We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog to bring you this special edition, "What Briggs Thinks About All Day." Today's topic: Trying to get my children to eat.
As is true with most small children, attempting to get them to actually swallow a well-rounded diet is like getting Trump to say something reasonable: impossible. For the record, I am an amazing eater - with lots of practice, I've honed the skill quite successfully over the years. Bring me a food to consume, and I'll show you how it's done. But my kids have not been blessed with such opportunities yet.
Enter, research. Back in October, I happened upon a book at the library entitled "First Bite: How We Learn to Eat" by Bee Wilson. The interesting thing about this book is that it gave no advice. Instead, it provided a summary of most of the research done on eating throughout history. It also discussed the habits in other cultures, and which foods are eaten merely because once upon a time it was thought to be a cure-all, and folks just never stopped eating it despite evidence to the contrary.
The most compelling research she summarized was a study performed by Dr. Davis (a woman!) in the 1920s. This was before ethics mattered, so she studied dozens of orphaned children in her hospital. These children were given only 34 foods throughout their early childhoods.
Water
Sweet milk
sour milk
sea salt
apples
bananas
orange juice
fresh pineapple
peaches
tomatoes
beets
carrots
peas
turnips
cauliflower
cabbage
spinach
potatoes
lettuce
oatmeal
wheat
cornmeal
barley
Ry-Krisp
Beef
Lamb
bone marrow
bone jelly
chicken
sweetbreads
brains
liver
kidneys
fish
At each meal, 4-5 of the above foods were prepared for the babies/children. The nurses distributing the food could give no encouragement to eat, nor praise for eating. They just followed the little guys' lead. These children never knew of any other foods. So, they didn't know sugar or candy were an option - they'd never seen it.
Remarkably, through whatever combination each child chose from the foods above, they all ended up with the well-rounded diet that nutritionists then (and now) recommend, with calories split between carbs (55%), fat (30%) and proteins (15%) appropriately.
What this tells us is that kids will eat what they need to eat to be healthy...assuming they aren't ever offered sweets. Obviously, that's impossible in the real world. The author recommended making sweets rare, but also insignificant. Meaning, don't give them treats, but when you do, don't make it a big deal. The question remains....how??
She had no advice on that, so Lynn and I decided it best if the two of us sacrificed ourselves by eating all of the junk food as soon as it enters the house. Brilliant.
Knowing whatever I did wouldn't be perfect, I decided to try anyway. I started offering them lots of nutritious foods, and telling Nova (at least) that she has to try everything, but she doesn't have to eat all of it if she doesn't like it. As an aside, I cannot tell you how many times she's tried a new food and said, "YUM!" only to refuse to finish it. I...Don't...Get....It. Lynx mostly just gives me the food back. Thanks buddy. But, I kept trying.
Another notable part of this book had to do with food neophobia. Food neophobia is a fear of new foods. Apparently, all small children are afraid of new foods, which makes sense in terms of survival. But as I've said to Lynn many times, so......I'm dedicating 100% of my life to these little creatures, yet they still believe I'm going to randomly poison them with this innocent asparagus?
That being said, it is nice to know that they are weary of new foods, as it's prompted me to just serve the same stuff (that I like - haha), over and over again so they get used to it. It's a win-win: I get to eat delicious foods, and they get to watch me.
Ultimately, I've taken both of those points to heart - that the kids will eat a well-rounded diet if given the opportunity, and that they are afraid of new foods - and the kids have finally started to eat better. Lynx ate an entire scrambled egg the other day - something he has refused for months and months. Nova eats about half of the things she's offered. Some of the time she refuses peas, other times she'll eat a cup of it. I attribute all of this to her listening to what her body needs.
Thanks for joining in for this special edition of "What Briggs Thinks about All Day." Join us next time for..."How the Body Knows Its Mind."
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