OPEN UP: The Secret to Raising an Intuitive Eater

Mommy, how come you’re doing math with your food again? Why do you have to add up all those numbers at dinner?  And, why are you always so sad when you eat?

With 45 million people dieting in our country every year, there’s no doubt that these questions cross the impressionable little minds of children at dinner tables across America every day.

And why shouldn’t kids wonder why mommy always has a calculator in one hand and a fork in the other?  To children, food is meant to be enjoyed, explored, and eaten so they can “grow up to be healthy and strong.”

If food were a puddle, a child would splash around in it, play uninhibited with it, and delight in it to her heart and tummy’s content. To a child, it is sheer silliness to view food as anything but awesome.

Powerful Forces At Work

But at a VERY young age kids are told to question or even suppress their primal and intuitive knowing that diets are “silly” and that they’re bodies AND food are both holy and good.

It’s a simple, yet powerful truth that gets completely dismantled by companies trying to make a buck by convincing our children that they’re just not good enough the way they are.

Unfortunately, this message is quietly reinforced at home when they see mommy meticulously controlling her food intake, or when food is used as a parenting tool (more on that below).

So, instead of seeing food as the powerful and positive life force it’s meant to be, food becomes a source of confusion and anxiety for kids.

Food Wars

This is especially true when it comes to using food as a weapon at home. We’ve all done it, or at least experienced it ourselves as children, right?

• Honey, if you eat ALL your veggies, then you can have a cookie. (bribery)

• I see you didn’t clean your room – no dessert for you. (punishment)

• Too bad, you don’t get to be a part of the clean plate club. (shame)

And while no parent would ever intentionally set their child up to struggle with food as adults, hearing these phrases every day can do just that. With fear and bribery in the backs of their minds, our (very smart) kids begin to figure out that they will be loved and celebrated when they do the “right” thing with food.

So, instead of listening to their natural hunger cues (I’m full, why do I have to clean my plate?), they eat to comply with the food police. And we all know that doesn’t end well (for children or grown-ups). Over time, their self-worth and food choices become tangled up in a messy ball of yarn that they have to spend their entire adult lives untangling.

Why Intuitive Eating Matters for Kids

Besides setting our children up to have a healthy relationship with food for life, there are countless other blessings that result from teaching our children to eat intuitively.

Here are just a few:

• Children who use their intuition or “inner guidance” to eat are less susceptible to peer pressure later in life. They learn that they hold the keys to their own success.

• It teaches kids at a young age to just “be” with (and not run from) their feelings and listen to their bodies (sad, full, content, anxious, excited).

• It sends a clear message that a child is worthy of love regardless of their food choices.

• It teaches children awareness and mindfulness, a skill that will serve them for life.

• Eating intuitively reinforces to kids that they eat for health, nourishment and pleasure, not boredom, compliance, or to suppress difficult feelings.