-roll but she didnât get it. At 20 mos. she still couldnât eat anything but purĂŠes & baby-cereal, but we got her a vibrating teether & it made her bite. Then she could eat the purĂŠes w/ lumps. At 2 could eat the softest toddler foods, baby puffs, & slivers of soft fruit. At 2½, crackers, toast, & baby ravioli. By 3, cut-up pizza or Âź sandwich w/ thin lunch meat. Besides the oats, sheâs severely allergic to rye toast, & moderately to french fries, Dominoâs pizza, & just a crumb of multigrain bread she accidentally got. Sm. portions generally: even though she has the Boon compartment baby plates some reviews on Amazon say are too sm., & I donât fill them all the way, she usu. doesnât ask for 2nds. Ectomorph w/ sm. build. Dr said, âJust keep having her try things;â dentist said, âItâs a sensory thing. Just keep doing what youâre doing.â A. recently tried egg-salad, & said, âThe texture is too strong.â Fortunately, she tries practically anything. Lately sheâs discovered she loves shrimp, & tried a couple bites each of boiled radish greens & steamed cauliflower. But her eating âwhat is cooked, no optionâ would be a choking hazard & cause life-threatening vomiting & diarrhea.
I. was breastfed until outgrowing it at 2½; A. still hasnât outgrown it. I. was given formula right after birth b/c there wasnât enough milk yet b/c the dr had done a c-section (nurse had given me too many drugs, I. was knocked out & couldnât move); A. was given formula right after she left the NICU (w/ its donor milk) b/c there wasnât enough milk yet b/c the dr had had to do a c-section (15 days overdue, head-circ. was 15âł, so the dia. was 13.3 cm, so of course she couldnât descend). I worked as hard as possible to get them off formula a.s.a.p.: I., a couple wks, A., 3 mos.
As a child psychologist and the mother of a very picky eater (one who vomits just at the smell of foods he struggles with) I think the shared responsibility method is terrific.
The only other point i would make is that as parents we need to work very very hard at presenting food in fun, attractive ways, getting the child involved in cooking/choosing/shopping, allowing time for meals, staying calm, always requiring a “lick/mouse bite” of new foods and being absolutely vigilant about no snacking and no alternative meals. Being persistent and working on food every day and not giving up will eventually get kids earing at least a small range of veggies. I know from experience this is really, really tough but parents MUST persist. I have had 9 year olds come to see me who only eat carbs and I think this is close to neglect. Our brains take 30% of the nutrients we eat and there is no way a child of 9 who doesn’t eat fruit or veggies is learning well or managing life at optimum capacity.
One one hand, there’s my oldest daughter, who won’t even TRY new food and takes forever to add something into her diet (even dessert items!).
Then there’s my youngest, who eats anything you give her.
Everyone (especially my mom and friends) acts like it’s my fault that the oldest one is picky and doesn’t like the texture of certain things, and they go on about how I’m too permissive.
It’s really hard for me not to start trying to force my oldest to eat because the shame and the accusation from outside sources is so huge and it hurts and I hate it.
Honestly? I don’t care if she doesn’t eat new food as long as she’s generally healthy and not having any nutritional deprivation. But I hear that the state is taking kids away from their fat parents if they don’t eat healthily and that scares the shit out of me.
I have 2 autistic sons and they both have terrible eating habits. I fell into the bribing trap, time outs, etc. I had to realize that sometimes, the boys will eat it, if I offer it on their terms and make it fun….
1 thing I do is–LET THEM HELP OUT!! I let the boys cut, cook, mix, create. This shows them that they are helping all of us and we make it all about how “kid” made the broccoli and it tastes great.
2–We implemented the NO THANK YOU bites. They have to take 1 bite and swallow. If after that, they do not like it, they are ok with not eating more. 9 times out of 10, it is a food that they never thought they would like.
3–Preferred foods are given in small doses. We do this so we can have the boys focus on what is on the plate as a whole and not as “I will scarf all of the nuggets and leave no room for corn.”
4–Rainbow plates–We use the rainbow method. Pick foods that are very colourful. Dinner could be multi coloured pepper strips, chicken, beets and apple slices.
5–I also use a magnetic/dry erase board for the boys. The boys have a chance to help with the menu. They mark off what they ate (veggies, meats, fats/sweets, fruits).
6–Salads for lunch count as the whole day worth of veggies and fruits. We also have our “fun” days. On our birthdays, we can eat whatever we want. 1 kid wants pizza all day and the other one would eat ice cream sundaes. Sometimes, you have to give in.
It is all about picking battles. My kids are in the middle on weight and the doctors are impressed with their food battles. I am not saying we haven’t struggled, but this was a better solution for us.
I am not saying that this will work for everyone, but this is what works for us!!
Keep offering for both preferred and “new” foods.
What I hear from most parents of picky eaters is that they are ashamed of how their children eat, because they dont eat foods from a certain food group. First mistake: you are making their eating choices an emotional experience by making it about your feelings. Second mistake: You are focusing on the medical view of eating, by viewing everything as a food group for nutritents, rather than variety of food being an enjoyable experience. Dont worry if they only eat certain foods. Promote meal times as a time of enjoyment of a variety of foods and make it an enjoyable family time. When serving healthy foods, make your best effort to present them in a manor that will be tasty to their pallette the first time served and dont give up on offering them after the first rejection. One day they may just try them. The human palette evolves with age as will their diet.
I’ve seen many people comment that food today is largely unhealthy and you cannot leave it up to the childs discression as to what they eat. My response to that is that you as a parent are responsible for introducing foods to your child. It is you that chose to introduce your child to McDonalds, mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets. It is you who chose to make the trip to eat McDonald’s food a reward for being good. As a parent, you must introduce your children to the smart choices at a young age, because children trust that sustainance provided by their parents is inherantly good. Dont give them the processed chicken nuggets all the time, just because its easy for you. Do a little extra work and make wholesome meals more often. My parents were smart. They did not introduce me to fast food as a child. We rarely, if ever, ate fast food. Rather, they focused on wholesome meals and never forced me to eat anything. I also didnt get special meals. I ate what was on the table with the family. At an early age, I ate few vegetables. Today, there are very few I do not eat. The many vegetables I did not like I found that it was largely because I did not like how my parents prepared them. I still do not eat fast food to this day and rarely find any enjoyment in it. I have a healthy diet and have to think little about making the right choices, because it was engrained in me without being threatening.
I can relate to Denise’s no veggie or fruit issues.
I have 2 sons with many food allergies. The younger son is autistic and eats a select few foods (granny smith apple is the only fruit or vegetable), and the older son has texture issues. We’ve had both to occupational and speech therapy and it has helped only slightly. The older son is now 20. It was up to him to decide when and if he was ready to try new foods. His sensitivities were intense. As a baby, he threw up when introduced to texture in baby food. As a young boy, he would ask to try a new food, but would throw up once he had it in his mouth. We never forced him to eat anything. Of course, he loved French fries and chicken nuggets, crackers and chips, etc. For years he didn’t attempt much, but college life and a girlfriend have convinced him to try once again. We are thrilled it’s his decision, and he’s working slowly on new tastes and textures. He’s as surprised as we are that he can deal with texture at all. He’s tentative and eats small portions, but I’m so glad he loves a few healthy options. So 20 years can mean progress. With his allergies to eggs, dairy, soy, sesame, pork, mustard, and more, he’ll never be able to eat a typical diet, but excited he’s branching out to try healthier options.
My concern is “eat all your food or no dessert, you go to bed, no snack later. Foods that are fixed are spicy, starchy, one pot meals, we have veg. at every meal. Not all the children like the same things. Sometimes they cry. Some are told it is ok and some not. Large portions are given instead of small and they are overwhelmed to start with. You can always get more if you like it. Seldom do they get to help with the meals. I personally consider this abuse. Forcing someone to eat anything is like making someone eat roaches or fish worms and then drinking muddy water. I can eat just about anything, but that is just me and I was never made to eat. Children who eat a lot end up with health problems and over weight.
That’s how I am too
i was force fed as a child. Now I eat 900 calories a day.
i doint do this forum stuff so i doint know it this will work . I am 46 i grew up in state care and foster care so any way while in a foster situation i was in from 12 — 15 i was forced to eat boiled plums bitter very bitter this was desert as they had a plum tree i had to eat them i loaded them with suger to be able to eat them i now have a gardening company and hate plums and all stone fruit they bring back memories bad ones i also explaind to me wife my fellings and last year my foster career arived in oz and joked of my hate for the plums i was discusted in them and it is some what scared me for life it will always remain with me if you doint eat your dinner you woint get desert trust me you would not want your dinner . is it power caring abuse well il leave that to the public whom no not of me also stew som plums and see if you like them doint add suger you will get diabites
My parents ruled my food consumption with an iron fist. First of all, they hung a clock next to my place setting at the table and said I had to be done eating by a certain time- or there would be some sort of highly unsavory punishment. As a very picky eater, this system DID get me to eat the new foods, but also got me to develop disgust for them. (Most notably, any form of beef- except hotdogs) Corned beef, ground beef, tacos, hamburgers, anything like that, to this day, still give me nausea at the taste, smell, and thought. Fish is another one. The texture made me want to vomit as a kid- I did a few times. My father still demands I eat it to this day.
The most annoying was my parents careful control over HOW much I ate. Which leads me to sneak around, getting bread and chocolate and crackers, ice cream, sodas and extra helpings of pasta behind their backs because they controlled it- and still do- so rigidly. It got so bad that earlier this year (I’m a sophmore in high school) I would steal money out of their wallets to buy fifteen dollars worth of candy, sodas, and pizza from my school. Each day.
I’m not diabetic. I’m not terribly overweight. I can perform physical functions well. The eating habits imposed by my parents also led to help me resent them.
Hi Aidan! Thanks for your perspective. Have you talked to your parents about this?
After reading many of these comments, I’m wondering how much of our food aversion has to do with food preparation and not with the foods themselves.
As a child, I hated most veggies. When I was 18, I decided to be a vegetarian and had properly cooked (not mushy!) veggies for the first time. What an eye-opener! I had a similar experience with eggs. Hated them all my life, then had a beautifully poached on on top of a caesar salad a few years ago and now I’m hooked.
Anyone who has spent any time in Europe knows that the food there is better, across the board. There is a respect for quality, freshness and preparation that we, in the US, have traded for convenience. The children of my European friends eat a diet almost identical to the adults in their lives, willingly. I wonder, if American kids were fed better food, if they would be more willing to eat it.
My daughter (12 years old) will eat anything you put in front of her, as long as it’s not spicy. I’m not kidding; roasted bone marrow, frog legs and escargot in France, fisherman’s stew (by choice, last weekend!), sushi, stinky cheese, salad, fruit, veggies… We eat fresh, local and organic whenever possible, I cook most things at home, from scratch, and when we eat out, we choose good restaurants that serve fresh food. She has always been “forced” to try new foods (our rule is at least two bites), but not to eat them if she doesn’t like them. She usually does. What’s not to like when the food is fresh and properly prepared?
Feel very fortunate that your daughter is able to stomach almost anything. And I don’t doubt that European diets are healthier. I disagree that it’s how food is prepared.
Food allergies abound at our house. My autistic son ate many types of healthy homemade foods until he was about 1.5 – 2 years old. That is around the time his autism became apparent. Sensory issues increased with his diet as well as other areas. His issues regarding food include rules of texture and color (for instance only clear liquids – water or Sprite, not juice or Coke) and very repetitive.
My other son(typical but with sensory issues) asked to eat foods but could not handle the textures. Even gagged when introduced to ‘stage 2’ foods as an infant. Now an adult, he made the choice to revisit other foods and has found he can manage many more, but he had to decide on his own. Still some he cannot handle.
So please do not assume it’s as simple as someone being finicky or terrible cooks. I prepare healthy, fresh dishes and dreamt my kids would someday enjoy them. Now my older son eats a few and it’s a joy! I believe the problem is how the brain processes the texture input.
Very Interesting article. Ill add my experiences; as a child I was forced to eat everything on my plate. I didn’t have a wide variety in foods I did like, so mostly everything I ate I hated. My mother would not let me leave the table till my plate was empty. I remember once being scolded severely because she caught me cutting up my broccoli in small pieces and swallowing them with my milk. She took my milk away. This could definitely be a case of she wins I lose. What did it matter how I got in down?
Most of my diet was seafood as it was my dads favorite and he fished and grabbed a lot.
In school, the same rules applied. We raised our hands when we were done and a lunch monitor came by and checked our trays. If it was empty we could go outside and play, if not, we stayed till the bell rang.
As an adult. I despise most vegetables and fruits and absolutely abhor seafood!
I force myself to eat plain salads because I know it’s good for me and I can eat fruit blended up in a smoothie.
Still won’t touch seafood.
I also struggle with leaving food on my plate, it’s extremely hard to throw away food for me.
We have a rule in our house that you have to eat a vegetable (fruits are not a problem here) before dessert. But you don’t have to eat the vegetable I made for dinner. It can be any vegetable serving that we have. My picky child only likes lettuce, carrots, and corn so she will usually pick one of those even if the rest of us have something else. I figure it’s better she eat the same one everyday then nothing at all and there isn’t a battle because she gets to choose. She is also seeing our varied veggies on our plate and hopefully will try them on her own one day.
I don’t know what I did right, because I didn’t do anything in particular when my son was little. I just knew I didn’t want to force him to eat anything he didn’t like because let’s be real, no one is going to force me to eat something I don’t like. I always told him, if you try it and don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, but please just try it. And he would try it and 50% of the time he didn’t like it and the other 50% he did. It was the ones he DID like that kept him trying new stuff. He is now 7 and now, I’m thinking I almost wished he liked plain stuff LOL this kid is expensive to feed as he seems to have a very refined taste. You know, crab, flounder, shrimp, lobster, ribs, fresh asparagus…you find that most expensive thing on a menu or at the grocery store, and that is probably what he wants to eat! All kidding aside, I’m so thankful he will eat so many different things and LOVES veggies and fruit. Although, I am not sure if I just lucked out or did something right. Probably a little of both!
My 1 year has decided to like chunky food. He was such a good eater, it didn’t matter what kind of baby food I gave, then started to such him onto table food and he loved the fresh stuff from the garden, no he’s decided he doesn’t like it any more, so it’s back to mushy baby food. What should I do or is this just a phase or is he just developing an attitude.
I was forced to eat a (BIG) spoonful of veggies at every meal when I was growing up. To this day I will only eat green beans, corn, asparagus and broccoli with cheese. My husband JUST tried to force my 2 y/o to eat fruit for breakfast. He is always trying to force him to eat what he doesn’t want to. I tell him not to force it but he doesn’t listen to me. I was forced and now I don’t eat many things. My husband hates that I won’t eat a lot of things. I point out that I was forced to when I was little and look what happened. I don’t want it to happen to my 2 y/o.
My son is 14 months old. He doesnt like anything. We have tried all the possible food but unfortunately he doesnt eat anything. So we have to give him the diet forcefully. Doctors told us dont give force feeding, he wil automatically ask for food. We have tried this trick also for 2-3 days but he didnt eat anything till evening and while giving the food in evening he was refusing to eat. So please help us out, How can we make him eat unforcefully.
You need to have him evaluated by a feeding therapist ASAP and also check if there’s anything medical going on (reflux, food allergies etc.). Links at the end of this post should help http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/08/the-nagging-question-every-parent-of-a-picky-eater-asks-part-2/
I was forced to drink milk, when I was a child. It always made me feel kind of sick (not from lactose intolerance; it’s a texture thing). To this day, I don’t drink that stuff. It hits my gag reflex. I was also forced into eating canned spinach. Disgusting slimy stuff. I might not think the same, if it hadn’t been forced upon me. But I work my way around that, by eating raw spinach. It’s healthier, anyway. Oh and, don’t ask me to eat green peas. It is never going to happen. Aside from food allergies, that’s it. I was lucky to be a foodie at such a young age. I was more adventurous about what I ate.
Broccoli was another matter. I vehemently disliked it, as a child. But I wasn’t forced to eat it (especially since my mother preferred cauliflower, which I was okay with). I now eat both, happily.
I don’t have a good opinion on this because I wasn’t forced to eat (I was heavily encouraged) now I eat what I want because in my family I can cook or if my parents don’t want me too then I’ll make an instant someyhing or a lettuce and cheese sandwich microwave style.
Honestly the best way (what I might do if I get a kid.) is probably just make it smell, look, and taste good. If your kid doesn’t wanna try mushrooms cause they look weird but they love carrots make a recipe with like 1 or 2 mudhrooms and a bunch of carrots. For me it’s 1 bite and if they’re not in the mood or they hate it when I then they’ll cook whatever they want while I’m in charge (so they don’t stab themselves.
Though my rule would be pick something with vegetables.
Sorry for making this so long, hope this is sensible
I was forced my whole childhood to eat the food that I hated (especially the smell of it) and lot of times it made me feel sick. My parents always told me that if I don’t eat it then I’ll go without food the rest of the day and that is what I did. I remember sitting at the table for 1-2 hours feeling sick while at the same time my parents were saying almost hateful stuff to me usually something about that I’m so picky and that they wish I ate everything like normal children.
Going hungry for so long might sound worse than the 1-2 hours of feeling sick for some of you I guess but for me it was a salvation at the time, when I didn’t have to sit there feeling like I’m gonna vomit and listening to my parents was equally stressing for me.
I was born in country where the foods are mostly very similar and consist of food I talked about earlier. When I ate the food that I liked or at least the food that didn’t make me feel sick, my appetite was huge. Still it affected my life very negatively. I was malnutritioned and because of that and being hungry many times I felt much weaker and I was fatigued easily. There’s much more I could write but I think it’s enough…
I hope that if whoever reads this has kids or will have kids, they don’t do the same mistakes my parents did. Don’t force your children to eat, thanks.
Interesting, but study groups are really just a means to find an educated guess, not an answer. Like another person stated, the lot of us would have to be required to answer honestly to get an accurate result.
Anyway, my experience was being forced to finish huge quantities of food I couldn’t stand or simply couldn’t fit in my little belly. But, even though my mother often yelled at me and force fed me, I never grew up to resent her (for that part at least lol). In fact, when I started trying to eat healthily as an adult, I only understood more why she wanted me to eat better. I now like a lot of the foods I used to hate as a child, so her ways didn’t seem to affect my personal habits. I do end up demanding my kids eat at least part of the healthy food presented to them, because left up to them, they would become sickly and malnourished. I try to have them choose in a positive way first but when they decide to be plain stubborn, I have no choice but to make them eat their veggies. And I’ve prepared things in various ways, it seems to depend on their mood more than their taste buds.
I am very concerned that my son and daughter-in-law force feed my little 2 year old granddaughter. It’s just when she won’t try something, but it’s very upsetting to her and me. At dinner the other night, she didn’t want to eat any whipped cream and it was solved by my son holding her nose and mom putting it in her mouth when she opened it to breathe. To me this is inhumane! I’m worried that it might lead to anorexia, an issue which we have faced with another family member. This mom and toddler are both very strong-willed and at this point mom will always win. But what happens when the 2 year old is 20? I’m a little worried.
Haha this is majorly flawed.. My daughter only chooses what she eats every day and everyone night and they are always things she likes and we STILL have the stand offs sometimes with tears. Most of the time it comes down to kids wanting to keep playing.. playing with their food. Playing at the table.. playing with siblings..
i believe what may have happened was the people questioned were thinking of ONE or two items in particular that they don’t like and thinking of the instances when they argued with their parents, and we’re forced to eat it.. which left an unfavorable memory.. forgetting alllllllllll the other days they probably put their poor parents through the ringer. (I know I did. Until I had my own then it all came back to me.)
*that is she only chooses what i make her out of our healthy selection in the fridge which she does love, but we still will have our stand offs even though she loves the food and she is picking it*
The article leaves out the part about how food companies actually spike foods with sugars/artificial flavors to make them more desirable to children while actual healthy foods that do not contain added sugars, artificial ingredients, etc. Healthy foods with less sugar, less salt, less processing stand the same chance at being enjoyable to kids as a kid roller coast does to an adrenaline junkie that just went skydiving. If your child ate these foods between 2 – 12, their gut micro biology prefers them while their brain lights up the same way a cocaine addicts does to them. The only way to fix it, is to expose them to healthy foods and probiotic/fermented foods.
You can attempt to teach your kids that food from a package should always have the label read, but it falls short in effectiveness overall. Most kids barely can sit to read a kids book when their concern is reading, much less telling them to read something when their only concern is eating. Making meals and telling them that this is the food that was prepared out of love, nourishes their body, and shouldn’t be wasted because people are actually starving is critical in just helping develop respect for their parents, food, and people around them.
As parents, you are responsible for your child’s well-being. I have a blended family. Over summer visitation, they put on 20+ lbs of weight while they have parents with extreme diabetes. When they return and go to play sports, they feel less self-esteem because they don’t want their teammates to see them that way – This week, one broke down crying saying that they didn’t want to make the choice on what foods to eat, they just didn’t want to eat the “junky” food that their other parents eat so when given the choice, they went with the fast food that tastes good. 22 lbs in less than 60 days, lethargy, and depressive mood swings are the result. If they had blood panels done, they’d probably be considered pre-diabetic. This is the result of letting your child make the choices. It’s irresponsible.
This article says eating should be the exception… In a society where unhealthy food is genetically/artificially made to take advantage of people’s taste/biological desires — food has become a social / emotional occurrence rather than survival need — food seems more plentiful than ever, but in actuality more of the world is starving due to population influx — It just seems more important than ever to explain to children why wasting food and developing a taste for less sugary, less salty, less processed food is important for their health.
Giving up your ability to hold yourself accountable for your child’s development whether it’s discipline, hard work, eating well, etc. is pretty much the common theme in today’s society. And then people wonder why everyone is so self-entitled to reward with little effort, more enchanted by social media/YouTube than people around them, and in a world with more people, we do – solve – achieve less than most of the people before us with less technology.
In terms of forcing kids to eat, there’s no forcing anyone to do anything short of force feeding them while holding them down. They always have a choice to get up from the table and not eat the food, but then lose out on less healthy food (dessert). If it makes them gag eating, I immediately ask what doesn’t taste good, and then note it giving them less next time and focusing on other foods to see if they develop a taste for it over time. Usually they do as it’s simply a matter of science. Once your expose your body to tastes, it takes nearly 27 separate tastings before it begins to “acquire taste” of the actual food. Funny how it coincides with time it takes to develop a habit.
In the end, you can have your kids blame you for making them eat healthy or you can have your kids blame you for letting them eat unhealthy. I’d much prefer the former over the latter. You are responsible for your children and what they choose to put into their bodies until they’re adults whether it’s unhealthy food, soda, alcohol, drugs — all poison, the difference is the quantity required to cause adverse effects to the body.
This article could be describing me. I came across it as, at 53, I am having another attempt to get over my aversion to vegetables. I was forced to eat these when I was a child. In fact, I had to sit at the table all afternoon, crying, gagging. Nothing made any difference. If I didn’t eat it for lunch then it was represented at tea time.. If I didn’t eat it then, then it reappeared at breakfast the next day. Needless to say there was nothing else offered. If I was lucky I could eventually give it to the dog. Since being able to make my own choices I have avoided any vegetables or salad. I struggle with my weight, am embarrassed by the number of things I ‘cannot’ eat. I have what amounts to a fear of trying food. Eating new things – particularly vegetables feels like a dreadful punishment. Anyway, wish me luck in my quest to change this.
I am 28 years old & trying to deal with my food adversions as well. Your story could be mine it is so similar to what I went through & am still going through. I also had to sit at the table for hours, sometimes 4+, gagging & crying. This is hard but wish you all the luck as well! Cheers to healthy eating.
Parents who enjoy a large variety of foods tend to have children that enjoy a large variety of foods. I was brought up in the 1970’s by parents who both cooked and encourage a natural curiosity about food. We were never given any choice over food, the meal was dished up and put on the table(in the dining room every evening) I can not ever remember being forced or coerced into eating anything however, if I did not like a particular food I was allowed to leave it but it would appear again on my plate the next time that meal was served. This meant that I gradually got used to the flavour as it rubbed up against my other food. My parents were massively enthusiastic about all foods particularly new and foreign foods, I grew up believing I was truly missing out if I didn’t take part in the culinary adventure. As an adult I can only think of a few foods that I really don’t enjoy, and I have trained myself to like foods that I wasn’t to sure about by eating small bits of them regularly. I am proud to say I have raised 4 children with a love of food and I mean good food not junk. Enthusiasm and example is the key not threats and bribes.
Forcing a child to eat something that makes them gag is cruel.
Oh my, yes it is.
My mother was a “can-opener” for the most part. It was the fifties, and convenience food was new. She hadn’t been taught how to cook meat to be tender, and had no idea that she was supposed to season the cast iron skillet. Meat was gristly, and eggs were a horrible, iron-tasting dried curd.
I always gagged on gristle. What was always curious to me, though, was that I gagged on milk. Well, it turned out that as I really hated eggs, the doctor had told my mother to put a raw egg in my milk, flavored with a bit of chocolate powder. It was all OK until I got near the last swallow, where I would hit the slimy raw egg white, and I would promptly throw up. Whole breakfast wasted and off to school, where often lunch was often a “soup” consisting of stewed, slimy tomatoes and water. Lots of crackers in that to sop up the water. No dinner until five. I had horrible headaches by the time I got home from school, and would go into my room and cry..
My father didn’t help things. As I became a teenager, he turned into the world’s biggest bigot and would have the TV on during dinner. Only he was allowed to speak, and it was constant, horrible political and racial commentary. I’d have to ask to leave the table. Later, my mother would slip a plate of food under my bedroom door. No seconds. And, unlike my two younger brothers, I wasn’t allowed to get snacks from the refrigerator – or anywhere else, for that matter.
I weighed 95 pounds at 5’4″ at the age of 17, when I graduated. I did grow an inch as soon as I left home a month later, at 18. I seemed to have lost the ability to gain weight, and even went through an involuntary period of food malabsorption in my early thirties, and dropped to 87 pounds. The doctor didn’t ever mention it! I finally figured out that it was a reaction to the old-style birth control pills, which were very strong. Even so, it took a year to get up to 100 pounds. I stayed at this weight until my late forties. Now 64, I’m rather plump, at 120, and it drops quickly for no apparent reason, but not below 113 since 2009.
Needless to say, I hate eating around people, even though I thoroughly enjoy all kinds of food. It gets rather lonely sometimes, but I get ill from conditioning, I guess.
These days, I would have been accused of being anorexic, and it wouldn’t be true. My body learned to use every bit of food it could metabolize very quickly.
Wow! I’ve never spoken of this. Thanks for letting g me write a book. I feel better.
While I agree that forcing kids does do more harm than good, I think using college students as the “result” is misleading. I was forced to eat some things as a child (I remember dry roast beef sitting in my mouth for an extended period) and I didn’t eat well in my college years, but I was barely an adult and it’s the first time you get to make real choices. Then you become a real adult and (hopefully) realize that eating McDonald’s or icecream or whatever is not a healthy sustainable way to live and you learn to like more food. If you’re not eating food at 22 because you want to rebel against your parents you have more issues with your relationship with your parents than you do with food. I don’t despise my parents for forcing me to swallow my chewed up roast beef, but I do regret that they didn’t challenge our lame and picky ways by simply offering more variety! Now as an adult, my parents (and inlaws) are more irritatingly picky or unwilling to try new foods than my husband or I, yet they will still lament about what horrible eaters we were as children. You can choose to grow up and expand your horizons or not. I don’t think food battles are the only thing at play, but power struggles and messed up attitudes about food in general.
Erica,
You are right that this study is not the be all end all, and as I write, it does not prove cause and effect. To be honest, there are only a handful of studies that show long-term effects of feeding (looking at how adults eat and their memories about food). But it does give us food for thought about the best way to feed children. You are also right that adults can’t blame their parents about their eating and parenting is one of many different factors in play. I think understanding how eating habits develop help adults make changes and develop a healthier relationship with food. The point of the article is that parents need to think not just about getting kids to eat today, but thinking about what kind of adult eaters they want them to be.
I was forced to eat. There was many a dinner I was forced to sit after everything but my plate was cleaned, and could not leave until my plate was clean. Most of the time, I ended up throwing up (which happened often at restaurants too). Throughout my school years I automatically cleaned my plate no matter how full it was, even if I wasn’t hungry. Always felt nauseous but never threw up. I was a little overweight, but not much. After I moved out, and 15 years after my last forced plate, I find myself enjoying eating only when I’m hungry and only as much as I truly want. There are days I even chose not to eat because I simply don’t feel like it. I have dropped my weight to a healthy 145, vs the 160 I was through school, and wish that it would have been easier to get my parents to know how betrayed I felt that they couldn’t trust me being full when younger. I don’t plan on having children of my own, but all my friends have kids that I’ll be helping to raise. For certain, I will never force them to eat anything. Great article!
I was forced to eat foods when I was younger. My mentally ill mother wasn’t the best of cooks, and what she made often looked and smelled like pig slop or cat barf – of which she would always grin and ‘thoroughly enjoy’ in-front of us. She would always try new ‘recipes’ that were absolutely bonkers, and then not following them correctly, and adding her own maddening ingredients to ‘supplement’ – a recipe like making salmon cooked in lemon juice, only she would add orange juice and fruit punch instead, because we didn’t have lemons on-hand. And the fish would be over/under cooked, things like that… I wouldn’t eat, and we’d have stand-offs that lasted for 3-5 hours, until she got so enraged with my defiant behavior that she would forcibly ram the bone-cold, old, gut-wrenching food down my throat.
I’d often throw up. She’d laugh at this, calling me an ungrateful bastard, telling me that if I don’t eat then I won’t eat. Then holding up on that promise, and not letting me eat for entire days…
She would also force me to drink massive glasses of milk, despite knowing the fact that I was lactose intolerant, and would end up very sick and in an incredible amount of pain as a result.
Once I *was* able & allowed to cook, I took over many of the meals. Obsessively studying cooking technique – following actual recipes and using actual ingredients… She’d rage at me for occasionally running to the store to get something. Telling me I should just replace eggs with corn starch + milk in cakes, or to use foul milk or strawberry yogurt in a soup, things like that… I got so incredibly upset, as when I came back she’d often just inserted herself and added inappropriate, or even rotten & putrid ingredients.
Sometimes I’d run away and leave the house, taking whatever little money I had to buy a cheap little 25-50 cent snack, just to be able to eat something – anything… It was incredibly unhealthy, but I didn’t have much choice between that and going to bed hungry, and not being able to sleep because of it. I was quite malnourished and underweight as a child – other kids would make fun of me for looking anorexic. My height was also badly stunted.
As an adult, however, I did grow to eat a variety of foods – which my mother so proudly takes credit for… of which I soundly disagree. Her behavior towards me regarding food as a child was incredibly harmful, and I’m still dealing with the repercussions of it to this day…
Cooked vegetables still make me vomit, as I instantly recall my mothers cooking and force-feeding when I eat them (raw vegetables, for the most part, I can tolerate). Fish is still difficult for me. Eating foods I haven’t personally prepared is anxiety-provoking… I purposely never clear my plate, nor do I finish drinking the last bits of drink… I don’t even know why. Just to have some sense of control over my food, I guess – being allowed to say ‘no’ to it.
I still get anxiety attacks and nightmares about my mother, food, & eating.
I think this is something that parents need to be educated in. I was a huge toddler, my mother says that I was as big and as heavy as an average 4-year-old when I was only 18 months old. And yet now, at the age of 50, I still get flashbacks to being forced to eat adult-sized meals as a toddler, of trying to chew huge mouthfuls of red meat that my father would force into my mouth until my jaw literally ached and then being forced to gag down half-chewed food. It was totally unnecessary, I was enormous. I learned to overeat just to avoid the abuse and the punishments. And then, when I was a little older, I remember eating until I almost threw up just so I could have some dessert. If I see adults forcing young children to eat it is a major trigger, I have to remove myself from the situation out of fear of doing something I will regret.
I have kids of my own now. They aren’t all that interested in things like candy (lollies) and chocolate, I think precisely because I have never made those foods out to be a treat or a reward. If we are out and they want chocolate, they can have chocolate. Or if we go to a restaurant and they want chocolate cake for dinner I let them – I’m concerned that even saying “just this once” might be enough to set up the wrong sort of associations with junk food. I’ve been pretty lucky, they mostly eat healthy food. At Easter they just end up playing with the chocolate eggs and bunnies instead of eating them.
I was forced to eat foods when I was little and I still am but today I was recently told that I couldn’t eat today . Then, I was at my school lunch and I don’t like any of there food choices or there milk but I have nothing else to eat and my mom says that I should just not eat is that healthy or not ?.
I think its up to you. If that’s the only meal than you might want to try and eat something to fill your belly so your no hungry – especially at school when you’re learning.
Your mom is probably tired of you being picky (guessing here) which is why she said that. Here are things I used to do, when I did not want to eat what was given to me: I would raid the pantry and sneak the food of what I did want to eat. One problem though⌠I would sneak bowls of cereal with milk to my room, not finish it, and then fruit flies would develop because I forgot to bring it back. It was kind of gross. BUT if you sneak things like chips and crackers they donât spoil. Also, raid the coin jar and go to the nearest food\snack\pharmacy\gas station and get some food. Now, you could get in trouble taking the coins (I always got caught) and it does become a lot of work doing this. OR you could just shovel the food in your mouth that comes from the school, and then you wonât have to worry about doing all of that. Plus it will keep your stomach from growling. I used to eat a pastry with my lunch money when I got to high school. They sold those at the high school. Then I would go run track. I turned out OK. I am almost 50 now.
I was also forced as a child so I know how it feels. And to answer your question, no its not healthy to skip meals, but it’s entirely your choice. The only tip I can give you from my experience is sometimes a different cook or a different way of preparing a certain food can make a huge difference to the taste and texture of a certain food that you think you don’t like. So even if you think you don’t like a food that is normally served at home, it may taste very different at school. Dare to taste things, even if you don’t think you will finish them đ
I wouldn’t think it is healthy. The fact that you use a lot of energy to function the brain, when you eat you refill the energy that was reduced by movement and action. I know school meals aren’t great but eating is an important thing in life, especially if you grow thinner or tired. If you find anything you like, why not ask the dinner lady’s to make you a sandwich of your favourite veg/meat. (Better choice if you eat healthy). Mothers should be supportive of your dietary or you might not be motivated to eat at all, which gives you an unhealthy weight loss (Underweight). Have a go at the pack lunch plan, and let me know how its doing?
Only by my grandmothers as small child they wanted fo fatten me up cause I was born long and skinny. Sadly I am not that anymore. I am little over weight but working to loose it. I tended to under eat as never felt hungry and for reasons I don’t follow in part made me gain weight. Some days I do have to make self eat. There are stl texture I can’t stand and certain foods I refuse to eat but that’s not from grandmothers force feeding it is my own body not trusting all the food dyed blue and bad experiences with grape flavored candy which my aunt exasperated me and my little sis warned her not to make me suck the grape sucker especially in car. Barf happened. My mother’s food should have been labeled toxic waste. Loved dad’s cooking though I I couldn’t eat a lot at once. I have had to teach self to go humming bird style eating.I am still working on mouth texture issues. I am weird because I like to smell food once or twice before I consider trying it. And part of reason cautious go try new stuff is food allergies
as a parent I NEVER MADE MY KIDS EAT THINGS THEY DIDNT LIKE!!!!! I was a picky eater as a child & my mother & father never made me eat dairy ( to me cheese milk & even butter to me tasted like something went bad) to date I don’t like cheese milk ( when pregnant I’d add chocolate to it to get calcium for the baby,) but I do use a lil butter now & then dip & chips ,I barely skim edge of chive & onion dip, cottage cheese makes me want to throw up,still ! I haven’t really changed what I like. I think parents are wrong to make their kids eat stuff they don’t like ! I know I still don’t like what I didn’t like as a child & if I had parents that made me sit until I ate something with heavy cheese or drink white milk, I’d sit there all night & go to bed with No desert & early rather than eat what I didn’t like.I feel it’s very wrong. Now my youngest as a baby loved fruit but as she got older she won’t eat any fruit. I think it’s strange but it’s up to her taste buds not mine !!!
This is ridiculous. I was forced to eat all my food when i was younger, things that i feared and things that I KNEW i wouldn’t enjoy. Being put in this position made me experience a lot of foods I wouldnt have on my own. I was a very picky eater when i was little.
Now as an adult, i love trying new foods.
however my husband was given the soft hand approach. if his parents didnt eat it (seafood, veggies) then he wasnt forced to. now as an adult, he has the worst diet ive ever seen. he only eats beef, cheese, some rice, and candy. if I bring any type of veggie or fruit to him he gags. this is what happens when you give kids the option to eat what they want when they are younger. smfh
Hi Yosh. I wonder if your husband had some underlying issues causing him to have such narrow food likes. Now we know so much more about eating problems and kids can get help. He can still get help now if he wants. It’s not normal to eat only a handful of foods. But just so you know, forcing food is never recommended with sensitive eaters!
Also, it sounds like his parents did not eat lots of fruits and vegetables. Studies show kids tend to follow in their parents footsteps when it comes to eating. Maybe this has less to them not making him eat and more with the limited menu he grew up with.
http://summertomato.com/11-proven-ways-to-get-kids-to-eat-more-vegetables
I have used the one bite rule on myself for foods that I had an aversion to, and I can tell you, it does work with time and persistence. Many vegetables can have a slightly bitter aftertaste, which in nature, can be an indication of toxicity. It is a parent’s job to teach their child which foods are ok to eat, despite being slightly bitter. The result of teaching your child to have a diverse diet, is a healthier child, and subsequently, a healthier adult. Sometimes parents must be firm with their children for their own good.
The difference is offering & introducing foods, not forcing them. I never forced my children to eat when they weren’t hungry. My rules were you must join the family at the dinner table and no dessert/junk food snacks (not hungry = not hungry for anything). New foods always were put on their plates & they were encouraged to try them, never forced. My sons eat & love almost everything as adults. I was forced to eat as a child and struggle with a healthy relationship with food.
It is what i think, same my husband, he just like spicy oily food, no greens ! My kid is so picky that i am hating myself FOR FORCING HIM but there is no option!
I was often force-fed as a child and all it resulted in was a fear of food and an eating disorder.
DON’T DO THIS TO YOUR CHILD!
I was expected to finish my food as a child. I did it and have suffered zero I’ll effects from it. I’m not picky at all. I’ll eat anything and everything. I love food so much, I went to culinary school and became a baker. Everyone is different. Just because food aversion exists does not mean every child will develop one after being made to eat their veggies.
You are right Melanie and is even addressed in the study I cite — a smaller portion of people felt being made to eat helped expand their palate. But this is a risk parents take when use forced eating as a strategy as its more likely to have a negative than positive effect. Plus, even if you parents did not force you to eat, you probably would have grown up to love food just as much. Especially if they continued exposed you to different foods and didn’t feed you the same things all the time. Another downside to “making kids eat” also supported by research is can negatively affect food regulation causing weight issues later in life. Just something to think about.
I feel the long term affect in my life has been that I have a hard time regulating on my own and am overweight. As a child, I had to sit at the table until I cleaned my plate. Food was very controlled and I didn’t have a choice as to item or quantity. And, I pretty much didn’t have choices about anything else … they were handed down. When I started college (this sounds sad) I began to dream (literally) about the food I could choose and consume on my own. Now, over the past few years, I am coming to realize that I need to loose this weight i’ve gained since leaving home as it’s amounted to more than I had ever imagined. During a pre-surgery consult with a nurse, (for a procedure a few years ago) she came out and said “you still have time to change your habits”, which the comment at the time seemed totally unsolicited as we were just going over my basic info and pre-surgery prep. Five years and two kids later, with a hectic schedule and high stress, i’m starting to experience things physically that I never have before. But being consistent and sticking to an intake pattern is a huge challenge … it’s like I need an entire brain/food shift.
My son who is now 18 months has been seeing an occupational therapist for the past 4 months. He still only eats baby food stage 2. Any chunks in his food his automatically spits out. We have figured out it isn’t any issues with his mouth or throat bc I have seen him eat a few things a few times. He has chewed a few bites of chicken. He now eats bananas by holding them and loves cheetto puffs bc they melt. I do believe in my heart of hearts believe he will eat when ready too but he is sensitive to texture. Would this book be recommended for someone like him??
You might want to check out the book Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating http://www.amazon.com/Helping-Child-Extreme-Picky-Eating/dp/162625110X
Hey Ashley, My son has special needs. He won’t eat anything solid/chunky(well use to not.) Now, he will eat a lil more variety with one trick, YOGURT. He loves yogurt, use to that’s all he’d eat along with drinking Pediasure. Then, he got a new speech therapist, who suggested putting yogurt on spoon in front/on tip of other foods, not mixed in. That has worked wonders!! He will now eat foods with mashed pop, without the yogurt. If no mashed, then still gotta have yogurt. He eats more foods now though like, pastas, beans, fruits, veg, meats if cut very small, not ground though. He don’t drink Pediasure anymore, so I had to start giving a multivitamin daily to make up for loss, since his iron got low. Hope some of that helps!!
I think it’s good to keep in mind that there are extremes in both cases. How much do parents really force the child, type of punishment if they don’t comply, how lenient they are, when do the parents stop trying, is the parent a good cook at all, what cultural pressures are there? Looking back I was not a picky eater, but I was pushed to eat a lot; to always finish my plate which was a huge portion. Now I have a hard time eating smaller portions. She was a good cook, but some dishes I didn’t like that much. Growing up I saw the same ingredients cooked differently and now eat them well and even crave them. For example she would cook spinach until it was a paste. This would bring out the strong iron taste which was hard to get used to. Growing up I tried it raw in a salad and it was delicious. I even tried it very lightly sautĂŠed with soy sauce and sesame oil and again it was delicious.
I don’t think parents should push too much, but they shouldn’t give up trying either. Some parents are absolutely awful cooks and then they blame the kid for not eating well.
My family taught me how to cook and I appreciate the huge variety of way to prepare food and how it affects people.
I was forced to eat when I was a kid.
Once my mom cooked something (horse beans) I really didn’t like and said that was the only food and we couldn’t afford to buy or cook anything else that day. Since then, I eat pretty much anything but horse beans. I don’t think it’s physiological. I really don’t like the taste.
Even though that was a milestone for me to eat ‘my vegetables’, what really made me start eating every thing was to start cooking myself (in college) and traveling to different countries and experiencing their cuisines.
I used to watch food shows. I believe it helped me to understand even if your mom doesn’t cook that way, there are different ways to cook things, and they can look /taste pretty good.
As a kid, I didn’t want to eat the same thing couple days in a raw, or I wasn’t understanding when a dish didn’t turn out so good. Having to cook for myself around college, completely changed this.
I don’t have kids yet but I’m planning to help my kids to start cooking early with giving them small challenges. I really believe that is the key to develop a mutual understanding between parents and kids about food.
I’m another who was forced to eat what was on my plate as a child, to the point of sitting at the table for over an hour after dinner while whatever-it-was just got cold and nastier. When I did finally choke down certain things, cooked peas being number one on the list, they invariably came back up and I was accused of ‘making’ myself throw up (yeah, like I wanted to taste that stuff again, Mom!)
Do not do this to your kids!
For me, it was usually a texture or smell thing, as I would happily eat most of those same, upchuck inducing veggies as long as they were raw. None of that has changed, and today I still won’t eat most vegetables if they are cooked. All my parents really accomplished was to make sure that the smell of cooked peas, corn, beans or carrots makes me nauseous. Funnily enough, I actually liked cooked spinach, broccoli and cauliflower; still do, too.
Hi All,
I am a mother of two and I will like to get your opinion on whether a teacher in a school should force a child to eat back food that has been spat out (for one reason or the other) from her mouth?
In my opinion, that needs to be addressed with the principal.
I was forced to eat food and “clean my plate”, I was threatened, yelled at, punished with spankings, wooden spoons, made to sit in front of a hunk of dead meat until bedtime. It was awful. I started eating to avoid punishment but then i’d throw it back up. 20+ years later and I can’t eat in front of people because I get so anxious I can’t swallow, I eat to avoid heartburn and stomach pain and get nutrients from ensure type drinks, vitamins and other supplements.
Same reason you dont want to be forced to like something or forced to listen or watch something, forced to do this or that is the same reason you shouldnt force feed your child. This is the cause of addiction, People know when enough is enough for them when they aren’t brainwashed even babies. Their body will tell them not to eat anymore and they will listen because its them, they are looking out for themselves. This is all addiction is, people telling you what to do but not how to think for yourself so you end up with addiction making you do stuff you dont want to do. I wanna discuss this so reply if you want.
Im curious what you base this on. I was forced to eat, and also told how to run my life. I do have certain addictive traits, though I can’t quite see the link?
Addictive fun fairs stem from the need to take back control of your life. When you grow up with a very controlling parent who forces you to eat and is rigid in their thinking, you rebel. You take back control in the only way you know how. For some this becomes a life long struggle with addiction.
Oops – spell check changed my wording. It should say ” addiction stems from” not “addictive fun!”
Look, if a kid doesn’t like the flavor of some kind of food you’re forcing him to eat, nothing is going to make it taste good to the kid. For some unknown reason, kids who are tasters or supertasters are always born to parents who are human garbage disposals! DON’T TORTURE YOUR KIDS!!!
I was a taster and I wasn’t born to a human garbage disposal, but I guess I was a rare exception
I was forced to eat as a child. I remember meal after meal after meal sitting and crying while I watched my sisters eating up their dessserts and I had to go without. My father would only eat meat potatoes and veg so thats all we had every day. My mother wasnt a particularly good cook and we always had cheap offcuts of meat that I struggled to chew a lot of times. Veggies were often burnt and I disliked potatoes with a vengeance! I remember trying to force down a boiled potato just so I could have my dessert but in the end I had to spit it out because the taste was so disgusting. I can eat pretty much everything these days but having an overbearing mother has left a lot of mental scars.
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Yeah, I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I finished everything. Problem was I would gag, and I would still be sitting at the table two hours later. I have a hard time eating still, often skipping meals, especially when I’m stressed I forget to eat meals. I’m not going to blame my parents, they were probably just scared. Both my other siblings ate well, and seeing me since I was a baby be so skinny (my family is naturally skinny in the beginning of their lives usually though), and they probably worried that it would look bad as if they’re neglecting me but not my other siblings.
However, yeah I’m still struggling with this, and probably my means of protest when I’m overwhelmed without knowing it. It makes me exhausted though. ugh
When I was a kid my mom never made me eat foods I hated but when introducing a new food I always had to take 1 bite. She never made me finish my plate but she did ask me to try. Now I love trying new food and I have no issues with food.
Thanks Olivia. The one-bite rule can work good for some kids. But do you think that’s what made you a good eater today or the fact that your mom made meals and exposed you to a lot of food?
Well I think also there are different levels of forcing children to eat. I would think the more forceful the worse possible outcome. Forcing a kid to eat could just mean having htem sit at the table until they get bored and eat (within reason).
When I was young in primary school they had a sort of ‘clean plate’ policy, they wouldn’t let you leave the dinner hall unless you had eaten all of or most of your food. As a 5-6-7 year old this was traumatising, often I would find myself crying in the dinning hall because I couldn’t eat anymore yet I wasn’t allowed to leave unless I had. Over time I would feel nervous about eating and this he created an eating anxiety within me now. I am 23 years old now and soon to be attending therapy because when I’m nervous or anxious about something I can’t eat. It’s ruined many dates and prevented me from travelling and living my life. This force feeding style lead to serious problems in my life now and I’m angry and disgusted at my school for doing this to me.
I’ve had a similar experience and when I developed an eating disorder in my early teens the school hired someone to follow me around (even to the toilet) and watch me eat (finish) lunch every day. At family dinners they would always guilt me with the starving children in Africa line. Then certain family members would take personal offence if I refused their food or attempted to provide/cook my own alternative. It would come to shouting and swearing at me because an adult wants to choose what and when she eats (I’m also 23). It was torture. After a restrictive menu at home, the second I had cash of my own and could go off-site unsupervised when I started attending college, I spent A LOT of money or sweets. I felt like I was making up for my childhood and had a huge problem hoarding the stuff in my room, eating only in my room so nobody was watching/pressuring/judging me etc.I get extremely anxious at meal times and on edge feeling like people are scoring my table manners (I have had friend’s parents compliment them before but it just made me more self conscious). I recently got kicked out of my bf’s house for looking so uncomfortable and failing to make small talk at a meal to the point his parents angrily said I ruined their dinner. Mealtimes are like entering a psychological warzone for me these days. I get consumed with feelings of helplessness,resentment and guilt.
I was forced to eat foods as a child, not being allowed to leave the table until I did. I would sit at the table for hours! My friends consider me “abused” by my family! ~~~~~ I refused to have children, and now, I am a 52 year old childFREE adult. I promised myself not to ever treat a child like that EVER!
I was forced to eat vegetables and if I didn’t they would serve it to me every meal until I ate it now I cannot eat any vegetables because of that experience
I dislike tomatoes, cheese, olives, onions, some veggies etc. Pretty much I said all the elements of breakfast right? After all the frustrating meals I had when I was a child and now this is the result.
I can’t eat them, they make me nauseaous and disgusted. When I look down at the table with the sadness they humiliate even more by saying ”what are you doing, are you praying?” And my brother is fat 180cm and 110kg. I hate them.
I was a “taster” as a boy, and I still am. Non-tasters can’t understand that some things will ALWAYS taste bitter to us. Unfortunately, tasters are invariably born to parents who are human garbage disposals—these parents will eat anything regardless of how nasty it tastes. Vegetables still taste as bad to me at age 50 as they did when I was 10. The ONLY “torture food” I liked later on in life is corned beef. OTOH it’s a good thing I chose never to become a father, my kids would all be toothless, fat, and happy because their pop let them stuff themselves with hamburgers and candy bars.
I’m 40 and was raised by older parents and a very strict, old school grandmother so there was absolutely no choice but the eat what was on my plate or go hungry. My mom didn’t make kid friendly food and if I didn’t want what was served, I didn’t eat. Eventually, the rule was adjusted to a small bowl of cereal since I was eating so little and was so small for my age that the doctor was concerned.
When i was little there so many times I was made to sit at the dinner table and eat everything on my plate – after my grandmother told my mom that was the way things were suppose to be. Eventually I just stopped eating. There was one time when i was probably in the 2nd grade that at around 10pm, I remember my mom and grandmother conversing in whispers about the fact it was well past my bedtime and I hadn’t eaten anything. So, for breakfast – the dinner I refused to eat (pork chop, rice and tomato casserole with canned green beans) so I didn’t eat again and it probably went on for 3-4 days.
I think it was all that time being so hungry but not being able to have food I would tolerate eating that led me to an eating disorder. I’m 150 lbs overweight and considering surgery. Drinking only protein shakes rather than eating probably wouldn’t be a bad option for me since there is such a long list of food I won’t eat (most meat, raw vegetables, anything at all spicy, anything with an crispy or airy texture – including potato chips, especially rice cake type texture, anything with artificial flavors, anything with melted cheese on it, and I really hate tomatoes.). Pretty much, I like mashed potatoes. đ People are so surprised that I’m obese but I cannot tolerate eating most junk food.
Food was a constant fight with me and my parents and especially my grandmother. I had a miserable relationship with her and pretty much my whole childhood memories are fights over eating and being so hungry. Every vacation was a huge fight over food, every holiday.
I’m glad there’s the resources like this but it seems like there’s so much pressure now for parents to serve their kids so much healthy foods that kids who have issues with textures that I worry what those kids are going through.
This story is complete garbage! Are we really supposed to believe that 100 college students reflecting upon their eating habits as a child and their perception of how harshly their parents forced them to eat new foods represents good data? REALLY?!?! The opinions of 100 young adults is NOT representative of kids everywhere!
Great copy/paste article completely lacking in thought and research.Excellent example of how flawed research leads to flawed results and a perpetuation of flawed thinking.
I point out the limitation of the study. But this is in line with the rest of the research feeding kids. Controlling feeding styles (like pressure, forcing or restriction) are associated with more obesity and disordered eating. I have written many other articles and interviewed dozens of experts. Also, if you want to read all the comments you will see how many people have suffered from being made to eat food before they were ready. If you think about other aspects of learning you can’t force things like reading and writing. Just because you can make a child eat a food, doesn’t mean you should. Even something like learning to clean your room takes time and kids get a little better every year. Why do we think young children should eat everthing adults eat? Like anything, this takes time. If you have any evidence showing that forcing kids to eat is good for them by all means please share that data.
Well said
I was physically FORCE Fed foods. My dad would squeeze my cheeks and mother would force food in. Forced foods included potato salad, mashed potatoes, salads, gristled ham sandwich, most vegetables and fruits. I was also forced by getting whipped. To this day I don’t eat any of those foods and many others. I also never forced my kids to eat. I would wad up food in napkins and toss them. Store the food in my cheek even, although I would gag sometimes and get caught. It has been an issue my entire life, especially social eating. My wife has been great though. She knows what I went through and either she will fix something separate that I like or I will fix something I like. I eat mostly meat and some breads. Only beef, pork and chicken though. Lots of breaded frozen meats too, like chicken nuggets and strips and patties. I hated my childhood in large part to this treatment.
I’m 49 years old by the way. I was fed by force up to 12 or 13 years old.
I might be a little for this article, but I really needed to chip in.
When I was a child my mother would do anything to keep me from looking pale or thin, because otherwise people would think she was neglecting me; my father had badly adjusted dentures and poor table manners, so he didn’t really chew his food. He put another spoonful or piece in my mouth before I swallowed. When I ate on my own, I did the same. Put one piece of food after another until it was too big to swallow and I had to spit it out. I was made believe I was in fact the only child at school and in the family that was too thin, while everybody else was supposedly normal. (In fact I wasn’t that different from other children, it’s just that I was the only one who was bullied).
I wasn’t a picky eater or a slow eater, I quietly accepted that one is not supposed to have their favourite food every day, I would eat fast as much as I could and then I would just sit there with my mouth full for what felt as hours, before I was “absolved” (the meal was an obligation and a punishement in one).
Now as an adult I have an unspecified eating disorder, irregular changes in apetite, feeling of relief when I don’t have to eat something, occasionally I can’t swallow the mouthful and I even have dreams where I’m spitting out the food but there’s still more.
Adult people bully me, though I’m average size, they can be passive agressive when I refuse to eat what the bought/prepared. I’ve put on weight recently, I was satisfied thinking people will finally accept me, but they don’t see it.
When I’m cooking on my own I make very different meals from what my mom and other people from her generation cook.
Don’t do this to your kids. My mom does this to me, and I always feel sick afterwards. This contributed to my EDNOS. I have an eating disorder now. I can’t eat anything anymore without throwing up. I can’t feel good about myself anymore because of how overweight this method made me. I was a healthy 135 lbs at 5’6. Normal, right? My mom force feeding me over the summer caused me to gain almost 20 lbs. Now I can barely fit into my clothes, and I can’t look at the mirror without crying. PARENTS, STOP DOING THIS! DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT FORCING YOUR CHILD TO EAT WILL HELP THEM?! HINT: IT DOESN’T!
Natasha — can you tell me why your mom started focuing you to eat all of a sudden?
I was spanked if I didn’t eat at least 1 bite of everything that was on the table.
I remember at age 8 or 9 sitting in front of a plate of peas and my older brother and my father went into the back forest, cut off a branch(rod) and pealed it. I was then spanked for not eating.
Before that I was spanked with a wooden spoon or cutting board with a handle.
My parents hung the rod above the fridge, always as a warning.
My last spanking was when I was 12!!
I still cannot stomach a lot of foods and either really like foods or cannot eat them at all.
I was also not allowed desert unless I finished my plate.
Now I have been on fad diets for 25 years and cannot stay at a healthy weight. I either go on an extreme salad only type diet or give up and just eat deserts and breakfast foods 80% of the time and gain 40 lbs. Then I cycle back. My weight loss issue does seem to be very linked to the picky eating and control over what I eat. Spanking is SOOOO wrong, no matter what it is for. It makes the parent higher than a child which is the opposite of humanism.
As I try to raise my kids, I am trying to unlearn the harmful patterns my parents set up in my mind when I was too young to have any defences against it. Being bullied by parents into eating, being traumatized and beaten as an innocent child has a life long affect!
Ask any adult if they would beat another adult for not eating food on their plate and get away with it in the courts? Spanking is the PC word beating a child!. Adults who beat each other get jail time!!
I was forced to eat and clear my plate or it would be out under the grill and baked onto the plate for me to eat it the next meal time. this would be accompanied by being punched, kicked or hit with anything that was at hand and sent to my room being told how at 11 and a half pounds birth weight , I had ruined her figure and was the biggest mistake . now at 59 years and 18 stone because I cannot leave food , i cook large portions as she did and cannot leave the food. i know now that being a war child in london in WW2 she went hungry and at 16 met and married my father just to get away from London to south Wales where black market good was plentyfull. my abuse at the dinner table has scarred me and i cannot get over itas it accompanied the lowest feeling of self worth. I hope this will help others to understand how forcing a child to eat can sometimes be a deep phsycotic problem of the parent passed on to the child.
I was a picky eater when I was five or six. I had no problems with breakfast or lunch, only dinner. I especially disliked creamed corn and cooked carrots. If I didn’t clean my plate, I was threatened with a ruler and a timer. The timer was set to 10 minutes. When the timer rang, and the food was still there, I was beaten with the ruler. I was threatened with beatings so many times at dinner that I refused to eat dinner at all. I later tried to hang myself when I was six or seven, to escape the torture.
I now have a 21-year-old who eats only macaroni and cheese, bread, processed items like bagel cheese pizzas and egg sandwiches, and small amounts of fresh fruit. It’s heartbreaking.
I was forced to eat as a child and was picky! At first when I moved out on my own at 18 I started to rebel against this but soon within a year found myself looking forward to holidays to eat all that food I was forced to eat. I am so grateful that my parents made me eat what was served no questions asked. My daughter now 11 was a picky eater bad! I used the same tactics on her and now she asks for things and makes her own plate not missing the good stuff. I wasn’t allowed much candy and I think snack time is the most ignorant thing in the world. You don’t need to snack if you sit down and actually eat a meal. My daughter learned one thing real quick. My kitchen doesn’t have a sign that says restaurant and only restaurants have menus to choose from. This kitchen severs a plate of food and that’s it. No snack, no junk food. You want to go hungry fine. That’s one of the few choices I give as they are young. They get more choices when they are older. All these people saying poor kids and I was forced. Cry me a river so we can build a bridge and get over it.
I agree david. You can’t allow or encourage “grazing” in any young child. They will test you to get to that candy bar instead of eating supper, but eventually they will realize “you get what you get, you dont throw a fit” and if they don’t want to go hungary they will eat potatoes and veggies for supper. This is the male alpha way of raising children to eat good, and i support it 100%. Women will allow picky eaters, especially young girls, to mess around and talk and play with their food. To me, Dinner time has been a constant struggle just to somehow get the healthy food into them. It does take alot of work, but it is possible to win this power struggle and it helps to have teachers at school to tell them the same thing. (you get what you get you dont throw a fit)
Hi, Maryann!
Thank you for such a great post and writing on this topic! I think it’s very important. I see that so many people have various food phobias today. I cannot understand why, but I think most of them exactly because of the wrong dealing of their parents with baby eating. I think that the parents, usually, afraid that their child won’t get all the nutrients needed for the proper baby growth and they force them to eat. But the result is opposite. It can bring the baby to a mental trauma. Personally, I don’t force my 2 years old son to eat when he doesn’t want to. I give him a break and after some time ask if he wants to eat that and show him the plate with food. Usually, he runs and climbs on his high char to be ready for eating. The other question, if I want to give him some highly nutrient vegetables that he usually refuses to eat, how to do that? I tried a few times to bake eggs in the oven with those vegetables inside and it worked. He ate them all! So, be creative and all will be good!
Thank you!
I don’t like this article at all, nor do i agree its at all based on research or valid. If we just let kids eat what they want when they are 2 to 6 years old, they would eat nothing but potato chips and twinkies. What stupidity. I was force fed as a child, and i have always had a healthy appitite and loved healthy food. I pick what my kids eat, and i make them eat almost all of it every night for supper. I get my kids to try new foods, and they make a funny face and laugh about it, they love food now (7 and 9 years girls) and they don’t run away screaming and crying, traumitized by the senstation of new food for the rest of their life, as this article would suggest. STUPID! Make your kids eat alot, and make them eat their veggies, and they will thank you later in life. Of course with all things children, you can only win some battles, not all.
@Matthew — if you read around my blog you will find that I don’t recommend just letting kids eat whatever they want. I encourage parents to take the lead with meals and timing of eating, but let kids decide what and how much to eat from what is served (Satter’s Division of Responsibility). The study mentioned indicates that a minority of the young adults actually thought being made to eat helped them expand the palate. So it won’t have a negative effect in every case. But as you can see from the comments, some people still suffer from being made to eat. It’s a risk. Research also shows that controlling feeding practices are linked to disordered eating (dieting, binge eating, eating too little etc.), especially in girls. It’s not just about getting kids to eat healthy food, but helping them tune into hunger and fullness and create a healthy relationship with food. Most children, with enough exposure and support, will grow up to like a good variety of food. I’m not sure why parents feel they need to be forced. If you find any good research that shows such feeding practices has a positive influence on children’s eating, please let me know.
I was forced to eat whatever my mother cooked as wasting food was a big issue for my father. I had standoffs that lasted for hours and many times re-serving of the same food for several days after initial presentation. The dinner time steak scene in the 1981 film “Mommie dearest” is a watered down scene that unfolded at my. Dinner table at least two times a week. I was eventually allowed to swallow food whole (no chew, no taste) so that took care of the broccoli. I progressed into using my allowance to buy chloraseptic, the throat numbing spray, to remove the sense of taste from my tongue at dinner time. To this day I will not eat certain foods. I cannot stand the smell of broccoli. The sight of a runny egg will make me throw up. I am 47 years old and cannot shake these visceral reactions. I tend to roll into distorted eating habits under times of stress and likely would be diagnosed as having an eating disorder if probed by a professional. Eating is a time of stress, especially with strangers. I have no attachment or fondness for food, it’s simply a means to stay alive. Please don’t force feed your children unless you want them on the couch by their early 20s.
I’m so sorry that your parents did that to you. I’m sure in their eyes they thought they were doing a good thing. It really bugs me when people tell me that I should make my kids eat things they don’t want to. So my come back to them is, do you get foods you don’t like? When they look at me and hesitate, I say I didn’t think so. That usually shuts them up. My nephew the other day was telling me that his dad makes him sit at the table until he eats everything on his plate and if he doesn’t finish it before it’s bed time, he goes to bed and has to continue to eat it for breakfast and lunch. I don’t care what others say that’s child abuse!!! Once he told me he threw his food in the trash, and what happened next made me angry! His dad took it out of the gross garbage and made him eat it still!!
I was force fed for 7 years. It started with my parents wanting me to eat whatever I was served and I was not allowed to dislike or waste any food. By the time I was 15 years old I had to go to the ER because my heart was failing. I was about 5â4â and weighed 70lbs. I was hospitalized where they then force fed and tube fed me. Eventually I couldnât even think the word âfoodâ without gagging. I couldnât keep any food down and almost had to get a tube surgically implanted in me. Please do not EVER force feed your kids or physically/emotionally harm them if they donât want to eat something. I barely survived the eating disorder it gave me. It wasnât until everybody backed off and let me eat what and how much I wanted and when I wanted that I ever became a healthy weight or interested in food at all.
Every dinner time was a scary time for me as my parents make me eat. I was very small and did not like many different foods. I remember one time my dad was so upset with me he throw my dinner at me. I don’t like or eat beef, the smell of it make me feel sick also want to run. I do eat a little white chicken meat but don’t like to touch or see the bones, I do eat some fish, I just love fruit and will over eat it also sweets and salads. I’m now 78 and still get sick when I think about eating. I can eat one egg but feel sick if I try to eat two and have to stop.. My husband was a meat and potatoes man, I will cook anything for others but will only eat what I like. I think I was 30 when I ate my first small piece of pizza. I now live alone and do know I will always have this problem, but I wish I was like my sister and daughter, they will eat almost every thing.. I for one really don’t believe in forcing a child to eat, as I know as a child what I went through, it was nightmare, but I do know my parents did worry also did love me.
I love your comment. I hope your doing well. I was really impressed by things that you wrote.
Dear Berverly,
You mentioned an aversion for certain animal products and, on the contrary, a love of plants.
Don’t you think it is because your unconscious tells you that you should not eat products made out of animals? Is it possible that their lives matter to you and as you know the conditions they are today facing, you don’t want to contribute to this?
In this case, a solution to your disorders might be to simply go vegan and align your ethics with youtr acts.
My parents got divorced before I reached 1st year of life, no big deal you say, yes no big deal.
We went back living at my mother’s parents house where her brother still lived there.
Things got really worse by the age of 2. my grandmother was really abusive and a control freak, at the point that my uncle even committed suicide when I got 4.
By then I started refusing any kind of food as it’s the only way a child could think of killing himself.
Later I started eating again but things got really worse, it was a continued struggle as I didn’t reaccept every kind food and I also decided to become vegetarian by the age of 5 and I was opposed in every conceivable way, threatened, shoved food in mouth, being chased with food, just because I was suffering a lot and had different perspective in life than their, not better just different.
What make people believe that a 5 year old child can’t choose their own path? I find it just ridicule because I remember anything from 3+ years old and I can tell that a person a 4 years old CAN choose to end it all, free will is not something that you get when you grow it’s just that most people don’t remember anything before 10.
When I tell my story most people say I am delirious, that child can’t think by themselves, it’s really really sad and makes me feel even more alone ;(
Results: I got sick at 17 with crohn’s disease, which is an autoimmune disease of the bowel. I feel threatened by people when they insist to offer food and I say no and I freak out, most people can’t understand my condition because our culture (Italy) is really centered around food, it’s like most people here get their ultimate fulfillment just when they eat, they crave for food and work to get expensive meals, at their eyes I am just a fool but the truth is that I suffer too much.
So explain how I get any kind of actual nutrition into a child who will only willingly eat pop tarts, cereal, fruit snacks, and string cheese? She won’t even take a multivitamin. She has ADHD and ODD, too, which don’t help – almost everything is a battle, including meals (and homework and baths and cleaning up her toys and getting dressed and and and).
Have you tried having her evaluated by a feeding therapist? I write more about this in this article http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/08/the-nagging-question-every-parent-of-a-picky-eater-asks-part-2/
Not specifically, because her pediatrician won’t write a referral and insurance won’t cover it without one, but I have brought it up to her psychiatrist.
I’ll read through the article this afternoon. Thanks.
I agree. My sister who is a pediatrician also agrees. She is very anti-force feeding children. Our mom never did it to us. We had to, at least, try a new food, but if we didn’t like it, we were not forced to eat more. I loved broccoli as a kid but hated it with cheese. My sister and brother would only eat broccoli with cheese so when we had broccoli my mom had to sauce pans of it…plain broccoli for me and cheese broccoli for my sister and brother. There were several foods we didn’t like growing up that we will eat now because we don’t have negative experiences associated with the food since we weren’t forced to eat it. I had friends who were forced to eat everything even if they didn’t like it and can still not manage to even look at those hated foods without their faces screwing up in disgust. My sister (me too) is also very big about not forcing a kid to eat all the food on their plate if they say they are full. She said a kid won’t starve. They will eat if they are hungry. Forcing them to eat even after they say they are full often leads to problems with obesity which is a major problem in our society today.
I was forced to eat food as a child. I got upset stomach and cried after. My dad never knew how much I ate before. He piled my plate high at every meal until I got overweight. Now I have bipolar and obese from medications. I overeat all the time.
oh my god other people do not understand how everyday things can be made so mind controlling.
i used to have so much trouble saying no because i was so manipulated in every single way that i couldn’t bear to do that to someone else.
yes and then for being a nice person you get cornered forever.
This is really insightful. My older sister, had issues with eating first. Though I don’t know the circumstances or what brought it on she had to be placed in a oxygen tank and my parents blamed her not wanting to eat as when she came out of hospital her eating habits improved. I have allways had very sensitive taste especially to strong tastes and textures. My parents struggled to get me to eat and used to get very upset as no ammount of coaxing, forcing or blackmail made any kind of difference. I hardly ever have a appetite and still dislike strong tastes or certain textures. To me however, I eat when my body tells me it needs something and I eat what my body would “tollerate”. No matter how hard I try, I can’t control it. If I ignore my body telling me it doesn’t like it, it results in nausia and gagging. The funny thing of it is that I should be able to eat more than normal people without concern of picking up weight as I have Marfan’s Syndrome and people with the condition is well known for having voratious appetites and yet no matter how much they eat they struggle to gain weight.
Have you bee tested for acid reflux? I had this problem into adulthood, I was a picky eater and would often lose my appetite during every meal. It got worst when I got into my 20s. I finally went to the doctor and had an gastoscopy done and was diagnosed with acid reflux. I took Nexium for awhile and now take Zegrid. These meds can cause side effects and health issues if you are not careful, but I can now eat like a normal person. Lifestyle changes can also help by avoiding certain foods.
My mom did this and it was absolutely a power play and a control tactic and it made me furious then and furious now. It is so wrong to force someone to take something into their body that they don’t want, and it makes children not trust their natural instincts. I was shamed for my whole childhood for being picky or for not eating enough, though I was healthy and thin. Then guess what? I became overweight and lost the ability to know my real hunger. I’m not saying that this was the cause but it certainly didn’t help. Please don’t do this to your kids. And also please don’t spank them, it’s abuse.
i hate talking about food because my female ‘caregiver’ was a war starved child who became a professor, yes, a PhD, in nutrition. both children, including me, became anorexic or bulimic. now it is in a relationship with another phony, a war child obstetrician-gynecologist. i am online and talking very reluctantly now, because I just had an interaction with my sister, who lives with them, and feel used and controlled. so i am reluctant enough not to eat numbly, and choose what is only relatively less bad, which is to talk about it. but the science structure of the article is helpful.
there is so much control and use and nullification of womens bodies, and minds, through force and phoniness, and it has been a struggle to be nice, as in my case that meant eating much more and weighing much more than I feel comfortable.
but it makes people around me feel happier, especially my chubby teen turned fake manipulator caregiver, and my older sister, who was always put behind me. so i eat knowing i am not hungry, or else i suffer emotionally.
food and bodies and thinness and fatness prettiness and ugliness and attractiveness are just not talked about in polite society, but I guess now I am starting to be stupid about it because right now i am a child starting over. ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ are like swearwords or death words, unspoken because of their very power.
i guess this is about as much as i can handle for now, but now that I have quit my job and have time to fix my problems, i am literally so resentful of eating on someone else’s clock, and so extremely not hungry, with less need to suck up or hide my emotions from stupid people, and more desire to be correct, that i wrote in.
why are men allowed to be skinny but not women?
i think women were always separated from each other and supposed to depend on one man, or men as a group, so men had more shared social insurance, whereas women, or rather females, since that expresses individuation, had to go along with and conform more.
@Anon — I’m not sure how old you are but I recommend you talk to someone — maybe a counselor at school or any health professional. Please seek help and good luck to you. Let me know if you need help finding someone in your area.
I have 2 boys ages 3 and 5.5. We eat dinners together as a family every night sans their father because 1) he likes to relax and “enjoy” his food in peace and quiet. 2) he easily gets mad when they don’t eat as he would like them to and I’ve gotten tired of the arguing between us. We’ve all been so much happier eating dinner without him at the dinner table (unfortunately), but i’d rather not have him eat with us and make dinner-time stressful for the rest of us. My 3 year old is the picky one and I worry he will be overweight. He’s a chunky boy unlike my almost 6 year old who is slender and eats pretty much everything. Sometimes it is hard to get him to even have a single bite to “taste” a new food but in the end I want to be patient and trust it will all work out in the end.
Sounds like you found something that works for you. Very normal for a 3-year-old to be picky. Read more here in this first post in my series http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/07/what-to-do-when-picky-eating-doesnt-get-better/
Thank you Maryann! đ
Do you have a link on how to handle “treats”… My 5.5 year old has a “stop” switch , but not my 3 year old.. I feel if I don’t “control” the amount he would eat till he’s sick in the stomach. I don’t know why he’s so different from my first born.
I have a book dedicated to this subject entitled How to Raise a Mindful Eater. This post discusses a flexible goodies policy but there is so much more to it. https://www.realmomnutrition.com/how-to-manage-sweets/
It’s been closer to 10 years and not 20 for me, but I sometimes wonder if my picky eating comes from the mother of a man my mom used to be involved with. He’d drop me off at her house when I was age 6-7 and most foods I was fine with eating actually but her rule was eating everything she made (and you didn’t get to choose your plate), and no drink until after you ate, so if there was something I didn’t like I was forced to eat it and I couldn’t just wash it down or hold my nose because the taste was still there afterward. No wasting food in her house so I had to put up with it. A lot of the times I puked (especially with peas. Now just the smell makes me gag) and that’s when my butt would get beat and I’d get put in a corner for hours. Eventually got past it by saying beforehand I just wasn’t gonna eat, then they were like “are you sure? We’re having macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and carrots” (yes I literally remember the exact meal) and I just chose my meal and was fine. I’m nearly 19 and extremely picky now and I hate it but I just don’t LIKE most foods and I don’t even for sure know the cause.
Thanks for your comment. There are health professionals that can help as extreme picky eating is considered an eating disorder. Look at the resources at the end of this post http://www.maryannjacobsen.com/2013/08/the-nagging-question-every-parent-of-a-picky-eater-asks-part-2/
i was more indirectly pressured, manipulated, into doing things I didn’t want to do, through pleas of compassion that on reflection i still cannot tell if were genuine or machinery, or what. they were just these constant, reliable, highly controlling, perfectly timed begging requests from the female caregiver, that she would die or be heartbroken if I did not please her exactly. and then, oh, so happy, so grateful once I did it.
what made it so heinous was that it was as if she were the listener, the submissive one, and i am totally, completely free to say no.
how is it then, did i do on large and small scale, things i did not want to do, things that hurt me, just to feel some strong momentary reward of pleasing someone else? why am I suicidal?
reliving it right now, i am conscious I went through social shock that makes me in this mode literally numb to my own body. maybe this happened to many women over and over, and is why now or society puts bras on women (under our clothes) and ties around the necks of men.
the numb feeling is very present right now
When I was a child, my family on my dad’s side, namely my dad, my grandmother, and my aunt, would literally shove veggies we wouldn’t eat down our throats until we gagged as punishment for refusing to eat them. This only lasted until they dropped out of our lives when I was 11, but to this day it takes a monumental effort to get down most vegetables without gagging and throwing them back up. I try my hardest to find ways to help me stomach them better, because when I really think about it they don’t actually /taste/ bad to me. I know it’s completely psychological because regardless of how a vegetable objectively tastes, if it sits in my mouth for even a split second too long I find myself gagging and puking. It’s really frustrating and I honestly truly resent my family for doing that to me.
Of course, on the other side, my mother used to routinely withhold food from me and my sister growing up as punishments for not completing chores lists that went on for pages and pages. This was especially bad after her and my dad got a divorce, and he and his family dropped out of our lives, basically guaranteeing there was no one around to make sure we were eating /anything/ regularly. I’m convinced this is one of the reasons I have such a hard time not eating basically just /whenever/, hungry and/or bored, or not.
The combination of shitty parenting on both sides, especially regarding food, has basically led to an adult hell when it comes to just /trying/ to maintain healthy eating. :/ but I’m trying and I know for sure, regardless of how I feel about food, I’m making sure my future children will only have healthy, positive, non-abusive associations with eating.
I’m 47 and I don’t eat vegetables. They’re completely alien to me, and if you placed a bowl of vegetables and a bowl of live bugs in front of me and told me I’d have to eat one of them to save my life, I’d probably eat the vegetables… but I’d have to think about it for a long time.
My wife worries about me, and rightly so. But I take multivitamins and greens capsules, and aside from needing to lose some weight, I feel great most of the time. I really don’t think I’ll ever eat vegetables.
Did something happen that made you hate vegetables as a kid? If you eat a variety of fruit and other plant-based food, you will be okay.
Loved the comments from all sides.
I was force fed as a child too. And wasting food was not an option. While I don’t exactly enjoy food per se, I have developed a very healthy taste for the very veggies I despised as a kid – the only difference is I prefer them raw as opposed to cooked.
I expect my children to eat what they are given but very often, the foods I make are those that I already know they will enjoy. I will not, out of principle, make a different pot of food for each and every child. Call me old-fashioned but honestly, I can’t see how that teaches a child anything other than entitlement.
My daughter and I both don’t like the taste of meat while both my sons enjoy red meat. My daughter will often “swop out” her meat for her brother’s rice.
I never serve more than I know they can eat and they are expected to at least try it (in the case of a new or strange food.)
Anyhow, my point is that as a child, I was forced to eat COOKED veg and eat every last bite, which was served onto a plate for me (I had no option to say how much or how little I would want). My children all love raw vegetables and at ages 8,7 and 6 will eat a salad quite happily.
I love soups and often the color of the food is what puts them off. If I’m introducing a new soup, our compromise is that they may not look at the color, they should first smell and taste a small spoon of soup and THEN they may look at the color of the soup (or any other food for that matter).
The other compromise we’ve reached is that my kids may tell me if it was too spicy or too salty or too bland. My daughter refuses to eat foods with pepper in it while both boys love pepper in their food. As a result, I’ve taken to letting them help me spice their meals (in the case of one-pot-foods) or we simply omit the salt/pepper and they are allowed to put reasonable amounts on their own foods.
I think the food aversions and disorders arise from having a total lack of control with regards to what goes into your own body.
My mother always told me, it’s not just about eating healthy but about respecting the time and effort that went into making each meal. Often it was my great-grandmother who took the time to stand at the stove, at the age of 83 to prepare our meals. In this way, my mother taught me to respect whoever made the meal as well as be grateful for the food that is given.
In a country like America where food is in abundance, this might not make a big difference but there are many, many countries around the world where a piece of broccoli is a damn luxury compared to the bland, watered down rice or maize many kids get.
Guess it’s all about perspective.
I was forcefed as a child too,I was always a picky eater but it wasnt so much that I enjoyed junk food(we never ordered or ate at fast foods) rather that I didn’t enjoy food that much in general.I was always underweight and after 2 years in Uni I had gained 20 pounds.I still don’t like ordering food(I’m kinda disgusted because my mom worked in fast food for some years and she kept on saying how disgusting everything was).For the last 2 years I have indulged myself to junk food like chocolate,crisps,biscuits etc and because I didn’t eat much healthy good(although I cooked it because I live with my brother )I ended up losing 20 pounds.I hadn’t even realised that I had lost so much weight (1.58cm 90 pounds) until other people pointed it out to me.Now I’m trying to gain weight but things are a little weird with my brother because he’s trying to lose weight so we fight over food.The thing is I always have mixed feelings about food,my dad is overweight and has cholesterol,he always seems to enjoy food quite a lot(when he was a child he was poor, didn’t have much to eat so he was pretty thin,after entering the army he started gaining a lot of weight,the same goes for his siblings, they’re all overweight) my mum on the other hand is thin,her entire family is thin but she regards food only as fuel and always worries about gaining weight,she also doesn’t seem to enjoy cooking that much.Lately I started wondering about alcohol and caffeine quite a lot,I don’t like them I don’t consume them but my parents drink coffee and alcohol (although they drink alcohol very rarely) and there are times that I believe that I never picked up the habit just to piss my parents off.Also since I changed my diet and I’m trying not to eat much sugar(since I believe that what I had for these 2 years was probably sugar addiction) do you have any tip on how not to worry about sugar intake, it’s like I go to the supermarket and see how much sugar everything has and I’m so frustrated,I can’t even drink juice which I really like because it’s filled with sugar.I just don’t want to fall back to bad habits plus my hormones are killing me lately (I intend on visiting a doctor for that).Thanks
I was super picky as a kid, and to this day, I will never eat anything that was forced on me as a child. Nothing. I’m 31 years old, I like most foods now, but out of principle, I will never eat anything that was forced on me as a child.
This article is true! đđ Strange how even though so many people describe such terrible consequences, & there are people for whom this forcing could be DEADLY (e.g. my allergic daughter), a lot of people defend the practice because they survived w/ no apparent harm. Why take such a risk? Why possibly ruin a childâs feelings about food, & possibly make the child into a compulsive eater or someone who canât eat around others, possibly sick & dying early from being too thin or too fat & from extra stress? I survived spanking & paddling but wonât do it to my kids. Itâs un-Christian. Iâve survived worse too.
My parents never force-fed me anything but hot sauce, as punishment. (Also, the school I went to for Kâ2 force-fed me soap. I was bad b/c I was bored out of my mind, b/c e.g. in K I was already studying my dadâs college dict., b/c the childrenâs dict. didnât have the words I was looking up, but there wasnât even a gifted program. No wonder I was in trouble almost every day.) Now I hate hot-sauce, & most vinegar. Sensitive stomach & supertaster (slightly) tooâŚvery sensitive in general.
But they did order me to eat meat. I stopped eating it b/c of food intolerance, although the fact that one could be friends w/ an animal then eat it means eating meat is weird to me personally. Itâs not about ethics as someone suggested, b/c Iâm a Catholic, & eating meat is fine for Catholics (except on fast days of course, except shellfish is OK then b/c Iâm a Byzantine Catholic, but I prob. canât eat even that anymore); I need to wear fur/shearling & down anyway, because chronic mono has messed up my temperature-regulation & given me chilblains, & northern Indiana winters are severe. So Iâm pragmatic, not a PETA-type person.
Most meat upset my stomach. My parents had my 4th birthday party in the McDâs caboose, b/f there were chicken nuggets or salads. Maybe I hadnât ever been to McDâs b/f, but suddenly it was time to eat, somebody put a hamburger in front of me, & I started crying. Ground beef was the thing I had the hardest time digesting. Iâve tried to eat a hamburger only a few times, back then, but couldnât. And a beef taco made me throw up when I was 6. When my mom served steak, I didnât eat it, & eventually she started bargaining w/ me. After it was cold & everyone else was done, she got down to â1 biteâ, so I forced it down & ran away. They took me to BK sometimes then, & ordered me to order a sandwich each time b/c âYou canât live on just french friesâ, so I always picked veal (again, I donât belong in PETA! đ): not strong, easily digested. Hot dogs, bologna, shellfish, swordfish, & perch were fine too. Chicken was OK. When I was 16 I discovered I could get away w/ never eating meat again. Then in ROTC, I got a chicken MRE once, so as a survival exercise I ate the chicken, but then my stomach was upset. Thereafter I traded all MRE-meat for potatoes, eggs, or peanut butter & crackers. Figured I canât eat any meat anymore.
More đđ¤˘âŚ MUSHY VEG.: my mom boiled broccoli & Brussels sprouts forever, once in a while forgetting them until they started to burn. Figured both were gross, horrible foods, but now theyâre normally OK. UNDER- OR OVERCOOKED EGGS: I canât take it anymore if an omelet is a tiny bit gooey in the middle. HOT CEREAL W/ MILK STIRRED IN: warm, runny sludge, or COOKED W/ MILK INSTEAD OF WATER: like glue/paste. So I cook it so it can be a little stiff, fill 1 side of the bowl with the cereal, put brown sugar or whatever on top, make the other side a lake of cold milk, for each bite scoop up some cereal with a lot of milk, & replenish the lake as needed. My mom used to make hot cereal when we were low on milk! I didnât get it. PASTA BOILED W/O OIL, TOMATO SAUCE STIRRED IN: the moisture of the sauce is absorbed by the pasta, so the pasta is mushy but the sauce is dried out, or RICE PASTA: both are gummy/pastey. POTATOES âBAKEDâ IN THE MICROWAVE: gummy/chewy. THAT NON-BUTTERCREAM FROSTING: too much shortening texture. SOLID BUTTER: similar texture. OLIVE-OIL TASTING: coating tongue w/ oil & pouring oil into a stomach w/ nothing absorbent would be horrible. GLUCOSE-TEST DRINK: syrup on an empty stomach, almost as bad. My dr said, âThe only other option is a king-sized Milky Way barâ on an empty stomach. Said it would be just as bad. It was fine, didnât slosh around like syrup would have. BREAD W/ DOUGH CONDITIONER: some is edible, some not, but if it gets wet, e.g. juice from tomato soaking into bread of sandwich, the bread turns into slimy goo. My husband likes his soup poured over such bread. After doing so at armâs length & trying not to look, I donât touch it w/ even a spoon. Or a 10Ⲡpole. LETTUCE & RAW CABBAGE: disastrously canât digest them anymore. TOMATOES: upset my stomach unless thereâs a lot of certain mollifying ingredients, e.g. pizza esp. w/ extra cheese & pan-crust. CANNED PEAS: super-strong. CANNED MUSHROOMS: too strong, slippery, & chewy. CANNED TUNA: stinksâsame as canned cat-food. MEATLOAF: like a soft hamburger. HAMLOAF: like meatloaf but stronger. Strong/sharp flavors in general are bad, e.g. also SWISS CHEESE, YELLOW MUSTARD, KETCHUP, BUTTERMILK, RANCH DRESSINGâŚ
I didnât use to be so picky, prob. just semi-picky. If I hadnât been ordered to eat meat, & hadnât been force-fed hot-sauce or soap, maybe my tongue, stomach, &/or intestines wouldnât be so sensitive now.
Iâm 19 years old and just got paid 5$ to eat an entire orange. My sisters cried out how unfair that was, how easy it is to eat an orange, how I shouldnât be paid to eat. I am a broke college student, so 5$ is a big incentive. And I ate the orange, probably the only piece of fruit Iâve had in a month. I gagged on the skin and made faces and my sisters all starred at me saying âitâs not that bad, stop being dramatic!â
However, they donât understand my internal battle with foods. I hate fruits and vegetables. Ever since I was little and forced to eat them and yelled at for saying no I donât like them. I even went to âfood therapyâ but that only made the battle worse. I have such a negative connotation in my head with healthy food. The skin, the texture, the taste, the emotions. I feel embarrassed and sad and insecure when I try to put something healthy on my plate.
I love orange juice, and the orange wasnât bad at all, but I still found myself gagging when I would swallow. I want to eat healthier so badly. At college I made myself drink freshly made smoothies because that was the easiest way to get fruits in me. At home, I find myself hiding the fact that I made a smoothie because I hate all the attention my eating habits get. Iâm embarrassed. And I want to get better, but I donât know how to fix my mental block. Iâm scared my unhealthy diet will cause serious health problems. So far i am a healthy 19 year old, in shape too, but I know I canât go on like this forever. And trust me, my mom always reminds me that when I am a mIâm, how can I expect my kids to eat healthy when I wonât even eat an apple?
Take it from me, please donât make food a battle in your house. It will stay with your kid for years.
Hi Alexandra. I’m sorry you’ve had such a hard time. The good news is there’s more known about extreme picky eating (referred to as ARFID). I recommend these two books and if you get help, make sure the person uses cognitive behavioral therapy. Feel free to email me with any questions [email protected]
Conquer Picky Eating for Teens and Adults
https://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy-Avoidant-Restrictive-Disorder-dp-1108401155/dp/1108401155/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1589119396
I ate pretty much the same rotation of stuff every day for the first 25+ years of my life living with parents and theyâd always keep putting more and more food on my plate than I could eat, saying âeat more, eat more.â The message I got was âYou need to be a glutton and we donât care if youâre full or if youâre tired of eating the same thing every day. Food is not meant to have flavour and you need to be miserable. We keep a shelter over your head and force feed you the same uninspiring meal every day and that should be enough.â Now that I moved out, they will fill my fridge to overflowing status whenever they see me with god knows what, and I feel overwhelmed by it. When I am overwhelmed by something, I avoid it so the food just sits and rots in my fridge. I hate food. I hate eating. Even when Iâm hungry. I hate it. I donât even know whatâs in my fridge right now. I feel better when the fridge is empty like a blank canvas and I can buy a small amount of ingredients to cook something different and interesting with. I can deal with a little bit. I donât even know where to begin with all the random stuff they bring me. I barely even know how to cook cuz they never let me do that. I prefer variety but I feel a loss of control because even now, I still canât eat what I want because my fridge is already full of stuff I donât want and it feels like Iâm stuck with it forever. My parents have no taste either. They think putting mustard on fish is good and believe foreign foods are the devil. They once told me they avoided buying a salad dressing âbecause itâs French.â You wonât like French onion. Hereâs some coleslaw. The French onion sounds better than coleslaw actually. They are also the type to go to another country and refuse to eat food from that nationality, opting instead to sit at a McDonaldâs the whole day or seek out Chinese restaurants instead. I chase variety and flavour now if I can, but Iâm stingy too, so I resort to eating the same thing from my parents every day while feeling very uninspired. Food is just another chore for me and I hate it. I feel guilty for wasting the food I already have and I donât wanna eat it either so it just stays there rotting away… itâs too much, where do I even start? I donât even know how to make good meals with this stuff and I donât wanna buy more.
Send help.
I’m sorry you had to go through that. Have you considered getting help? Also, setting boundaries with your parents about them buying you food may be a good place to start. You can always email me if you have any questions.
Growing up my dad was one of those force food weirdos.
My parents didnât seem interested in a word out of their kids about their food preferences. Just shut up & eat it.
The food my parents prepared had like a boring bad tasting kind of similarity.
Well turns out as I learned later in life we were pretty poor, not poor single parent poor like I was but still … not rich.
In the rural area we lived food was way inflated in cost.
I know now we qualified for food assistance. Pride & ego kept my dad from providing varieties of food & the ability to risk trying new flavors. He made sure we kids didnât know because he knew his pride & ego based decision would generate resentment.
My dad often prevented us kids from access to support & services to satisfy his pride.
What a dumb fuck.
As a single dad I had a few poor years but I set my pride aside resulting in a higher quality diet for my boy & me.
Because of the help buying groceries it was easy to have my son participate in the collection & preparation of food we both enjoyed. Meal time at my house had a lot more laughter &âsmiles.
In my minds eye Iâd look at the meal time my parents created & id be like you dumb fucks, what the fuck were you thinking? Meals with my dad were conflict filled & couldnât end soon enough. I no longer refrain. Moms who donât protect their kids from abuse by a spouse failed their kids. They are failures in many ways. No need to be nice or minimize their guilt
Right Now I would like my mom to stop talking to me and to stop making me dinner. And to not make me breakfast and lunch anymore and to stop telling me she’s going to Granny’s and ask me if I want to go to Granny’s and stop telling me she’s going to the store. And to no longer anymore be knocking on my door the permanently stop doing that and to return my bankcard to me and then never again come near my room.
I was definitely forced to eat, well at least forced to stare at my food til bedtime. My grandmother cooked pork and rabbit together. Being a little girl, rabbit seemed wrong to me. She tried to trick me into eating ‘pork’ that was actually rabbit. This backfired and I wouldn’t eat rabbit or pork. Pork gave me a sick feeling for years! I finally in my 30s-40s made a relationship with pork.
She also punished, threatened, etc… None of it worked. I’d become stubborn and not eat. I have acid re-flux problems since my 20s, including scaring on my esophagus. I would hold out and not eat as long as I could especially if I was upset.
It seems like some people just don’t get it. I remember what it was like to be forced to eat when I was a child and I would never do it to a child. It’s like torture. Being afraid because your parent is angry but not being able to bring yourself to eat something disgusting like Lima beans. No, the child can’t eat whatever he wants, but some parents need to make an effort. If you know the child hates Lima beans, maybe buy string beans or spinach. Maybe discover what they will eat. After all, I’m sure you still don’t buy and cook the vegetables that you don’t like now that you are doing the shopping.
This article and the comments have changed my life. I’ve always struggled with eating, had a very restricted diet and would gag on and be unable to swallow the majority of food. Misdiagnosed with ADD in my teens and also suffering physical and mental abuse by my parents, I was constantly told it was an issue with me, a sign of autism etc. As an adult I have tried different avenues from hypnotherapy to investigating eating disorders and neophobia without significant success or improvement.
Reading through this though, I could tick off all the experiences, early memories came back of being force fed as a child, bribed, shamed, plates of food pushed into my face, made to sit for hours with food I couldn’t eat and going hungry. Also realizing that my parents offered a very small variety of food and usually the cheapest option badly prepared before ultimately leaving me to eat unvaried and unhealthy meals alone in my room. This has had a huge impact on my life limiting relationships and socializing due to embarrassment.
Reading the above and seeing the patterns and ingrained, learned behavior and most importantly understanding I wasn’t broken or wrong was like snapping out of brainwashing. Understanding the why of it took away the fear of trying things and the next day I ordered a sandwich loaded with salad items I usually couldn’t bring myself to taste let alone eat. While there was the usual anxiety prior, understanding what caused it meant I could put it aside and eat without the usual hesitation, fear or gag response. It was a small win but potentially a huge impact on my life and slightly devastating thinking about so many years spent struggling.
For those dismissive comments, I’m hoping you don’t have your own kids and/or you’re not causing lifelong damage.
I was forced to eat as a child. My elders didn’t seem to care that I didn’t like certain foods.
My mother wouldn’t ask us children what we wanted for dinner or whatever meal. She would cook and serve something arbitrarily and when I got to the table, I saw that she cooked something I didn’t like and told her so.
Her response? “Eat it anyway. Food is not something to enjoy; food is something to get, so you can stay alive.”
I refused to eat most of the time. And it was not well received by my mother…or any of my elders for that matter; my dad was the only exception. My mother, my aunts, my grandmother ( I later learned this woman was no kind of relation to me) would force me to sit at the table for hours and I wasn’t permitted to leave until I cleaned my plate. If I refused to eat, my plate would be wrapped and put up and I was served that saved plate for the next several days, forced to sit at the table for hours on end until I cleaned my plate.
The food finally went to rot and I was beaten for wasting food. I would be slapped, beaten and slammed around. In extreme cases, I would have food forced down my throat until I vomited and then I was beaten for vomiting and wasting food.
I just didn’t understand why my elders treated me this way. Eventually things got so bad and meals became so miserable for me, I simply refused to eat. I refused to come to the table for meals and was beaten and punished for refusing to eat. I once even pointed out to my mother and other elders that they were, in fact, the ones wasting food by serving things they knew I didn’t like and took it even further by pointing out how they never ate anything they didn’t like and didn’t understand why I couldn’t simply say No.
My mother and aunt basically told me, “Either eat what is put in front of you or you can fucking starve!” So I politely chose to starve.
Looking back on it, I realized my mother and elders only pulled these stunts when my dad was on the road for work (he was a truck driver) because when Dad was home, he always took care of my meals and made a point to serve me something I would eat. I mean, my mother would even force me to eat the unwanted homecooked meals at school by bringing it to work (she worked at the same schools I attended) and making me have lunch with her.
Well, I finally caught the attention of the school nurse. She was the one who contacted my dad instead of my mother and informed him of my status. At 7yo, I weighed about 28 lbs or so; the school nurse explained that as a mandated reported, she had to place a call to CPS.
Dad was angry. He cut his run short and came home the same day CPS paid a visit. My mother, right there in front of the caseworker, started beating me with her fists and thew me across the room for “making her look like a bad mother.” If not for my dad, I would have been removed from home. My dad called my doctor, who instructed him to bring me to the ER at Texas Children’s Hospital. My dad took me in and I was admitted. In the meantime, my dad was absolutely furious with my mother and had her committed (she went off her meds) and worked in the shop for a while.
My doctor explained to my dad that I was malnourished and was starving. She suggested serving foods I liked and my dad did that. I had some food allergies my elders often refused to accept because they didn’t “believe in” food allergies. I finally got better and went home.
And things got even worse.
Now all my mother and other elders only cooked and served foods they knew I didn’t like. They would offer something different to the other children, but I would be forced to sit at the table for hours, staring at a plate of okra and rice or green beans or smothered chicken or pork chops or some kind of beans and cornbread. Even worse was when I was forced to eat seafood, peanut/peanut butter or strawberry anything.
I was allergic to it. But no one cared, except for my dad. Meals became so miserable, I just flat out refused to eat and over time my mother flat out refused to eat me, calling me difficult and picky and insisted that I was spoiled and needed to learn to eat.
The turning point was when my mother forced me to eat a strawberry jam and peanut butter sandwich; remember that I am allergic to both foods. This was on a Saturday; I was 9yo. My mother made me lunch and when I refused to eat it, she became apoplectic. So she broke up the sandwich in pieces and started forcing them down my throat. By pure Providence, my dad walked in and saw what was happening and quickly intervene. My mother was kicking and hitting me with the broom, calling me names and saying she hated me and that she wanted me out of her house because she was tired of my pickiness.
Dad stepped in again and I got better, but it was short-lived.
I remained underweight for my entire childhood. I weighed a whopping 89 lbs at 14yo and then lost 10 lbs because my mother served foods I didn’t like. By this time I was of an age where I was able to defend myself and started saving my allowance and gift cash to buy my own food. My mother would throw it out and scream at me and insisted that I eat what she cooked.
Over time I lost weight and eventually became sick. My dad walked away from trucking and stayed close to home. I was still being subjected to foods I didn’t like and just did not understand why my elders kept forcing the issue and simply accept my allergies and respect my aversions.
When I was an adult and finally in my own place, I went to the store one night. I bought boneless skinless chicken breasts, dinner rolls, canned fruit and a bag of potatoes. I made a huge platter of fried chicken and a huge pot of mashed potatoes. I was married with two babies, so I served them and it was a big hit. My babies were happy and so was I. The next day, I did the same with boneless center cut pork chops and mac & cheese. Then I made spaghetti and made it my way…no onions or bellpeppers and no sugar and used spaghetti sauce in a jar (my mother hated it) and that meal was a success.
Then one day I was invited to dinner at a relative’s home. I did go, but when I was served, my plate was loaded with the rice and beef version of goulash, cabbage, cornbread and lima beans. I refused and I was called ungrateful and told to be polite and just eat it.
I refused. My aunt actually tried to force it down my throat and I backhanded her. I was an adult and I was done with this shit. I packed up my babies and left her house. It was the same whenever I visited family or attended family gatherings. It became so traumatic that my diet was limited to a handful of foods: chicken, pork chops, beef, potatoes, fruit, bread, mac & cheese, cereal, eggs and hot cereals.
After another traumatic experience with the grandmother I later learned was no relation, my diet was limited to chicken, pork, potatoes, mac & cheese, bread and fruit. I started eating the same foods over and over and it’s because these are the foods that comfort me. My only positive experience with meals were with these foods and I wouldn’t eat out unless I knew they served something I would eat.
I was called picky and childish and told my tastebuds needed to mature. First of all, there is no such thing as “maturing tastebuds.” Second, no rule or law forces anyone to eat whatever is put in front of them; we are allowed to like and dislike things. Third, I get to decide what I want and will eat and that’s that.
I knew my eating disorder could burden my children. Cibophobia and neophobia has all but crippled me and limited my dietary choices simply because…I cannot bring myself to eat certain foods and I refuse to try new foods. It’s literally the reason I refuse to travel abroad. I would take my children to Golden Corral and let them try whatever they wanted…on their terms. I never forced nor required my children to “try just one bite” to see if they liked something. I let them try things on their own and respected their aversions and preferences. As a result, my children eat things I wouldn’t touch. My son will eat pretty much anything; that kid would eat dirt if you put enough barbecue sauce on it. Same with my other children; my mother and elders (Dad’s gone now, since 2006) don’t understand why my children aren’t picky or have issues with food. Well, that’s because I respected my children as people who were allowed to not like things. I never punished my children for not eating or refusing to eat; I often offered a second entree at the table and served foods I knew they liked.
Now at 43yo, I still cannot move out of my comfort zone. Sometimes eating is so stressful, I just don’t eat at all. It’s easier, but I need to learn to cope so I can overcome my issues. People don’t understand how damaging and traumatic it is to have an adult who is supposed to protect and care for and love you, forcing hated foods down your throat, beating on you, calling you names and refusing to allow you to have likes and dislikes and basically not caring about your feelings at all. Parents who did this are guilty of abuse. There is no way around it.
It’s abuse, plain and simple. There is nothing anyone can say to change my mind on this.
When I was little, my stepfather forced me to eat brussels and cabbage. They made me ill, i vomit, I would and do get the most horrible stomachache and gas. I used to pass out because of the pain. if I threw them up at the table, he’d make me eat them again. if they got cold, it didn’t matter. I’d have to sit at the table for hours. To this day, 40+ years later, I STILL hate them. I found out that I’m a super taster, I also don’t like coffee, anything strong or bitter. One time I was really sick and lost my smell and taste. he made me eat 4 Brussels, and because I was sick,, i didn’t taste anything, but they still made me vomit. Years later,, my doctor said I could be allergic to a chemical in them, a Fructan intolerance. I think back to my childhood and wonder, if both my stepfather and mother knew about this, would they have still forced me to eat these vegetables? Most probably. My half sibling hated carrots and lima beans, I LOVED them, he’d make me eat the Brussels and her carrots and lima beans. He was/is just an arse, a bully.