Do you persuade the child to eat at least a couple of spoons and turn on your favorite cartoon?
1. Entertain the child while eating
Of course, it's much easier to feed a child if you include a cartoon. But often children cannot even remember what they ate at that time. And they do not learn at all to control the feeling of satiety. In the future, this will turn into mindless eating in front of the TV and overeating.
2. Giving sweets for a snack
Sweets can have two types of effects:
a) the child will not want to eat healthy food later and will prefer to stay hungry;b) after a jump in blood sugar, there will be a sharp drop in it - the child will feel severe hunger and eat more than necessary.
Each of these cases is not very preferable from the point of view of healthy nutrition and normal well-being of the child.
3. Make you eat the whole serving
It is difficult for parents to trust the child and not force him to finish the entire portion to the end. But if you force a child to eat when he is not hungry, this knocks down his natural mechanism of self-regulation and intuitive eating. If the child says that he does not want to eat or is already full, trust his words and do not persuade, much less threaten with punishment.
4. Encourage or punish food
In order to form healthy relationships with food and healthy eating habits in a child's life, food should not be associated with emotions. It shouldn't be a reward or a punishment.
5. Force-feed during illness
Adults fear that the child will not have the strength to fight the disease if he does not eat what they think is necessary. If we talk about the usual SARS or flu, then in the most acute period, the child has enough liquid calories: compote, fruit drink, juice, tea with honey, milk - any liquid that he agrees to. When the state of health improves, the child himself will ask for food.
You will also be interested to read:
- 5 myths about pregnancy nutrition
- 5 healthy nutrition trends for 2020
- 10 staple foods in baby food
