Developing Healthy Living has become more of a buzz word than anything in our society today, and yet I do not think that many people know how to define it. Instead people use words like Obese, Fattening, and Calories to beat around the bush and get what Healthy Living is not. I guess it is good to avoid these things, but often times with such complicated subjects as health and diet it is easier to define what it is not rather than directly attack what it is. In all fairness the relationship between healthy living and non-healthy living is two strokes because you do have to know what habits to avoid and then replace those habits with positive ones. In the context of this parent and child development class I think that the as a future parent I should really be asking myself what develops Healthy Living? Isn’t development the whole idea behind parenting? Not definitions of healthy or non-healthy but the development of my child from being bottle feed to being able to go to college their freshman year and buy their own groceries. Some were a long that path of development my child is going develop what healthy living means to them, and the frightening aspect is that I am the one responsible for teaching them. Fortunately, my parent taught me to live healthy by avoiding processed foods, exercising, and sleeping and there were some really good ideas in our class discussions about how to develop Healthy Living.
I think that the most interesting video we watched in class about eating was the picky eaters. In a short summary the video we watched was about a pediatrician who encouraged parents of picky eaters to let their children go hungry for a few meals until they realize that what is for dinner is for dinner. What? Go hungry how frightening is all that I could think, until the pediatrician started to explain the psychology behind his suggestion. He emphasized that a parent’s job is not to put food inside of their child’s stomach, but to help the child develop healthy living. If the parent’s goal is to just feed their child for that one day and at that one meal then yes making sure that even if they only eat gram crackers and peanut butter at least they got something into their stomach is the perfect approach, but that is not the goal of a parent. Parents are there to help their children become independent and self-reliant. The pediatrician said that if parents keep that goal in mind it is easy for them to send their child to bed hungry a few nights, because hunger is the natural consequence of not eating. This idea was completely reverse to anything that I dreamed of being true.
In class it was also really good to hear that parents should make trying new foods a positive experience by not forcing their child to eat the new food. My dad used to say that cabbage was Adam and Eve’s favorite dinner food and then he would take a big bite of cabbage himself. The next night Adam and Eve liked lima beans and the night after that Adam and Eve liked onions. Come to find out Adam and Eve liked all of the vegetables on my dinner plate, imagine that. I think that people in general like expectations, and believe that there should be an expectation for everything. If I were given a plate of food at a new dinner and the waiter told me that I might not like it but that I had to eat it all any way I would probably not eat it and you can forget about tipping the waiter. I think back to how many times I have trusted the opinion of the white-shirted-pen-holding-low-salary waiter taking my order and even if the dish I ordered was not my favorite I justify the meal because it was the house special or the most ordered platter and that if I came to the same restaurant the next day and ordered the same plate the chef would have prepared it better. Children are not much different. Not that I want to belittle a hard working mother to a full-time waitress but I agree with the pediatrician that not forcing children to eat new foods and also giving children high expectations for new foods helps them to feel encouraged to explore and try new and different foods.
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