Building Relationships with Food
Uriia Underhill, B.Sc.
Does your relationship with food directly affect your
children?
The article “A Review of Family Meal Influence” mentioned that eating
dinner as family with at least one adult present may have a good impact on a child’s
eating perspective. While I think this concept holds true to a certain degree
the fact that the family may eat only package “helper” type meals will not give
the child a proper understanding of fueling the body with necessary
macronutrients and micronutrients. Somewhere the prescription of non processed
foods in the form of vegetables, fruits, lean meats, fish and healthy fats has
gotten turned into processed starches and food that only seems fit in a science
experiment. Also lies a problem with the child seeing the parent’s relationship
with food. If the parents believe that after every meal they should be
“rewarded” with a sugary calorie dense dessert or drinking a empty calorie
beverage with every meal certainly the child is programmed to deem this an
acceptable even “the way” to eat. The problem I believe lies in not only the
food products offered in today’s society but also the education given in the
proper way to fuel a body. Even if the subject is touchy to parents now, if we
have better education in the schools maybe the current trend will stop.
Reference:
Woodruff, S., Hanning, R., (2008) A Review of Family Mel
Influence On Adolescents Dietary Intake, Retrieved October 23, 2012
