I’d love to see a response to this question! My two year old asks to eat often and when there are carbs present, he will choose to eat only those. The handful of times we have given him sweets, he obsesses over them to the point where I’d rather just not give them. But I know it is not realistic to keep him from eating sweets and may lead to overeating/hiding these foods as he gets older.

I’ve wondered for a long time, though, how seconds should work and hope you can advise.

What should I do if, as an example, I offer my 3-year-old bread, cheese, and a piece of fruit at lunch time, but he only eats the bread and continually asks for more of it? Should I tell him to finish his other foods before he can have seconds, or should I let him keep eating what I would consider to be the least healthy item on his plate (or at least I would consider it unhealthy if these starchy carbs were all that his diet consisted of)? I try to plan each of his meals so that he gets some protein, carbs, and fat, with a variety of micronutrients from different fruits and vegetables, but I feel like he mostly just focuses on the carbs.

And what about when it’s a pre-packaged serving size like yogurt? I’ll often give yogurt and some fruit at snack time, and he almost always asks for more yogurt despite only taking a few bites of fruit. It can get expensive to go through two albeit kid-sized yogurts a day, but I also am trying to not put conditions on his eating habits.

We didn’t know this about her until she was about 7. We did have some fights about food, we’d encourage her to eat more, make her sit at the table until she’d eaten a certain (always age appropriate) amount. We didn’t know about REI at that point, and it may have made some difference. It’s easy to say in retrospect that you would have done things differently.

She’s ten now, and she will still go all day without eating if she’s distracted. She’s learning to recognize other signs in herself that she needs to eat; for example, her energy level, her emotional sensitivity. We’re teaching her about serving sizes and nutrition so that her mind and will can help make up for her lack of appetite.

Lauren,

Again, thank you for raising this important question. The first thing I would encourage is you is to try to think of this as an opportunity to teach your daughter about how to lose weight healthily, rather than being so afraid you will damage her with the knowledge of dieting. Sometimes caloric restriction is necessary (trying to lose weight is not always, or not necessarily, a “bad thing”), and you now have a chance to teach her about how to do this mindfully, respectfully (with respect to your own body), and in a balanced manner. You can do this in a couple of specific ways:

1. Continue to serve everyone healthy meals and snacks; when it’s time for meals serve yourself smaller portions and when it comes to snack time just don’t take any. You do not need to resort to feeding pre-made, processed, snack foods to try to encourage weight gain. As with meals, continue offering whole foods, you just might need to offer them more often to her than you would otherwise. This may be difficult for you, since you are trying to lose weight, which is another reason that increasing the amount of physical activity you get will help.

2. Balance caloric restriction with increased physical activity, and find ways to include your daughter if you can. This is will do two things, it will help you feel like you don’t have to be quite so restrictive with your own dietary intake, and show your daughter that (healthy) weight loss doesn’t come just from dieting alone. It will also help provide the foundation for healthy physical activity as she grows (as with eating, modeling is one of the best ways to encourage these kinds of healthy habits in kids).

She is still a little young to understand that you are dieting, the way we think of dieting, so don’t worry yet that she will begin to internalize this as *the* way to eat. Plus, dieting in this way (eating what everyone else in the family is, but just less of it) might help make your own dieting feel less restrictive.

I hope this is helpful. Keep us posted on your progress, and any concerns you might have as your daughter gets older.

All the best,
Kiyah

Lauren,

Thank you for this question; it is a very important topic (especially for the parents of daughters). I am leaving for a trip early in the morning but will respond in detail just as soon as I am able. Until then, know that you CAN model healthy eating habits and still loose weight yourself- you will not set your daughter up for thinking that restriction is the only way to go.

More to come on this important topic. Thank you for sharing your experience!

Best,
Kiyah

Thank you!

Rebekah,
Not that you need me to weigh in here (since Janet is the expert on RIE’s philosophies on these kinds of issues!) but I would have given the same advice that Janet did: Tell your daughter that dropping (or excessive playing with) food is a signal to you that she’s done eating and that you’re going to take the food away. If she protests you can give her one more try, but if the behavior persists, as Janet says, follow through and stick with your rules. I had to do this very thing this evening with my daughter!

Hi Rebekah. I’d just be really honest and say, “I don’t want you to drop food. That tells me you’re not hungry. If you drop the food I will put it away.” Try this for snacks first, (when you don’t care at all whether she eats or not) since she isn’t used to this rule. But she is perfectly capable of understanding as long as you are clear, consistent, and follow through. This might be the beginning of you getting comfortable with setting limits. 🙂