My grandma was telling her how she shouldn’t eat any more sweets and she said “yeah or it will go to my butt!” I don’t think she really knew what she was saying, but it pissed me off. I told her she doesn’t have to worry about that and she can eat as much as she wants so she can “grow bigger bigger bigger.”
Let me emphasize that this is a 4 year old who has been taught the connection between food and growing and growing and getting fat and that automatically being bad, not unhealthy, but bad. She is also a lovely little half Mexican, quarter Japanese, and quarter African American baby who will probably grow up fairly sturdily built like her big sister and mom. I cannot stand to have her be uncomfortable with her body now, before she even starts Kindergarten.
Shape up world.
In a world, especially in America where I’m assuming you are, where obesity is becoming an epidemic it’s not the best idea to tell people to eat as much as they would like. People should worry about their bodies because unfortunately you only get one. It’s the families job to make sure a child doesn’t eat as much as they want so they don’t get fat. So unfortunately you are doing more harm than good by encouraging unhealthy habits.
No you’re caught in this “being the size of a bus is ok” bullshit. You let a 4 year old get fat, they get bigger and bigger over time, they get made fun of because they look like they swallowed the staff at the canteen and then say they want to be normal and healthy and want to loose all that weight that you encouraged them to put on. But wait. Because now they’re 25 stone they have to work a million times harder than they would if you encouraged healthy options. A child that isn’t even yours! I was lucky. My parents didn’t feed me McDonald’s every 2 days, they bothered to force me to eat crap I didn’t like but I needed and encouraged things like sports. That’s what we call good parenting. Not “she can eat as much as she wants so she can “grow bigger bigger bigger.”
Did you know that 4 year olds do indeed need to eat to grow bigger and bigger and bigger? As in they need to get taller and gain muscle and bone mass? That they need a certain amount of fat for brain development?
Did you also know that there’s a huge difference in teaching a child about nutrition for health and making them fear being fat?
Are you being deliberately obtuse here?
They are, look at their blog. ‘Deliberately obtuse’ may as well be in their header.
God, what utter bullshit.
She’s a four year old. The last thing in the world they need to be learning is that food = evil. That little girl isn’t being taught how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. She’s being taught that how she looks is more important than her actual health.
If you want to teach a little kid how to EAT HEALTHY, that’s a totally different thing. Then you teach them about balanced eating. Encourage them in a love of fresh fruit and vegetables. Try new foods with them. If you can, take them to the grocery store and do a bit of exploring with them. Maybe even start teaching them to cook, so that they grow up with the tools to understand and create healthy meals for themselves. Play and exercise with them, and teach them to value being strong and fit over whether they’re heavy or thin. Not ‘it’ll go to your ass.’ WTF. Who has that EVER helped?
