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How to build a healthy relationship with food in a child
Table of Contents
1. Is that a good relationship with food at all?
Taking good care of the proper relationship with food translates into other aspects of life and makes this natural activity very pleasurable. A good relationship with eating is characterized by a lack of categorizing food into allowed and forbidden, and by allowing oneself to consume a variety of even less healthy products without guilt and obsessive calorie counting.2. Is there anything you can do to make the relationship with food work?
Here are some tips for caregivers that can help your child develop a healthy relationship with food.3. Allow me to learn how to eat and taste freely
It's important to remember that children learn through play, and they need time to understand that food can be eaten. Giving a child food to eat on their own is messy, but it also has many advantages: it develops the sense of touch, sight and smell, it teaches decision-making, and it builds the awareness that eating can be a pleasure.4. Take care of the conscious food
Feeding a baby while watching a fairy tale or a game will keep him from focusing on food, not noticing what he is eating, what it tastes like, what color or consistency, and not observing whether he has eaten. It is best that the food is eaten at the table.5. Don't treat food as a reward or punishment
Or as a punishment, you don't go to the playground until you eat dinner. Food should be a natural activity, not under pressure. And you have to be careful not to make too many emotional associations with food. It's not worth treating food as a reward by saying that if you're polite, you'll get chocolate.6. Invite the child to the kitchen and cook together
Cooking together can bring a lot of satisfaction, teaches cooperation, and the foods a child cooks are usually more likely to be eaten. A child can mix, slice, break eggs, grind cake, and do many other activities that are interesting to him, which will also support his sensory development. Even children can participate in the cooking process when the activities are adjusted to their age.7. Have a meal together
It's important to maintain a pleasant atmosphere at the table, and sometimes mealtimes are the only time during the day to have a peaceful conversation and to share what's going on at school or at work, and sharing a meal with a child is an opportunity to build family bonds.8. It's not like I'm going to be able to do it
It's important not to force children to eat foods that they don't like, and to respect that fact. We all have a few foods that we do not like, which is completely natural. But it's worth proposing a food that we don' t like from time to time. Sometimes taste preferences change, and that's not surprising. The younger ones also have their own taste, smell, or consistency preferences.9. Is that a good time to go to a specialist?
If a young child consistently and for a long time refuses to eat and does not gain weight, it is advisable to discuss this with a child's dietitian. If a child loses significant weight and is reluctant to eat meals together, you should consult a psychiatrist, as this may be a sign of developing eating disorders. There are situations in which you need to seek help from a specialist. Older children and teenagers sometimes have a problem with accepting their figure.
