​“If you study all day today - I will take you out for pizza”
 
“If you finish dinner - you can have dessert”
 
“If you play tennis well today - we will stop for ice creams on the way back”
 
Do you find yourself making such statements all the time?
 
And do you then complain that your child is a Picky Eater - who picks junk food in place of healthy food?
 
Can you see why he does that?
 
When you repeatedly offer junk food as a bribe or reward - you give it the status of the ultimate attainment - you make it that one thing worth striving for.
 
Junk foods by nature are intensely sweet, salty or fatty. And such foods have the ability to trigger off the Reward Pathway in the brain. The Reward Pathway is what causes people to get addicted to substances like Cocaine.
 
Cocaine is addicting because - once an addict is attuned to the reward cocaine offers his brain - he is unable to resist the urge to take it in larger and larger doses - which is what makes him an addict.
 
Junk food works the same way.
 
Cocaine abuse however is illegal, socially stigmatised and known to be fatal. So even in your wildest dreams you would not dream of offering your child cocaine as a reward.
 
But you offer your child junk food - the chemical properties of which stimulate the reward pathways of the brain. And by doing this - cause your child to get addicted to something which may not be fatal immediately – but is definitely potentially damaging to the physical and mental health of your child.
In addition with your words - you give it the status of the ultimate attainment or reward.
 
Unsurprisingly then - your Picky Eater picks junk food over everything else.
 
Stop offering junk food as a reward. In fact do not offer food as a reward at all.
 
Rather offer an extra large doses of your affection and time as rewards
 
Say - “You get two kisses instead of one - every time you play the new piano piece right”
 
“We play two games of Uno - instead of one if you finish dinner quickly”
 
“We go for a walk in evening - if you finish studying during the day”
 
Keep your child from getting addicted even as you compel yourself to eke out those extra minutes of quality time.
 
Your love in its pure unadulterated form is what your child wants and needs. Do not feel compelled to give support it with the crutch of junk food.
 
Stay healthy - stay happy  

When you are a concerned parent – it is extremely worrying and terribly annoying when your child says “I am not hungry” at mealtimes.

Parents who are faced with children who say they are not hungry rush to doctors requesting a prescription of appetite stimulants – but that is NOT the solution. Definitely not the permanent solution.

To ensure that your child is hungry – it is important for you to understand the gut.

The gut or the gastrointestinal system is one of the most important organs in the body and it is really important to understand how it functions.

In my workshops on nutrition when I introduce parents to their children’s guts and tell them that in a child - the gut is an inexperienced new organ that needs patience and understanding to function well – I get incredulous looks at first.

Then as I go about explaining how the gut functions – its needs - what makes it happy and what makes it sad – I have the satisfaction of witnessing the very rewarding

“Aha!”moment when parents realize how they have ignored and neglected the needs of their children’s guts.

The gut needs a lot more than just FOOD and that is what parents need to understand.

One of the most important things that the gut needs besides food – is ROUTINE.

The gut thrives on routine and when it is happy – the other organs in the body that depend on it for food – thrive as well. As a result you have a healthier and happier child.

To keep the gut happy - it is important to serve meals and snacks at about the same times every day.

This is because the gut is like the kitchen of the body. And it is a kitchen that caters to the needs of millions of cells. The food that your child eats has to be cooked further in the gut to become cell food. Each cell needs to be fed on time and so the gut has a mammoth task to perform at all times.
When the gut is relatively sure of food coming down at specific times it keeps the ingredients and sufficient manpower at hand to tackle the food. This then makes its life much easier.

So when meals arrive in expected amounts at specified times - the gut is able to digest meal 1 and get ready for snack 1 and then digest snack 1 and get ready for meal 2 at just the right times. As a result - it never feels overburdened.

Forcing the issue – never works with the gut. It begins to protest by aching and paining and packing up.

Serve meals on time so that you never have a misunderstanding with your child’s gut.
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Wishing you happy meal times!