Oh for the sake of fuck, Dr Ranj!

[YokoUhOh]

Just bought DS1 the CBeebies 'Food' special edition magazine. It contains my biggest gripy fucking bugbear slap bang in the middle of it (I refer you to the attached pic, and I'm not talking about Dr Ranj's incredible dancing eyebrows).

Why is 'finish what's on your plate' still considered good advice? Surely 'eat however much you fancy' is more sensible? There's a obesity epidemic. AIBU to think that children shouldn't be rewarded for finishing everything put in front of them, especially as most portions are too humongous?

We used to have to finish what was on our plates too, if we didn't we'd get it for our next meal, for e.g cold mash with congealed gravy for breakfast. God help us if we were dished up something we didn't like, its left me with so many hang ups over food as an adult.

Now I'd rather dish up smaller portions and tell peeps to go back for more if they are still are hungry and I would never in a million years tell someone to finish what was on their plate.

If one good thing has come from this thread, is that it's really made me think how I interact with ds's and food.
With ds1 I suffered with anxiety, with one of my trigger points being how much milk he had. This has carried on with his actual food, where he says he is full , but I'll still try and get him to carry on eating.
I'm a lot better with ds2, who is still on bottles, but if my anxiety flares up, I do it with him as well. I feel that if they don't eat, I'm a bad mother.
However, this has really made me stop and think. A quick question though. If Ds2 doesn't eat his dinner, and says he is full, should I still offer a pudding?

If Ds2 doesn't eat his dinner, and says he is full, should I still offer a pudding?

I gather he's under one. Yes, the variety matters more than the quantity.

Our rule is that if you haven't finished your first (ie main) course you can't have interesting pudding, only a single piece of fruit, and there won't be any sympathy for later rummaging. If you want cutted up fruit / jelly / yogurt / crumble or whatever then you need to present a reasonably clean plate.

Tbh I sometimes get bored with what I'm eating and I'm not pretending to be a cordon bleu chef, so if I/they've slogged through a reasonable quantity and variety of proper nutritious food I'm not going to insist on their eating every last bite. I'm training myself out of that mode so why would I encourage it in them?

Besides, it's healthier to eat half a portion of broccoli and a satsuma than a whole portion of broccoli.

mrshathaway he's 4. At the moment I say if he is too full up ( but hasn't eaten much) then he is too full for dinner. I should start offering more fruit as pudding though, I think.

i think it a good thing to put.sorry but kids are picky and often don't finsh their plates.or are fussy and wont eat wahts given.on here there are soooo many post on how to get kids to eat their meal when handed to them.your the parent just give them less! still means they need to finish what their parents give them.at a certain young age they don't no full or not enough so portion size is up to you.dont be silly and give them reasonable portion. if they pick on pea or a couple of things then stop then it great to encrouage proper healthy meal times where you sit and eat your plate.then you don't come back and pick later.
or snack
or ask for different
and know how to be polite
also you yourself no if your kids full and they stop eating.but eating whats given on your plate is a good routine to get into.before that kids don't no what meals are,what plates are,whats expected at meal times.
just give them a good portion.
obesity because they are ttold to finsh their plates.oh please this is then your problem for giving them too much.making them eat then letting them snack.
give a good meal.dont let them pig out in between.
have a balance
my word.

kate do you know what recommended portions for small people are, though? They're tiny. Most parents probably do plate up too much food.

I give DS1 and DS2 a bit of what I'm having plus some fruit. If DS1 doesn't want his dinner, I offer a piece of fruit. I assume he's had enough at lunchtime. It's no big deal.

I also must confess at this point that I think three meals a day is probably a hangover from when we worked in the fields. I tend to let DS1 have a couple of healthy snacks and do smaller meals.

I think I've been reading too many gardening catalogues lately:

Plumcot,
Aprium
Pluot
Tayberry
Boysenberry
Jostaberry
Japanese Wineberry
Guava
Chilean Guava
Custard Apple/Chirimoya
Pepino
White strawberries
Pink blueberries
Jabuticaba

Has anyone been counting - we must be nearly up to 52 by now?

AIBU to think that nobody apolgises anymore. Took some sub standard fruit back to the supermarket. Waited 20 mins with 2 toddlers for refund. 3 staff members to deal with it. Then assissant double charged me for an item. When I politely told her I was met with silence. Not a simple "I'm sorry!" Then today after 15 phonecalls and 2 visits to a phone shop I rang their complaints line to be left hanging 45 mins. Not once did i get an apology for my bad experiences. I'm not expecting grovelling just a good old fashioned "We're sorry!"

Oooh, I love Dr Ranj...
Misses point of the thread

I was always told to leave a little on my plate behind and leave the table slightly hungry.

My infant school kept you in until you had finished your plate. I still remember the cheese pie and mash. I insisted I couldn't finish, but being told to "think of the starving children" I struggled on and finished it. 10 seconds later it was all back over the teachers shoes

In all seriousness I was always told to finish, and even now will eat everything in my plate even when my logical side is telling me I am full. And yes, I am overweight - not a huge amount but probably a stone more than I should be

OP, I could not agree with you more. I had this drummed into me as a child under fear of verbal and/or physical reprisal. I'm now 46 and even if I finish what's on my own plate, if I'm eating with others and they've left something I get twitchy. Is it any wonder that when I stepped on the scales at Slimming World last week I weighed 17stone 4lbs?

fifi sorry to hear that. I suppose what I'm saying is that food should never be a battleground.

I always finish what's on my plate and I am not obese

I personally think constant obsessing about food leads to a lot of weight issues in society, in both directions. Constant analysis of what's on our plate.

Put less on your plates then!!! It's not rocket science. Put less on and then you will eat less. Stop wasting food. Stop being drama queens. Everything in moderation is fine.

Quite bonfireheart. It's not difficult to start small and add extra if required.

I think the amount of waste that this country produces is a absolute disgrace and not helped by some of the attitudes on here.

So what if I put out a small amount (which I always do), and it's not finished? Do I assume DS1 isn't hungry? Do I berate him? Do I serve it to him the next morning?

Sometimes kids just don't fancy eating. They won't starve; they might wolf everything down tomorrow. I thought we were meant to look at food intake over the course of a week rather than daily?

Well quite, OP.

If I order (say) a roast dinner at the pub, sometimes I finish it and reach for the pudding menu; other times I leave all the roast potatoes. That's totally, completely normal. Why wouldn't children have such variable appetites?

You could serve the minimum they've ever eaten, and offer tiny increments of seconds/thirds/fourths until they stop, but given that you have to prepare the food to do that, I don't understand why that's less wasteful than putting an average amount on the plate and have them not eat it.

Yes, utter nonsense. I've always done everything at my baby's pace (now 6 years old) I've never forced her to eat things she wasn't interested in right away and she eats very well, enjoys her food and loves healthy food. That rubbish she advice belongs in that era of idiots believing that "children should be seen and not heard"

• didn't mean to include the word "she" after the word "rubbish"

My mum always said eat what you can and leave what you can't. I'm nearly 40.

My mum did normal portions then there was bread if you were still hungry.

My version is to offer some thing from bread, fruit or piece of cheese.

One always picks the mushrooms out though. That's fine by me. I eat them!

There have been a couple half eaten meals recently due to colds.( And maybe Christmas chocolate?) That's ok and we reduced portions for a bit.

Still, our norm is to clear the plate but done this way it's not caused any problems.