Feb 23 2009

QoW: Which is the Lesser of Two Evils – Empty Calories or Zero Calories?

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When Gavin was born, I had grand plans not to feed him any sweets or junk food for as long as possible.  Definitely not before two and hopefully not until he started going to school.  Well, that plan went really well…  Gavin had his first taste of ice cream at 9 months and Nutella shortly after he turned one.  Now there’s no holds barred on anything.

Considering he was such a selective eater and I was under a lot of pressure to make him eat, I admit, I caved.  I had to agree that empty calories had to be preferable to zero calories, right?  And besides, I was feeding him fortified junk food whenever possible – like Milo cereal and animal crackers.

After learning more about how much breastfeeding toddlers should be consuming, perhaps I had jumped the gun a little.  If I had done a little more research earlier, I might have realised that Gavin’s pattern of food consumption wasn’t something to be concerned about with a breastfeeding toddler.  Unfortunately, the damage is done and Gavin has already developed a taste for junk food.  For instance, I can’t take him past Chili’s without him wanting to go inside to eat chips.  The good news is that he only does that if he’s hungry.

Now that I’ve unwittingly created a junk-food-loving monster, I’m wondering how I’m ever going to undo this problem.  I even started reading a blog called Little Stomaks to get ideas – there’s an interesting post there with tips for parents to get their kids to eat more fruits and veggies.  Currently, Gavin doesn’t eat veggies and he only eats fresh mangoes and pears, although he’ll drink fruit juice and take strawberry flavoured food and drinks.

I had harboured some hope that as Gavin grew older, I would be able to explain the importance of eating more healthy foods.  After all, my brother and I weren’t exactly the healthiest of individuals – eating veggies was like being poisoned – and yet, we both managed to pick up healthier diets, sort of.  And if I feared that all was lost, I have been re-inspired by Dooce who has a picky eater that has got to be infinitely worse than Gavin. Leta only eats five varieties of food.  Gavin’s repertoire is much more impressive – at least more than I can count with my fingers and possibly even toes.  And yet Dooce managed to get her daughter to stop taking treats.

Now if she can manage that then surely I can get my not-so-fussy eater to eventually drop the junk food, right?

Although it is probably a little pointless to ask this question now that it’s done, just for academic purposes, what do you think:

Is it better to feed your child empty calories rather than to leave your child with zero calories? (Okay, well, technically it isn’t zero calories since your child will eat something – in our case it was breastmilk mostly)

Do you think that if we refrain from introducing the empty calories, then through the instinct to survive, our children would eventually learn to eat the healthy foods?  Surely you can’t yearn for something you don’t know about, right?

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