第 26 题

1When I was a child I was often told what not to eat. "You don't want to get fat" was on constant repeat throughout my childhood. It really messed up my relationship with food — something that took me years to overcome. Because of this, I'm careful not to connect what my kids weigh with their worth as people. I encourage my daughter to make healthy snack choices and often dissuade her from a second dessert. But one day when I heard her saying "I think I'm too fat," my heart sank. It made me wonder if giving her advice on snacks was having an unintentionally negative impact.

2According to Charlotte Markey, a professor of psychology, food is one of the rare subjects where, as parents, saying less is more. "There are so many things in parenting that are good to talk through, but I'm not convinced that food is one of them," she says. "It just creates some worries and insecurities in kids that aren't necessarily healthy."

3Instead, she recommends applying a well-known concept among nutrition experts called the "Division of Responsibility," where parents provide a variety of mostly healthy foods to their kids at fixed times, and the kids themselves decide what and how much they want to consume — even if that means occasionally eating more cookies than carrots.

4Allowing kids to eat what they want also exposes them to the natural consequences of their decisions. "When your child says, 'My stomach hurts,' you can say, 'Well you had a lot of sugary foods and you might feel better if you made some other choices,'" says Markey. "Let them feel like they have some control over it."

5I've been trying out these strategies and I've found that when I'm less restrictive, they do make better decisions. "Feeding is a long game," says Markey. "The food you have available makes a huge difference. Even if they don't eat it, they're seeing it. And then all of a sudden it clicks."