If you’re a parent, you know that kids are naturally pretty curious. They might feel compelled to constantly come to you with question upon question starting with, “Why…?”
“… is the sky blue?”
“… do I have brown hair?”
“… do I have to brush my teeth?”
“… does big brother get to stay up when I have to go to bed?”
You may feel like you want to pull your hair out after the 500th ‘why’. However, with every answered question, your children begin to understand the ways of the world just a tiny bit more. ‘Why’ is used to help us understand the way things work around us, and the reason for which we do the things we do. This may help them understand the wonders of nature, or the safety behind rules. ‘Why’ also can help them understand the reasons why we eat and move the way we do to live long, healthy, and happy lives.
I want to explain how you can use ‘why’ to help your children build healthy relationships with food and self-image. Additionally, I will discuss how explaining the why behind our food choices can support your efforts to create a food neutral household.
The Challenges of Food Neutrality
For those who are hoping to support their child’s developing relationship with food, there is one practice that I recommend to all parents – food neutrality. If you’re not familiar with this practice, I cover the basics in my blog, “What is Food Neutrality?“.
This practice is put in place to prevent the strong, charged emotions that we learn to associate with food over time. Without food neutrality, these charged feelings often lead to disordered eating patterns and worsening relationships with food as we struggle to balance health with our personal enjoyment of eating.
For parents who are trying to implement this practice at home, there are a few easy strategies that I recommend. These include, but are not limited to:
- Avoiding food labels, like ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’
- Serveing dessert with dinner
- Following the division of responsibilities
- Avoiding using food as reward for desired behaviors
- Helping them self-regulate their appetite
- Providing them a strong example
However, parents will easily get held back by the ‘old’, non-neutral way of doing things. It feels incredibly normal to guide your child’s eating habits and decisions by offering feedback like…
“No more cookies, you’ve had enough sugar today. Too much sugar is bad for you.”
“Would you please take another bite of your vegetables?”
“If you behave at the grocery store today, we can get ice cream afterwards.”
“You’ve already had seconds, that’s enough food for now.”
Parents can be confused by food neutrality, and wonder, “If I can’t directly guide my child’s habits and choices, how can I make sure they’re healthy? If I give them the power, they’d eat cake, cookies, and white bread for the rest of their lives.”
Well, here’s where ‘why’ comes in.
Why ‘Why’?
Ultimately, when we are using non-neutral food language with our kids, we are just trying to guide them in the right direction and do what’s best for them. However, with this approach, we are telling them what to do rather than explaining why we do what we do. This means we are doing nothing to help them build the skills they need to make their own healthy decisions as they grow up.
We can do the exact same thing by making slight adjustments to our language and approach, simply by explaining the ‘why’ behind our guidance. Let’s take one of the statements above as an example:
Before Food Neutrality: “No more cookies, you’ve had enough sugar today. Too much sugar is bad for you.”
This message is not wrong. We want to teach our kids that we can enjoy sugary foods in moderation, but too much of these foods are not great for our health. Here’s how we can rephrase this message in the spirit of food neutrality, by explaining the why:
After Food Neutrality: “I know you want another cookie, but it looks like we have lots more broccoli, peaches, and chicken if you’re still hungry. Cookies have a lot of sugar, and too much sugar can make us feel cranky and sleepy. Didn’t you say you wanted to play with your brother today after lunch? These other foods will help you run faster and longer – maybe you’ll even beat Jack in a race!”
Let’s go through another example:
Before Food Neutrality: “Would you please take another bite of your vegetables?”
And now, here’s how we can tweak this question into a more neutral experience for the kids.
After Food Neutrality: “Mm dinner was so good tonight. I couldn’t get enough of my carrots – what did you think of the carrots? Did you know that carrots help us see in the dark? It’s true, carrots have vitamins that help our eyesight, especially at night so we can see even when it’s dark out! Isn’t that so cool!?”
The important thing to note with this second example – your kids still may not eat their vegetables. However, our intention is to help them understand why we eat vegetables, and to encourage their curiosity about trying these foods, rather than pressuring them to try and accept them (which will likely have the opposite intended effect).
Why helps us explain our reasons for the choices we make to support a healthy lifestyle. Though the kids may not fully understand these reasons now, over time, they will begin to have an understanding of health and nutrition that will help guide their choices as they get older. It is one thing to understand what is good and bad for us, it is another thing to understand why they are good and bad for us. While we often think of health and nutrition as black or white, it is rarely ever that simple. This practice of food neutrality and explaining the ‘why’ will be instrumental in helping them navigate health as a balance, rather than as an either/or.