Raise Healthy Eaters by Going Beyond Breaking the Rules

New advice about breaking old rules on food parenting isn't enough to raise children with healthy eating habits, as this advice might be confusing and parents might miss the point, researchers say.

Eating and raising healthy eaters aren't what they used to be. Somehow in some ways it has been lenient and yet also confusing. Take for example the Boston Globe article that was published in 2020 that encouraged parents to let kids have as many sweets as they want, play with their food, have dessert while still having dinner, and just leave the food that they don't like on their plates.

It seems that in this era, advice for parents seeking for the best ways to feed their children are contrary to the food parenting approaches that their own generation considered plain healthy.

Nutrition experts Dan Hatfield and Erin Hennessy from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy explained that it's not enough for parents to simply break long-established rules because they read and see new food parenting practices on the mass media. It goes beyond breaking the rule. While they can incorporate these new practices with their own, Hatfield and Hennessy are reminding parents to consider first the full context of these new practices - where they are coming from and what are the effects of these practices.

However, they emphasized that some of the new suggested practices are very well supported with decades of research.

Significance of self-regulation

"We now know more about which food parenting practices promote self-regulation and healthy eating and which practices interfere. The ultimate goal is to help children develop in a way that allows them to listen to their bodies' cues about when, what, and how much to eat, and to build their confidence to make good choices for themselves in the long term, Hennessy explained.

Moreover, Hatfield stated that parents need to understand that children, especially the younger ones, are always "learning to self-regulate." When parents choose to keep on dictating what their kids can and can't have, they are actually taking away a learning opportunity for their kids. Thus, their child is missing out, and development would be incomplete.

Take for instance the old food parenting practice of "clean your plate," which is also called "pressure to eat" or "threats/bribes." This practice uses dessert as a reward for eating and fully consuming lunch or dinner.

Hennessy stressed that this approach is a form of coercive control - pressure, intrusion, and dominance are used by parents to control kids' feelings. thoughts, and behaviors. This is actually detrimental to a child's ability to self-regulate their intake, and negatively affects their development.

Parents need not be anxious though because these experts promised that there are food parenting strategies that are positive and effective.

Read Also: Childhood Obesity Prevention: How Eating Dinner With Your Child Helps With Weight Management

Structure and autonomy

Hennesy told Tuft Now that parents need to learn about structure and autonomy support, as these food parenting approaches will allow children to learn how to develop their abilities in making good food choices.

Structure points out the ways parents organize their kids' environment in order to facilitate their competence. Autonomy support, on the other hand, refers to the way parents support and assist their children to build their sense of self and independence.

The key is providing clear, consistent rules and boundaries, meal and snack routines, and healthy options access. But more than these, it is also provisioning clear and consistent role-modeling - letting children witness that their parents practice the healthy-eating behaviors that they want their children to practice.

Children's autonomy is built when their parents involve them in food selection, expose them to nutrition education, give them praise and encouragement when they choose and eat right, and when there is a safe space for both parent and child to reason and negotiate with each other.

Hennessy stated that parents can use some or most of these practices every day, or they can also select or modify which approach to use based on their children's age and other factors. For instance, reasoning and negotiation may work best to older kids as compared to the young ones.

Do not allow the children to have "long-term negative relationships" with food. Know that there is a connection between restriction and guilt and eating disorders. The theory of attribution states that if parents are restricting food and access to highly palatable foods, those that are less healthy foods, then those are what the children will want to have.

However, Hennessy stressed out that structure and autonomy strategies cannot work efficiently unless parents create a change themselves as restriction of access to certain food is not usually about the child but about the parent's belief system or relationship to food. Thus, to create a healthy family dynamic, there should be a change or an intervention in the parents first.

Related Article: Omad Diet: Dieticians Explain What Happens if You Eat Just One Meal a Day