Three more bites

We were recently on a family vacation. Meal times were different than normal because many different feeding techniques were present in the same house for a week.  I entered the room at the same time that my mom was telling my daughter, “Take three more sips of your smoothie before you can have a granola bar”.  I’m used to my family members being a little unsure of the Ellyn Satter principles, so this didn’t surprise me… if anything it was a learning opportunity for both my mom and me.  I’m sure many of you reading this are thinking, “Oops… we do that all the time.”  As my mom said, “I’m just doing what I was taught to do”.  And to her in that moment, the method seemed to work because E ended up drinking her entire smoothie and forgot about the granola bar. In my mom’s defense, why not use this method?

Fast forward to two meals at my home the following week with just me and my daughter. As she was talking about getting down from the table, I heard her impose her own “3 more bites” rule on herself. Instead of being attuned to her hunger and fullness, she was making it a matter of bites left to finish. I’m glad this came up because it has forced me to look up some references about why it is important to not do the “3 more bites” thing.

I looked at this study, ”Just three more bites”: an observational analysis of parents’ socialization of children’s eating at mealtime. In this study, they interpreted the results to mean that when parents use pressure tactics, praise, and food rewards it teaches children to eat past their internal hunger/ satiety cues.  This is exactly what I saw E doing.  Instead of getting down from the table when her “tummy says it’s done” (an internal cue), suddenly she’s started to tell herself that she can be finished after a certain number of bites (an external cue). In addition, when we teach her that the smoothie (full of fruits and veggies) is something she has to “get through” before she can enjoy a granola bar, it is not keeping the foods neutral…it’s categorizing them.

My mom and I had a good discussion about my goal for E’s eating habits in the future.  I am not trying to raise a “healthy eater” … I’m trying to raise a “competent eater“.  I won’t go into that topic here, but if you have the time, please familiarize yourself with the definition of competent eater.  This is a big topic.  I hope to get into it more later.

Luckily, I caught this 3-bite-thing early, so I’m hoping I can undo what she was inadvertently taught. I have also realized that she is into counting everything right now, so it’s possible she’s just in a “counting stage”. But I’m glad I witnessed my mom trying the “3 more bites” trick so that we both could use it as a learning opportunity.

(I feel like I should add that my mom gave me permission to talk about this on the blog. My mom is amazing and she does an excellent job helping me raising my babies!)

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This is what Ellyn Satter has to say on her website:

Avoid Pressure

Pressure on children’s eating always backfires. Keep in mind that all children are more-or-less picky about food. Trying to get a child to eat more than she wants makes her eat less. Trying to get her to eat less than she wants makes her eat more. Trying to get her to eat certain foods makes her avoid them. Trying to get her to be neat and tidy makes her messy. Putting up with negative behavior in hopes she will eat makes her behave badly but not eat. What to do instead?  Follow the division of responsibility in feeding!

1. Pressure can seem positive: Praising, reminding, bribing, rewarding, applauding, playing games, talking about nutrition, giving stickers, going on and on about how great the food is, making special food, serving vegetables first, making food fun (to get the child to eat, not just to have fun).
2. Pressure can be negative: Restricting amounts or types of food, coaxing, punishing, shaming, criticizing, begging, withholding dessert, treats, or fun activities, physically forcing, threatening.
3. Pressure can seem like good parenting: Insisting on “no thank you” bites, encouraging or reminding her to eat, taste, smell or lick, making her eat her vegetables, warning her that she will be hungry, making special food, keeping after her to use her silverware or napkin, hiding vegetables in other foods, letting her eat whenever she wants to between meals.
4. Pressure can be hard to detect: Ask yourself why you are doing something with feeding. Is it to get your child to eat more, less or different food than he does on his own? If so, it is pressure.

– See more at: http://ellynsatterinstitute.org/htf/avoidpressure.php#sthash.qLHrS15i.dpuf