How To Ensure That Your Child Has A Healthy Relationship With Food
Whether or not your child has a healthy relationship with food has to do with how you behave when it’s time to eat with your little one. It is very important that you think that your children learn from you: if you make mealtime a pleasant time, the little ones will learn this too.
If, on the other hand, you get angry every time your child doesn’t eat, then you are encouraging him to develop a toxic relationship with food.
During his first two years of life, your child will learn to stand, walk, run, talk and eat. The act of eating goes beyond simply grasping food with your fingers or spoon. Learning to eat also involves developing a taste for new flavors and textures, with the consolidation of the skills needed to become a good diner.
Teaching some healthy eating habits before the age of two constitutes a sort of “preventive medicine” against eating whims. Babies who have good experiences when they start eating solid foods develop a significant emotional impact on the foods they will later like or despise.
The habits established during childhood regarding food (whether healthy or not) will have repercussions throughout the child’s life, including adulthood.
It is necessary to work on this habits from a very young age, because it is much easier to teach a healthy relationship with food when a boy or girl is under the age of two, rather than doing it with a toddler who , for example, 8 years.
As children get older, it becomes more and more difficult to teach them good eating habits. Example will always be the best teacher.
How to develop a healthy relationship with food in your child
Change your way of thinking
Perhaps you are hoping that your child will learn to eat perfectly without any effort and that he will gladly accept any food. Reality, however, teaches that on your path you will find completely normal obstacles that you will have to face with strength of character.
Eating is a practice that needs to be taught. You need to show your child how to discover new foods and flavors without having to force them to eat anything they don’t want. It takes patience, perseverance and a lot of love.
Present the food several times on different days
The fact that babies eat more than one type of fruit or vegetable in particular happens because the food has been presented to them previously at least fifteen times and has been promptly refused.
After the refusal, however, no negative feelings were expressed. Simply, we were limited to withdraw the food and continue the meal as normal. Without tension, without nervousness and without impositions.
This behavior encourages the curiosity of the children, who retain the ability to taste the food and find out what they like. They just need time.
To create a healthy relationship with food, offer a variety of foods
Offering many different foods, with different flavors and textures, during the first two years of your baby’s life, will encourage him to taste them and discover that they are good. Babies can refuse food, but then they will accept it. Everyone will have their own tastes and there will be foods that they will like more and others less, just like any adult.
Enhance a peaceful environment
When it’s time to eat, you’ll have to leave the nervousness and tension behind the door. Sometimes children may refuse to eat just because they are in a tense situation. Anxiety and stress take away their hunger.
Family meals are an opportunity for everyone to be together, talking and communicating with each other, regardless of what your child under the age of two eats or doesn’t eat.
Model your behavior so that you enjoy food in a safe environment where eating is synonymous with happiness and tranquility. You will be surprised how your child will start accepting food more quickly and will be able to eat in the family like any other family member.
At the same time, you can stop worrying about the amount he will eat. Eating with the family will be a pleasure for everyone!
Thanks to these tips and with a lot of patience and love, you will realize that eating with the family is not a torture for anyone. Everyone will enjoy a family lunch that will become an opportunity for your little one to learn good habits.
It is essential that children learn to have a healthy relationship with food from an early age. In this way they will develop good eating habits that they will keep well into the future.
