Why do you want kids to finish the food on their plates so bad?

Content warning: food, eating disorders, emotional abuse.

Tonight I was watching this video from Tiffanyferg about snacks and the different cultures around what foods we keep around the house. It reminded me of some things people have said to me as I was growing up and as an adult about why it means so much to some people if you stop eating before you have emptied your plate, especially when you are a child. I wanted to take a look at those reasons and think about how harmful they can be when you are growing up and building your relationship with food.

Some kids somewhere in the world are hungry

Let’s start with the stupidest reason, but also the one I remember hearing the most from strangers. It is really weird, I don’t understand how it could be so common, and even as a kid I called bullshit on this one. Usually it was said in a variation around “do you know there are kids dying of famines in Africa?”, which has some troubling racist undertones. What do I, a six-year-old not finishing my lunch at school in France, have to do with kids dying on the other side of the globe, I could not tell you.

It was often adults at school or family members other than my parents who would say that to me. It didn’t have a big impact because I knew it was stupid and me eating wouldn’t help anyone else on the planet, but it goes to show how much strangers want you to eat your whole serving, summoning big scary reasons.

You should not waste food

Another common one is that “you should not waste the food”. To that I would say: why would you throw out perfectly good food instead of storing it in the fridge and eating it later? This is a very bad excuse. Or if you are already trying to do that and find that you can’t finish all the leftovers before they go bad, review your grocery shopping. Do one meal a week that is just eating all the leftovers so they don’t go to waste.

A similar one is that “we are paying for it”, usually if you are at a restaurant. Before we go further, you should take a look at the Sunk cost fallacy. The first article I found when searching for a definition of the sunk cost fallacy is actually using this exact example:

In one experiment, participants were asked to imagine that they were at a potluck party and that, after eating a few bites of a rich cake, they felt full. Some were told the cake had been purchased from a local bakery on sale, while others were told the cake was expensive and had come from a shop an hour’s drive away.

In each scenario, participants were asked to imagine that they had bought the cake themselves, or that someone else had brought it to the potluck. They were then asked whether they would finish the cake despite feeling full.

According to the results, people who were told they were eating the expensive cake were far more likely to say they would keep eating. Interestingly, this had nothing to do with who had bought it—friends, strangers, or the participants themselves.

Even when you know what the sunk cost fallacy is, you can always ask for a box to take back home, and eat it later. Or order a shared meal for children who don’t eat everything. This excuse is either in bad faith, or just a logistical problem on your part.

You are too thin/You should eat more so that you have all the nutrients you need

Here we are getting into the pseudo-medical reasons that I was sometimes given. First of all, I should not need to remind anyone that commenting that a person’s body is not as it should be is NEVER a good idea and NEVER going to help that person in any way. When that is told to a child, it has a big impact on how they build their self esteem and body image. Do you really want to be part of the reason someone hates their body?

I understand where the anxiety that kids don’t eat enough comes from. As the American Academy of Pediatrics tells us, “Some parents worry because young children appear to eat very small amounts of food, especially when compared with adult portions”. But children never starve themselves: “A child who is growing well is getting enough to eat.”

The key message is that you have to trust your child:

• How do you know your child is not starving? Ask your child if they are hungry. If they are, give them food. If not, don’t.
• How do you know if they have eaten enough? Ask them if they still want to eat.

It’s that simple. If it still scares you too much, ask a doctor. If you are scared even if medical professionals tell you it is all right, then the problem is your anxiety, and you need to find solutions for it without harming your child.

You are pretending that you are not hungry

Oftentimes when I was a kid, I would tell my parents that my stomach hurts and I can’t eat anymore. 100% of the time, they would assume I was lying to them so that I could stop eating. What would I gain out of not eating enough, that would be worth lying for? I have no idea.

Now let’s do a little thought experiment: Have you ever eaten too much because you have your favorite snack on hand and then felt physically sick, like you were going to throw up because you ate too much. Can you picture it? Is it a bad sensation?

Now imagine that happens to you every day. And not because you are at a special family dinner with your favorite food or anything. It’s on normal days, with everyday food and it’s someone else making you stay at the table for hours on end until you are done with your plate, sometimes reprimanding you or threatening you. What do you think your child’s relationship with food is going to be after that?

When you are not trusting that your child about their sensations, you are telling them that adults can make you feel physical pain and control what happens to your body without your consent. Do you see how that is dangerous?

It tells you that you cannot trust what your body tells you. Unlearning to listen to your sensations is a very dangerous situation. As an adult, I do not listen to my body when it tells me I need to eat, sleep or even pee. I have disconnected many of my sensations from the needs that they are telling me about. Being disconnected from your emotions, having your body and your rational mind not aligned is a big source of stress.

Some closing thoughts

I know this article can sound preachy and moralizing, and that is because I am angry at how much this has been the norm for all my life, everywhere I looked. How this form of abuse was never acknowledged.

I’m not saying raising a child is easy, I’m not saying that building healthy eating habits or letting go of your anxieties around children is easy. I’m not saying you will traumatize your child if you ask them to try to take one more spoonful of the food that’s on their plate. I hope you understand the main message, and that you are able to trust what your child tries to tell you about their body. Because if you tell them you don’t, they won’t trust you when they are sick, they will not tell you if they notice something is off because they believe you will not trust them, like you didn’t trust their other feelings. They won’t remember to drink when they are thirsty, they won’t remember to slow down when they are tired. They will not love their bodies. They will not have to tools to correctly take care of them.

Please take care of your kids, and teach them how to take care of themselves, with love.