Reading 62
SMARTER CHOICES
Kids crave food freedom
Sally Squires
the Washington Post
November 7, 2006
Parents and kids traditionally tussle over clothes, hairstyles and curfews. But it's the food struggles at the family dinner table that can
sometimes linger well into adulthood.
For Emily M. DeSantis, 26, the battle lines were drawn over meatloaf and stuffed green peppers. "My mom would not let me leave the
table until I had tried a bit of whatever gross thing she was making," DeSantis says. "So I fell asleep at bedtime in my chair more than a
few times."
As an adult, DeSantis tries to even the score: When she dines out with her mother, she chooses a sushi restaurant. "My mother despises
it, and I love it," DeSantis says. "I feel I deserve revenge for all that meatloaf."
Epic tales of food struggles between parents who want their kids to eat healthfully and children who want to exert their growing
independence are familiar to Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, who studies adolescent eating at the University of Minnesota . "I hear many,
many stories like these," she says.
Exactly how the tug-of-war over food in childhood shapes adult eating behavior is not known because there's little research on the topic.
The few studies that have been done point to "no residual impact at all," says John M. de Castro, a psychologist at Sam Houston State
University in Texas who studies twins separated at birth. "The contribution that the family makes appears to be in the genes that are
passed down and the current environment. Those are the driving forces in eating habits once people are adults."
Even so, the memories of being cajoled to eat oatmeal for breakfast or forced to eat your green beans before leaving the table can be
long lasting.
"This is not so much about adolescent rebellion over food," says Neumark-Sztainer, "as about having any kind of behavior forced on you."
Nor is it only parents who engage in a food power struggle with kids.
"When I was in grade school on a daily basis, I was the last pupil permitted to leave the lunchroom table because I wouldn't drink my
milk," says Kim Neal, 46. "The longer I sat, the warmer the milk got, so as if cold milk wasn't nasty enough to me, now I was forced to
drink warm milk. I would sit there and eventually sip and sip and sip and when I took the last sip, I would bring it all back up. How stupid
this daily ritual was! . . . My mother would do the same thing to me at home, but with peas. And guess what? To this day, I hate milk and
peas."
But Neal says the experience taught her a valuable lesson. "I never, ever forced my children to eat or drink something they did not like,
no matter how good I thought it was for them."
Research suggests that taking a looser approach to eating can be better for kids and more effective for parents. Studies show that
simply having fruit and vegetables available in the home is one of the best predictors of getting kids to eat them.
It also seems that the fewer rules about eating, the better. "It's good to have meals at certain times, but people need to have freedom
of choice in what they eat," says Neumark-Sztainer, author of I'm, Like, So Fat!: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating
and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World ( Guilford ; $16.95).
It's that kind of laid-back approach to food that some say still gives them an eating edge as adults.
"When I was little, we always had candy in the house that I was allowed to eat freely, whenever I wanted," says Colleen D. Teixeira. "As a
result, having candy was never a very big deal. . . . Even now in my 20s, candy is not something I seek out or eat very often even when it is
in front of me."
As an adult, Sara Pipher now fully appreciates the emphasis that her parents placed on eating a variety of healthful, great-tasting foods.
They never forced her or her brother to eat anything, but offered them everything. As a result, Pipher, 29, says, "I was eating sukiyaki,
bulgogi, pickled daikon and enchiladas with cilantro practically before I could walk. To this day, I will try any food once."
One of her best food memories is simply sharing an apple every night after dinner with her father -- a ritual that he learned from his
father. "He would take a paring knife and we'd eat apple slices while we talked about our day," she says. While it's a little ritual, "it's one
that I plan to continue with my kids."