Clean Your Plate!

How many times did we hear this phrase as kids? And how many times have we said it to our kids? Well, here is my advice (even if you don't want it):

Stop saying that. And stop insisting on it. We're making our children fat.

In the early years of motherhood, I did say this to my kids. But after a while, I realized that I was placing an arbitrary amount of food on their plates, an amount that I thought was correct, and then expecting them to eat it all, as if I knew better than their own bodies what they needed, and as if they would starve if they didn't eat very bite. It didn't seem fair to me when I thought of it that way.

Children are born with a natural hunger mechanism that works beautifully without our interference. When they are hungry, their little tummies growl until they feel it necessary to ask for something to eat. When they are getting full, they begin to eat more slowly, and their little brains become distracted by other things -- TV, the dog barking outside, the booger in their nose. It's at this point that we get impatient and say, "You're not getting down until that plate is empty". But why should we do that? If the child were truly still hungry, they would certainly eat! Believe me, no normal self-serving, self-focused, completely self-absorbed child will let themselves go hungry, and every child is truly self-serving, self-focused, and completely self-absorbed. Every single one. Children stop eating and become distracted when they are FULL. To insist that they continue to eat past this point is to short-circuit this natural hunger mechanism, getting your child into the destructive habit of eating past the amount of food the body is calling for.

I see this all the time in my part-time waitress position. I work in a hotel that offers an all-you-can-eat buffet for breakfast. And our guests do just that. I see entire families of overweight parents and kids load their plates with an amount of food that I could not eat in an entire day, and then when there is food left on the kids' plates (of course), the parents insist that they eat it all. As if these already-overweight kids would starve if they didn't. Other parents will sit with their three-year-old long after the rest of the party has left, coaxing, cajoling and deal-making to get the kid to eat a few more bites, when the child has clearly lost interest, because he's full.

If your child has lost interest his meal, the correct thing to say is,

"Are you full?"

If the child says Yes, there are two possible outcomes. Either he is genuinely full and will be all set until the next meal (or a snack if needed), or he is not really full and is going to pester you very shortly for more food. Annoying, yes, but hardly something to worry about. If your child seems to make a habit of quitting before he's full, let him quit, but do not allow more food until the next meal. It won't take too many times feeling hungry for several hours for your child to get out of the habit. And, no, he won't shrivel up and blow away in the process.

Many parents would object to this line of reasoning out of concern that their child will not get the nutrition he needs. I'm sure I can't be the only one who has noticed this, but our country is one of the most well-nourished places on earth. A malnourished child living in the typical loving household would be extremely rare. Also, keep in mind that the main thing your child needs in his diet is simply calories. Granted, not all calories are created equal in terms of nutrition, but with a modicum of variety the average child will get the trace amounts of all other vitamins, protein and minerals he needs. Somehow, generations of human beings before us managed to lurch into adulthood without worrying about how much protein and vitamin C they were getting. They simply ate a variety of whatever food grew locally, and their bodies handled the rest.

Another thought I have on this subject is to allow your children to ask for their meal whenever you can, rather than tightly scheduling meals and insisting that they eat on your timetable, even if they're not hungry. Again, this encourages eating when the body is not calling for it. When my children were small, before they were in school, I always let them come to me and say they were hungry before I gave them breakfast or lunch, even at that tender age. The result is three healthy teenagers who are not overweight. They do struggle from time-to-time with various aspects of eating. There is so much junk food out there, and sometimes it's hard to say no to the latest sugar-loaded coffee drink. But the tools I have provided them give them an advantage in breaking short-term bad habits.

I think that if my kids were asked about one regret of their childhood, they would probably say that they regretted that our meals, especially dinner, were not more formal, and I have to say I agree to some extent. Most of the time I make a dinner and leave it on the counter or stove for them to come and get when they're hungry. With our busy schedules, sports activities and homework, this has given them the freedom to eat on the go, whenever they are ready. Yes, we did sacrifice the kind of formal meals that many families use as a focal point each day, but we have always found many other ways to come together, and our family is very close, so it hasn't been so bad.

And I stopped worrying about how much they eat many, many years ago, and let them call the shots. Our youngest boy was a bit chubby for a while around the age of 11-12, and he was getting self-conscious about it. So I watched how he ate, and found the weak spot -- I encouraged him to be careful with his afternoon snack. Not to completely pig out on every carbohydrate in the pantry, but to take a break after a few minutes of eating, and see if he got full, remembering that dinner would come soon. I also suggested that he limit his trips to the deli to buy soda (I don't keep it in the house generally). I told him that if he could make just those two changes, he would easily lose the weight. And he did! Now he is a trim (almost lanky) 17-year-old, getting more muscle daily as he matures. Now he swims without a T-shirt.

Do your child a kindness, and get out of the habit of making him clean his plate. Give him less food to start with, and allow him to ask for more. If the smaller amount is all he wants, that's fine. Let him judge when he is full. As he gets older, let him call the shots on his eating as much as you can. If he does develop a bad habit, don't badger him about it. That will only make it worse. Always approach a topic like that as if you were on his team, and if he indicates that he wants to lose weight, brainstorm with him for ideas on how to drop some weight. And do it in a friendly, encouraging way. Allowing the natural hunger mechanism to work as it should will serve your child for a lifetime, helping him not avoid the many health problems that plague the overweight person down the line.