Children prefer candy to veggies (11/12/07)

"I want candy." That is my granddaughter's new favorite sentence. This is followed by her mother telling her no, that she must eat her supper. Emma then will eat a single piece of macaroni before once again demanding candy and once again being denied the treat.

There are nutrition wars going on down in Texas. Emma is almost two years old and seemingly lives on air. She doesn't eat but a bite here and there. She is a naturally skinny child and this worries her mother to death.

She comes by this honestly. My daughter was also on the slender side and my mother-in-law was constantly complaining that I didn't feed the girl enough. She took every opportunity to try to coax Beth to eat. It didn't work as Beth stayed skinny but she did learn to cook!

My solution was not to force feed her nor to insist that she clean her plate. Instead I began hosting tea parties for her and one of her friends. I served celery, carrots and peppers cut into tiny pieces. A sliced hot dog and miniature squares of white bread were piled on a plate for sandwiches. Kool-Aid was served instead of tea. Since this was a treat they ate the veggies and came back for more.

I'm a firm believer in the fact that a child will eat when it gets hungry. I do tend to withhold sweets and other non-essential foods in order to encourage the consumption of more nutritious fare. Yes, I know that hot dogs aren't exactly nutritious but they are protein. I do not believe in giving children soda pop ever but realize that is an impossibility in today's world.

Children need smaller portions of food more often rather than one huge plate full three times a day. A piece of string cheese here and a banana there is enough to sustain them for a couple of hours.

I figure as long as Emma runs around terrorizing her cats and the dog she is fine. As long as she is healthy and happy and screaming incoherently into the telephone at me then there is nothing to worry about.

Her mom disagrees. "She has to EAT!" she proclaims before telling me that all Emma has had all day is a banana, some string cheese, a few bites of macaroni, some Goldfish crackers, a couple bites of this, a little of that and some milk. It sounded like a reasonably balanced diet to me.

I think that at least part of the obesity epidemic in this country is due to our insistence on cleaning our plates. The portion sizes these days are ridiculous. My husband is fond of joking that no matter what I order in a restaurant they will bring it out on a forklift. I usually get at least three meals out of any restaurant dinner.

By insisting that our children eat what we give them we are continuing on in the tradition of telling them that an empty plate is a good plate. We tell them that they should be able to eat massive amounts of food but then insist that fat is bad.

What's a child to do? They do what children have always done. They eat what they want and refuse the rest. If the rest of us could do that then every women's magazine there is wouldn't have a diet featured in every issue along with a delicious-looking cake on the cover.

Children know that candy tastes better than peas. Goldfish crackers are better than green beans. Anything tastes better than whatever Mama has put in front of them. They also know that screaming will bring results.

Therefore, "I want candy!" will be heard in the background of conversations with my daughter for awhile longer. I can't imagine we will ever get her to scream, "I want vegetables!"[[In-content Ad]]