First Bite

First Bite explains how you’ve acquired your eating habits in your childhood and why they’re not hardwired, as well as how you can change them for the better and teach your children to eat healthy.

Who had the biggest impact on your eating habits? Your parents, of course! Chances are that, if you were always told to finish your plate, you still eat whatever’s in front of you today, even when you’re already full. Or if your mom always allowed you to snack before dinner, you probably still do that today. The eating habits of our parents become our eating habits.

Therefore, the only right way to get your kids to acquire good eating habits is to lead by example.

One thing that’s proven to never work is forcing kids to “eat the right stuff” – especially when you’re not doing it yourself. Kids will see right through the “salad scam” and simply refuse. But imagine letting your kids choose to eat what they want. A nightmare, right?

Maybe not. In 1929, a study was done letting babies as young as six months self-select their food. The babies were all given a selection of 34 foods and then allowed to choose among everything from milk to kidney. The study continued for six years, and the kids were never pressured into selecting.

Astonishingly, over the duration of the study, all children chose all foods, and even went for the healthiest ones when sick.

So don’t stress about letting your kids decide what to eat – especially with you being a good example not that much can go wrong.

Did your grandma use to tell you to “have just one more bite” when you were little? Or to finish your entire plate? Or to have dessert, even when you said you were full? Why do grandparents do that? And is it any good? First of all, no, it’s not good, of course. It just makes you fat. And that’s exactly what grandparents want. But they mean well. You have to remember that your grandparents likely lived in times when food wasn’t always readily available. Most grandparents have been through a war, famine or food shortage at some point in their lives, so their natural tendency is to want something better for their children and grandchildren. It’s the equivalent of rich parents paying everything for their kids, and thus spoiling them. While your grandparents think you’ll be well prepared with a few extra kilograms of weight, chances of a food shortage are very slim in most places nowadays, which turns these good intentions into bad weight problems. This problem is especially prominent in China, where most parents work and grandparents take care of…