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Please cite, otherwise that’s counter to the overwhelming experiences of almost every parent (in the US) who has no choice but to feed their kids pizza or mac a

by orev 9y ago

Please cite, otherwise that’s counter to the overwhelming experiences of almost every parent (in the US) who has no choice but to feed their kids pizza or mac and cheese every day just to get them to eat something. You can say that parents are just weak, caving in, etc... but then that’s the point I’m making anyway — that parents need to fight and can’t let kids give in to their instincts.

jessaustin 9y ago
Most children I observe who have poor diets, have parents who also have poor diets. We don't have to look far to find the source of the pizza.
Retric 9y ago
Oldest study on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/ This dates back to 1939, and is a rather over the top experiment still: Accordingly, Davis devised the experiment to let children do for themselves because she suspected that children's bodies instinctively “knew best” what the individual child should eat. Her intellectual model, a view that would later be called “the wisdom of the body,” likened a child's instinctive appetite to the way various autonomic body systems effortlessly adjust themselves to compensate for external challenges — think of sweating on a hot day, and breathing faster when you start to run. Initially, it seemed that this conceit didn't apply to Davis's test children and their food preferences. None of the eat-what-and-how-much-of-what-you-want infants had the same diet on any given day, week or month. “Every diet differed from every other diet, 15 different patterns of taste being presented, and not one diet was the predominantly cereal-and-milk diet, with smaller supplements of fruit, eggs and meat, that is commonly thought proper for this age,” she told her Montréal audience. Yet, she and others later saw that the infants' fanatical heterodoxy turned into what appeared to be 15 uniformly well-nourished, healthy children. ... The important bits: It is actually beyond easy to imagine how Davis's orphans could have eaten themselves sick with healthy foods. Had one or more chosen only meat, fish and eggs, within short order they would likely have come down with scurvy. Had another been a fanatical vegan and eaten only fruits and vegetables, there is a good likelihood that he or she would have experienced a vitamin B12 deficiency and megaloblastic anemia. Thus, the issue, really, was the extent to which an inner nutrition-seeking mechanism might lead children through the maze of choices they actually would face in the modern, eating world. PS: Several versions of this experiment have been preformed including some with plenty of junk food, though the setting up an orphanage bit was rather extreme. Also, diets that seem odd are not necessarily unhealthy.
jdietrich 9y ago
>who has no choice but to feed their kids pizza or mac and cheese every day just to get them to eat something There's the problem. By the time they start grade school, a majority of American children will be overweight and 14% will be obese. We don't feed our children, we fatten them up like cattle. Most American children have never actually experienced real hunger - they've been raised in households that are abundantly overflowing with food. They get three meals a day from a wide range of choices, plus snacks, plus free access to an array of tempting treats. Their natural instincts to eat in response to hunger have been completely muted. Of course they act like spoiled emperors at the dinner table. Of course they reject anything other than their absolute favourite food. That's the incentive structure we've given them. Unless your child is clinically underweight, stop trying to get them to eat. If they don't want to eat a healthy meal, they don't have to - they can go hungry. Throw away the uneaten meal and give your child the gift of experiencing hunger. A psychologically healthy child will not starve themself to death because they're not offered a-la-carte dining at every meal, they'll just adapt to their environment. When given the opportunity to make choices that have consequences, they'll make the rational decision to eat a meal they don't particularly like in preference to going hungry.
- aianus 9y ago
  My parents subscribed to this philosophy and by freshman year of university I was 5'10" and 126lbs. Didn't turn it around until I had programming money to pay for the gym and eat whatever I wanted. Still resent them for it.

by orev 9y ago

jessaustin 9y ago

Most children I observe who have poor diets, have parents who also have poor diets. We don't have to look far to find the source of the pizza.

Retric 9y ago

Oldest study on the topic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1626509/ This dates back to 1939, and is a rather over the top experiment still: Accordingly, Davis devised the experiment to let children do for themselves because she suspected that children's bodies instinctively “knew best” what the individual child should eat. Her intellectual model, a view that would later be called “the wisdom of the body,” likened a child's instinctive appetite to the way various autonomic body systems effortlessly adjust themselves to compensate for external challenges — think of sweating on a hot day, and breathing faster when you start to run. Initially, it seemed that this conceit didn't apply to Davis's test children and their food preferences. None of the eat-what-and-how-much-of-what-you-want infants had the same diet on any given day, week or month. “Every diet differed from every other diet, 15 different patterns of taste being presented, and not one diet was the predominantly cereal-and-milk diet, with smaller supplements of fruit, eggs and meat, that is commonly thought proper for this age,” she told her Montréal audience. Yet, she and others later saw that the infants' fanatical heterodoxy turned into what appeared to be 15 uniformly well-nourished, healthy children. ... The important bits: It is actually beyond easy to imagine how Davis's orphans could have eaten themselves sick with healthy foods. Had one or more chosen only meat, fish and eggs, within short order they would likely have come down with scurvy. Had another been a fanatical vegan and eaten only fruits and vegetables, there is a good likelihood that he or she would have experienced a vitamin B12 deficiency and megaloblastic anemia. Thus, the issue, really, was the extent to which an inner nutrition-seeking mechanism might lead children through the maze of choices they actually would face in the modern, eating world. PS: Several versions of this experiment have been preformed including some with plenty of junk food, though the setting up an orphanage bit was rather extreme. Also, diets that seem odd are not necessarily unhealthy.

jdietrich 9y ago

>who has no choice but to feed their kids pizza or mac and cheese every day just to get them to eat something There's the problem. By the time they start grade school, a majority of American children will be overweight and 14% will be obese. We don't feed our children, we fatten them up like cattle. Most American children have never actually experienced real hunger - they've been raised in households that are abundantly overflowing with food. They get three meals a day from a wide range of choices, plus snacks, plus free access to an array of tempting treats. Their natural instincts to eat in response to hunger have been completely muted. Of course they act like spoiled emperors at the dinner table. Of course they reject anything other than their absolute favourite food. That's the incentive structure we've given them. Unless your child is clinically underweight, stop trying to get them to eat. If they don't want to eat a healthy meal, they don't have to - they can go hungry. Throw away the uneaten meal and give your child the gift of experiencing hunger. A psychologically healthy child will not starve themself to death because they're not offered a-la-carte dining at every meal, they'll just adapt to their environment. When given the opportunity to make choices that have consequences, they'll make the rational decision to eat a meal they don't particularly like in preference to going hungry.

aianus 9y ago
My parents subscribed to this philosophy and by freshman year of university I was 5'10" and 126lbs. Didn't turn it around until I had programming money to pay for the gym and eat whatever I wanted. Still resent them for it.