Children And Food

My two boys love going to their grandparents for an overnight stay. Their granddad, a professional refurbisher of bar billiards tables, often has a finished table in his garage so the boys can take their pool cues that they got for Christmas.

They also get to stay up later on an evening than they would do if they were at home. Staying up later is always a treat! But the biggest treat of all for my 6 and 9 year olds are the meal times at Granny and Granddad’s.

An overnight stay will usually consist of a takeaway or a meal out for burgers or pizzas and a dessert afterwards with a fizzy drink to wash it down with. Basically, lots of foods with very little nutrition.

But I can’t pin this all on their Grandparents, absolutely not! The boys also have occasional takeaway meals or frozen pizzas and chips at home too. The boys have been invited to friends houses for tea, they’ve gone to Macdonald’s for birthday parties, they receive toys for buying ‘Happy Meals,’ supermarket meal deals involve crisps and chocolate, going to the movies encourage us to eat buckets of popcorn lager than my youngest child and reformed chicken comes in the shape of dinosaurs. All of these things appeal to adults too, so we cannot ignore the fact that children will be drawn to such inviting foods.

As parents and grandparents we can’t avoid it, but that doesn’t get us adults off the hook.

I have previously written an article about children being ‘The Great Imitators’. As much as parents believe that their children often do the exact opposite as of what is asked of them, their brains are gathering all of this information that they see and hear and then used as a survival mechanism for when they need it.

How we interact with our partners and colleagues, what we watch on TV, our language, the way we dress and what we eat are all closely observed by the young mind.

As my role as a coach for children during half term, I’m fully aware of how I talk to my fellow coaches. Children listen. Children copy. I’m also very careful about what I eat at lunchtimes with the children. I wouldn’t eat a Greggs steak bake in front of them after having a talk to them about healthy eating. There’s a time and a place. Even for a Greggs steak bake.

So how do we get our children to be more mindful about what they eat? Firstly, it is important to not criticize or ridicule any meal choices that they make. Food should never make anyone feel anxious or ‘bad’. Food should be enjoyed, yes, all food. If a child enjoys chicken dippers then ask them what they enjoy about them. How does it feel and taste to them? Talk to them about what you can add to the plate alongside their dippers.

At home, the boys know that if they ask for fish fingers or chicken dippers it will come with wholemeal wraps, mayo, ketchup and a good sized portion of vegetables. It’s a compromise. For about two years and especially for our youngest who looks like a celebrity doing a bushtucker trial when he’s eating broccoli, the veg wouldn’t be touched without having tears. Now, because we continued putting the vegetables on his plate consistently and he sees his older brother and his parents eat the veg on their plates, he eats his veg without any prompts. He watched and he copied.

We can’t expect our children to choose better options with anything in life unless they see the grown ups doing it too! Sure, their teenage brain along with other teenage peers and influences will challenge their decision making. It is one of the most feared periods for a parent and one I’m yet to experience, but if we can promote the right messages into their young brains now then at least we are giving them a fighting chance as young adults.

My message is clear to the adults that I train and the children that I coach, you can still enjoy all food types and be mindful about what we need to enable our bodies to grow strong, to be healthy and happy, to excel in what they enjoy and to survive. The balance is something that is important to find and it is my job as a parent and coach to help people do that, whether for adults or children. After all, what age group doesn’t like to find the letters of their name with a plate of Alphabites?