Archive for November, 2010
Children – Eating Habits Through Example
As a mom, I often wonder if what I’m teaching my children is enough. Do we truly know enough about healthy eating habits ourselves, to effectively teach it? Do you feel you are teaching your children to have the best habits with food? What are we really teaching them? How do we teach them to have a very healthy relationship with food? How do we teach them to have health food habits?
I know we all try to do our best as parents, but much of what our children learn, is through example. Much of our own relationship with food is automatic and subconscious to the point we never think about it. So I do feel, this is an important topic to really reflect on. Their whole life is effected by what they learn as children and these views on food will effect them as adults too.
Many women have issues in their relationship with food. Do you yourself feel you have a healthy relationship with food? As a parent, you are their main teacher in life, even on eating habits too. Our children are always watching and learning from us. What are your children learning from you? I wonder what are my children are learning from me? Are they learning the right or wrong things from me? We all have some bad food habits here and there. It may be simply too much salt, too much sugar or over using the ketchup.
In some cases, it may be a more serious issue with food. Eating disorders in women are not unheard of, even with mothers. Some of us, we just have just bad food habits under stress. Others it’s a unhealthy lifestyle which has developed over time. Some of us don’t even realize it., that we even have any bad habits, until the wake up call comes. I know many of us are emotional eaters. Many books have been written on the cause of obesity. Most young healthy people with obesity, it’s caused by emotional eating and lack of exercise. It seems we all can become emotional eaters at times, if we have the right set of events to trigger it. Some of have learned to overeat as a cultural learned way of living. I know in my own home growing up, food was a huge focus of our home. There is help out there and you can end the cycle. If you need to get help, there are many great groups which exist to help you.
