Help your child become a mindful eater

Children learn fast by emulating figures like parents or caregivers.

If a child is in an environment where people eat and finish their meals within a few minutes, they will learn to do the same.

If parents and other care givers have meals while watching the TV, working or using their gadgets, the child will grow up with the same habit.

It is common practice in many homes for people to have meals in front of the TV. To distract children and help them finish their meals faster, we let them watch their favourite cartoon or TV channels.

In such an environment, the child eats while paying only slight attention to hunger, fullness, and other food cues which might lead to unplanned eating, overeating and subsequent weight gain.

Mindful eating is learning to deliberately pay attention to the food one is eating; that is paying attention to the taste, colour and texture, and feeling of hunger and satisfaction instead of eating mindlessly. Most children pay none or little attention even when eating their favourite foods. As parents, we pay more attention to how full or how empty a child’s plate is than to the actual hunger when deciding whether they are full.

If a child says they he/she is full when there is still food on the plate, most likely he/she will be pushed to finish it off.

This practice overrides a child’s hunger/fullness cues, leading to continued eating based on the visual cue that food is available.

A full stomach is not the only thing that causes someone to feel satisfied after a meal; the brain must also receive a number of signals from digestive hormones.

These hormonal signals are released as partially digested food enters the small intestine. After eating, food enters and fills the stomach and then travels to the intestinal tract.

As the food is digested and the body’s cells are fed, chemicals are released, turning on sensations of fullness and turning off the appetite. It takes about 20 minutes after starting to eat for the “stop eating” message to reach the brain. When a child eats too quickly, he/she may not give this hormonal-brain cross-talk system enough time to work. Slow eating allows time for the hormones that signal fullness to arrive from the stomach to the brain. This hormonal signal helps people stop eating before they are stuffed. 

Parents can help their children eat mindfully by reducing meal time distractions — turn off the TV and other electronic devices that can distract from the dining experience; promote slower eating pace and encourage them to stop eating when they are satisfied, not stuffed.

Mindful eating takes place when people engage only in eating and conversation at meal time. Teach your child to put down his/her plate of food between bites and chew thoroughly.

Train them to resist the urge to add more food to their mouths before swallowing since overloading leads to overeating.

If a child asks for a second helping, make sure he/she takes a moment before having a second helping to weigh whether they are experiencing stomach hunger or not.

The writer is a mother and a Nutritionist and Wellness Consultant. Afya Bora Nutrition & Wellness Centre. 5th Ngong Avenue. 5th Avenue Office Suites. Suite 16. Nairobi. www.afyabora.co.ke