purple beans: kids are naturally excited about foods

M's summer camp had a lovely little garden. I was bemused when a note came home one day with, "she even tried green beans!" (They are a favorite.)

We don't need to make smiley faces out of foods, or over-sell foods with crazy names or try to get kids to try new foods with bribes, reward stickers or praise.

Case in point? Purple beans.

After camp one day, M and I harvested in the garden. I got to try two new foods (for me too) with my daughter. That was pretty cool! We picked the above deep purple beans and snacked on them right off the vine, and brought about a dozen home. We also tried "golden raspberries" which I insisted were simply unripe, but M assured me was how they were supposed to be and were actually glorious, champagne-colored raspberries...

So we brought some beans and berries home to share with Dad but ran into the gaggle of neighborhood kids across the street. M skipped over to show them the veggies she picked and then doled out beans to share. Of the 7 kids there, all but one (who has food allergies which can contribute to an understandable caution about food) eagerly tried and ate the beans. No bribing, no rewarding, no faces, no lectures about vegetables. "Cool! A purple bean!"

"That's awesome!" We ran out before D got a chance to taste them.

It just reminded me again that the HOW of food and introducing it is so important. It was positive, no pressure, fun and a reminder that kids are naturally curious about new foods and we largely screw it up as parents and caregivers when we try to control the process.

Also, research shows that kids are more likely to try foods that they grow or have a hand in, but it is not a guarantee :)

Have you tried new foods with your kids?

Addendum: THANK YOU for the comments. I knew all of these children VERY well, one mom was there, I know the specific allergies of the child in question. I was with my child and asked permission from the mom (the neighbors all tend to be pretty free with sharing foods with my M as well) But, you are RIGHT. Always check with a parent before offering food to any child (preferably ever) but especially if you don't know the child's allergy history. M often wants to share things with kids I don't know at school/parks etc, and I always either ask, or tell the kids kindly that I can't share food unless the parents OKs it. Kids are pretty savy and used to this these days, I find.

I didn't hit my child in public, but I did let her eat Cheetos: when feeding "well" seems like "bad parenting"

We were running errands the other day and stopped for an early lunch at Subway.

For some context, here is an excerpt from a post I wrote earlier this year about another Subway trip: "Another family was at Subway and it was painful to watch and listen to. Three boys- and every bite, every choice was argued, and counseled. First the argument for 9 grain bread, then trying to get some veggies on the subs, then the argument over the drink. (OK, chocolate milk) then over the chips, "You know you have to have baked chips, you can have baked Lays or Sun Chips..." Then the kids tried this one, "Mom, can we have cookies, it says they're baked and fresh! That sounds good, right?" Mom shut them down on the cookies, "I know what you're trying to do and it won't work..." Then there was threatening over eating the sub (all three were white bread with turkey,) not just the chips and chocolate milk... Ugh.

Back to this meal:

M had her standard turkey, cheese, tomatoes and extra pickles with mayo, oh , and a bag of cheetos and a juice box. I had my sandwich with Doritos which I enjoy on occasion. I wanted lemonade, but it was diet, so I had half fruit punch and half water. We enjoyed our sandwich. M ate about 2/3rds, and about half her Cheetos. She finished her juice box and asked to try my punch. She had orange stained fingers and a tell-tale fruit-punch moustache. I couldn't hide the crime! (sarcasm, or irony?)

I was a little bemused to note that I felt self-conscious when people looked at our table at our mounds of orange "junk food." I have to admit I would have felt "better" if people had seen M with a milk and apple slices, they would have thought I was a "better mother." I imagine that the current cultural norm about good feeding and parenting would have thought that the mother from the other post, who battled over every bite, who's kids likely would not eat "healthy" foods of their own free will, is the "better" mother- the one who cares about her child's health and weight.

It's crazy. I know I am feeding my child well, I know that she ate practically 2 grilled peppers with chicken and couscous for dinner. I know she gets a great variety of foods and feels good about eating and her body, I know that she stopped when she was full, and yet... I still feel the cultural pressure to be a "good" mom, and being a "good" mom, or parenting well these days means feeding a certain way...

I have had larger moms write in and say how difficult it is to feed children well when you, the parent, are fat. I can only imagine the stares, even comments some people would feel justified to make about a fat mom feeding her child the meal that M ate. There is so much misunderstanding about feeding, so much moralizing and assumptions about body size...

Feeding well today is countercultural, it's what less than one-in-five parents actually practice. It takes guts, especially if you're not a size two. People judge, watch, compare, think they know what good feeding is. When you ask for dessert with your child's meal, what kind of reaction do you get? When you let your child eat "junk" food, do you get comments? (I too have had the "Why are you feeding her that, you're making her obese!" comments...) It's no fun, it's not right.

Hang in there. Do what you know is best for your child, and know that I too struggle with a fear of judgement. (Trying to care less, but it's a pretty crazy world we live in, isn't it?!)

body diversity in Children's shows II: Lilo and Stitch

Most Children's shows seem to take their cues from Keeping up with the Kardashians with the Bratz-doll look-alike Disney fairies and an apparent obsession with short-skirts, glitter, fake eye-lashes, dating etc.

Most shows that do feature children of different size have the caricature of the fat child or animal (think the gluttonous and out-of-shape cat on the latest Shrek) who is funny, lazy, silly, stupid, mean, or all of the above.

I wrote awhile ago about a show called Caillou for the younger set, and I've recently let M watch Lilo and Stitch (Netflix, commercial-free electronic babysitter while my childcare issues continue...)

Lilo is active, has friends of all sizes who are active. There is no mention of "being healthy" or using someone fat as a cautionary case.

As a bonus, none of the little girls seem sexualized. I have to say, I don't like all the teasing, the "mean-girl" language about how she is "weird," but overall it's one of the least offensive shows out there.

Are there books, shows etc that you like in terms of body-diversity? (I'd be curious if there are any ethnically diverse shows out there in any real way...)

pretty spoons

I'm not much of a shopper for enjoyment, but I did buy one thing while I was in France. I found these little boiled egg spoons in a home-goods shop. They are made in Italy, plastic, not expensive and I just LOVE the colors. We eat boiled eggs fairly often, but I also enjoy using them with yogurt etc. They make me happy. M likes to choose her color and thinks they are pretty too. I think these would be great baby food spoons, but we're beyond that now... We also use them for jam in the mornings, and if we even have a party again would be nice for condiments...

Do you have a favorite dish, bowl or glass that seems to make a meal or an eating experience even more pleasurable? (I couldn't find them online for a link.)

"You're so brave!": how praise feels like pressure...

I blogged recently about how M tried snails, and just about everything else on the trip (she didn't like them much, and a few things got spit into a napkin, but she enjoyed herself at the table...)

Well, at camp, the counselor came up to me and RAVED about how "BRAVE!" M was to have tried snails. How they were all "so impressed!"

Stop it! I wanted to yell... "Of course she tried snails, and nutella and lots of other delicious things!" I replied, smiling...

What does it do to a child's natural curiosity, her natural drive and ability to try and learn new foods when adults praise?

Will she be as likely to try snails or a new food again, or did that praise feel like pressure? Did that word "brave" imply that there was something unusual about trying snails, or something scary about snails or new foods?

What do you think?

Helicopter Feeding: parents, you're working too hard and it's not helping!

We can't escape it, it's all around us. Pressure, power-struggles, picky eating, over-managing children's eating. Here is a great, succinct piece from Ellyn Satter on what I have come to call, "Helicopter feeding." It doesn't have to be so hard! I have also reprinted the article below, with permission. Thoughts?

By the way, this photo cracks me up. It's from an article on how to "get your kids" to eat veggies. Notice the "dad" is trying to feed some to the kid and she has her arm up pushing him away. Classic! A great unintended visual example of how pressuring kids to eat more fruits and veggies backfires...

July 2010 • Family Meals Focus #47 • Pressured on All Sides The Feeding with Love and Good Sense Video and Teacher's Guide, published in 1987, is being revised! The Childhood Feeding Collaborative of the Santa Clara County Public Health Department in San Jose, CA funded the videography and recruited parent volunteers. I produced 30 hours of footage with as many families and am well on my way to turning the footage into about an 80-minute video that addresses feeding the (infant, transition, toddler, preschooler). I have lots of plans for making further use of this footage, but enough of that. Let's talk about what I saw. To put a positive spin on it, parents work way too hard! To put a not-so-positive spin on it, parents are interfering. They sit down to a lovely meal and spoil it right away by telling the child, "you know the rules-you have to eat your vegetables." Often the "eat your vegetables" admonition reverberates, with one parent picking up the words of the other and the first amplifying the second and back again. Parents peer and arrange and wipe-wipe-wipe and scrape together the child's food. They tap the child's plate and interrupt her conversation to remind her to finish whatever-it-is. They insist on one bite of everything and reason and praise and feed children who are old enough to feed themselves and explain about nutritional superiority and make bargains about "first this and then that." They keep up a rat-tat litany: Use your fork, use your spoon, use your napkin. For their part, children do not easily give up their rights with eating. They argue, whine, cry, resist and evade, become defiantly messy, throw anything within reach, and press their parents to make increasingly ridiculous food bargains. As a result of all this static, children are so stressed that they lose touch with themselves: their internal cues of hunger and satiety, their enjoyment and curiosity about food, and their pride in learning to do well with eating. But parents are stressed as well. They do not enjoy making their child miserable, but they do it anyway because they think it is good parenting with food. Why all the fuss? If children get the support they need - enjoyable family meals - they push themselves along to learn to eat the food their parents eat. Eventually they even do it neatly. Where do parents get the idea that they have to micromanage children's eating? This pattern is not confined to San Jose, CA, nor is it new. Thirty years ago, an experienced Pediatric Nurse Practitioner observed to me, "If a child eats, parents think it is all their idea." Given this pressure on their eating, little wonder that children who are at all cautious and limited in with respect to eating develop extreme food selectivity or bizarre food behaviors. If fed according to a division of responsibility and allowed to move along according to their own tempo, slow-to-warm-up children learn to enjoy a variety of food. Really cautious kids, such as those with sensory integration disorders and autism spectrum disorders, still push themselves ever-so-slowly along to learn to eat. To do that they need structure, opportunities to learn and no pressure. Children with neuromuscular limitations struggle to manage the nipple or the spoon and eat until they run out of energy and it stops being enjoyable. Then they need nutritional support delivered in some other way so they and they and their parents don't have to wear themselves out satisfying their nutritional requirements. The take-home message is that we have work to do. We must let these poor parents - and these poor children - off the hook by teaching parents the division of responsibility in feeding. Along with that, we must help parents identify when they are putting pressure on feeding, and give them the good news about how much happier they and they child will be if they stop it. Copyright © 2010 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com. Rights to reproduce: As long as you leave it unchanged, you don't charge for it, and you include the entire copyright statement, you may reproduce this article. Please let us know you have used it by sending a website link or an electronic copy to info@ellynsatter.com. Please recommend Family Meals Focus to your family and friends. If you like, point your browser to www.EllynSatter.com/newsletter where you'll find an easy sign-up form. DISCLAIMER: The information contained in Family Meals Focus is intended to inform our readers about issues relating to feeding dynamics in general and family meals in particular. It is not intended to replace specific advice from a health care professional.

nutrition "education," calorie counting for the preschool age

I was enjoying the local farmer's market this weekend and sitting next to my daughter who was coloring at a lovely little shaded area with beanbag toss (based on the food pyramid-ugh) when I read this piece of cow-dung. I was only happy that my little M doesn't know how to read yet.

The bottom part if you can't read it says: (exclamations are theirs, not mine)

Circle the healthiest choice (fewest calories)!

Ring the cowbell!

1/2 cup diced fruit salad (60 calories)

1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspn orange juice (88 calories)

1/2 cup diced fruit salad with 2 Tbspns light yogurt (96 calories)

Oh, where to begin!!

Nutrition education for children has the potential to do great harm. I wonder why adding yogurt is not "healthy" or the assertion that the definition of "healthy" is low calorie. Low-calorie and low-fat diets fail nutritionally for small children (and fail for adults too.) I won't elaborate on why this is garbage "nutrition" info which is more harmful than helpful. (Think of a table of first grade comparing calorie and fat counts in the name of health-it's happening people.)

I spoke with the nice folks who worked for this farm/education group and explained that I was a family doctor and feeding specialist and that their info was wrong and dangerous. I also said I would not stick around for the cooking demo (fruit salsa, could be great, but don't want M hearing about "healthy" eating from these folks...) The lady explained that they had a dietitian come up with the materials and that they "struggled" with them.

Brother. Stop. Don't wade in where you are not qualified, don't promote more craziness around food. Why not just color in the picture and talk about all the delicious foods at the market, talk about how gorgeous the colors are. Do your demo, be positive, be happy, let us taste the amazing fruits of our farmer's labors, just leave "health," calories, fat out of it. It managed to do what so much nutrition and health info does these days, take such potential and passion and energy- and poison it with misinformation and misguided food moralism.

(BTW, I couldn't help saying, "More cowbell!" ala SNL. I thought I was pretty clever...)

Keep your eyes out for garbage nutrition messages aimed at kids. Share them here! I think you'll be surprised what you find when you open your eyes...