Comments on: Eat or die

By: Joya H

Joya H — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:05:45 +0000

Great post, Arwyn. My husband and I both have “eating issues” that we can trace back to childhood, from not having enough food to being forced to eat what we didn’t want to eat.
I am resolved not to force foods on my toddler or resort to bribery or punishment but I’ve found that having my own issues with food make it difficult. And, like Annie @ PhD, my son will skip meals so he can nurse (an enormous amount), which is frustrating because I’m also nursing his infant sister and sometimes I just get “touched out”.
But these are just little challenges! Thank you for reminding me of the number one rule “eat or die” and how lucky my family is to have enough to eat. None of us is worth any more than any other human on the planet and some how we got lucky enough to have this discussion.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:50:43 +0000

Eat or die!

By: Ruth Moss

Ruth Moss — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:48:20 +0000

(Sorry, what’s the first law of nutrition? And don’t tell me it’s “we don’t talk about the first law of nutrition”)

By: charles

charles — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:51:41 +0000

Wow, it’s so refreshing to see people who aren’t judgemental about parenting. In my former life as a non-parent, I had my share of ill-informed opinions about the “best” way to raise kids, but becoming a parent was a huge wake up call to reality.

Going through the daily struggles of parenting I can’t bring myself to judge other people for living according to their own unique situations. Unfortunately, that’s not a universal realization among parents.

Anyway, Arwyn, I have to say that I just stumbled onto your blog and I’m hooked.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:58:28 +0000

I know a LOT of parents for whom that’s true. I think I’ve mostly skipped it, but I know The Man sometimes does that (with my food, too), because of the food issues he grew up with. With any luck, we can spare the next generation that compulsion, without encouraging waste. (I think that part will come later, when he’s able to dish up his own food. Having grown up only ever eating as much as he wants, and not feeling compelled to not eat more/to finish it all, he’ll be better able to take just what he wants. I hope.)

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:56:00 +0000

“Maybe your son (and my daughter) feel able to reject food at mealtimes because they know there will be something else later.”

Yes, exactly. Which, as a side note, is one of the multitude of reasons that Diets Don’t Work (ever, but especially when imposed externally, like from a parent to a child). When we aren’t sure we’re always going to have enough, we eat everything we can when we have the opportunity. Because our hind brains know the only law is eat or die.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:52:41 +0000

I fully agree on the likelihood thing. That’s true of so much of what “natural/crunchy” parents advocate for: good birth practices and confidence increase the LIKELIHOOD of successful breastfeeding, BLW increases the LIKELIHOOD of a healthy relationship with food and a broad palate, etc. There aren’t any absolutes, we can just influence the outcomes.

But we still, first, have to obey the first law of nutrition.

By: Annie @ PhD in Parenting

Annie @ PhD in Parenting — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:40:07 +0000

I agree generally with this post and I think with most kids it works. I believe in balance over time and not everyday. So if my child eats next to nothing one day and a ton the next day, I don’t worry. If she eats nothing but olives one day and nothing but strawberries the next, that is fine too.

My son is an exception though (as was/is my brother). If left to his own devices, he would eat nothing but protein and carbs. My brother was mostly left to his own devices and ate pretty much exclusively protein and carbs, is not particularly healthy as a result and has suffered from various health problems. He has been working out and trying to eat better recently, but for the first 30 years of his life, his diet sucked. So with my son, we do insist on some fruits and veggies. We do not force any particular ones, but serve ones we know he is willing to eat and insist that they be part of the mix of what he consumes. Often serving them before anything else is served helps, because he’ll eat them while waiting for the rest of the meal to be ready.

With my daughter where I’ve had to compromise/bargain is with regards to dinner/night nursing. She would prefer not to eat dinner, but to nurse all night long. So if I know she didn’t eat much at lunch, didn’t have a snack in the afternoon, and doesn’t have an upset stomach, I sometimes have to insist that she eat at least some of her dinner otherwise there will be no nursing at bedtime. It isn’t a tactic I particularly like, but it is preferable to nursing an almost 3 year old every 30 minutes all night long or resorting to something like CIO to “show her” the “consequences” of not eating her dinner.

On the issue of food and affordability, we went to a wonderful exposition recently at one of our local museums that had pictures of families around the world with their groceries for the week. It showed what they ate and listed the price. It was a great opportunity to talk with my kids about how different people eat different things and how some people cannot afford the types of things that we have.

By: Emerson

Emerson — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:24:02 +0000

Arwyn: (got to respond) I love this article. No disagrements. My response to ’starving children in Africa’ was If I dont eat it, they still wont get it. I see the same red. I can remember hiding food, sitting at the table for an hour not to ‘clean up my plate’. Ive been, still am, guilty of the ‘no desert, you said you were full’ argument. And all this is due to a very privileged life. I can and lived on just ensure, but it is expensive. As for good nutrition, Ill never forget the day I learned my body knows what it needs: I hate raw cooked spinach. Always have. Still do. But one needs those nutrients somehow, and I have to force myself to eat veggies. Except one unforgettable day in the college commons. The spinach smelled delicious! It was the same as ever, but my body was insisting I eat some of what I needed. On the other hand, humans are designed to crave sugar, and refined sugar is not really a nutrient. Which is why the candy companies are so irresponsible. Sigh.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:07:09 +0000

This is one of those cases of privilege where I fully expect and encourage those of us who have it to use it — raising our children with disordered (unnecessarily controlled) eating habits would do nothing for those children who experience eating coercion in order to obey the first rule of nutrition. Should we be doing what we can to help abolish hunger around us? Yes, absolutely. But creating false scarcity in our own homes is no way to accomplish that. (“There are starving children in Africa” is a phrase that, uttered at a dinner table, makes me see red, for a multitude if reasons.)

Where I think it matters we remember the privilege inherent in this philosophy is when we are promoting or advocating for it. Because it’s not just the objectified and mythologized “children in Africa” who are at risk of starvation, whose parents struggle to fulfill the first law of nutrition for their families, it is people right here, reading this, participating in online discussions, loving parents who are looking for tips on how to encourage their children to eat zucchini not out of a desire to control or because they don’t trust their children’s hunger signals but because it’s the only vegetable they can afford this month.

When we forget this, when we argue for intuitive eating (which is a good thing!) as though the only reason someone would choose otherwise is ignorance and not perhaps structural oppression, then we are acting like privileged douchebags and deserved to be called on it.