Training Children to Eat

Of course I agree with the idea that babies should be breast-fed. In fact I was recently surprised to read that many modern mothers still think that powdered milk is just as good as breast milk! I thought we had solved that one 30 years ago. Perhaps every generation has to begin again.

As a father and a grandfather, I have suffered vicariously for many years watching mothers forcing those extra few spoonfuls into the mouth a child, who looks to me to be on the verge of vomiting and who is intelligent enough to know even at the age of two or three what a sympathetic grandfather is already thinking. I have never really understood this compulsion in women to force their children to eat!

It could be of course that nature and evolution has inculcated into women the feeling that since food is a scarce commodity the tribe may not eat again for many days. We must eat as much as possible as quickly as possible. Who knows when we may eat again!

My method in teaching children to eat is quite the opposite - at great personal sacrifice (in gaining weight) to myself. If a child does not eat in the time allotted, I eat their share instead. They then have to wait to the next meal. This sort of competition teaches children from an early age that they will go hungry if they complain too much or seem too reluctant to eat. Even in evolutionary terms children need to learn how to look after themselves early on. Male lions after all always get the lion's share, and cubs need to learn this quickly or die.

I am not a doctor, but I can't help wondering whether people who suffer from anorexia must have developed an unhealthy dislike for food at a very early age. All those extra spoonfuls forced into their little mouths at the age of two or three may have lasting and harmful effects.

Certainly using my methods, my family has never suffered from not wanting to eat. Indeed so successful is my method that I now need to introduce a counterbalance - we do seem to eat too much chocolate, cream and cake! I am working on it. At least we are not thin!