Voices: I was brought up in a ‘clear-your-plate’ household… and it never did me any good
Share:
Demanding that children finish off their meal before being allowed to leave the dining table can store up a lifetime of eating disorders, according to a new report. Sanchez Manning is still haunted by memories of childhood mealtimes – precisely why she’ll never make her son eat up the last bit of broccoli.
Picture the scene: a small girl sitting at a large dining table staring dolefully at a sorry-looking pile of cold carrots and wondering how she might secretly dispose of them. That child was me. I still vividly recall the misery of sitting there, for hours sometimes, because my parents were adamant I eat all the food I had been given – even if it made me feel nauseous.
I’m sure my parents were not intending to cause me distress, but they were from a generation where “clearing your plate” was a non-negotiable expectation for children at mealtimes. So the culinary psychodrama would continue, often ending with my father angrily enquiring: “What about children who don’t have enough food to eat – have you thought about that?”.
People starving in Africa is quite a guilt trip to put on an eight-year-old who isn’t keen on carrots. The reason I have cast my mind back to these erstwhile dinnertime battles is that parents are now being warned that forcing your children to eat everything on their plates could be fuelling Britain’s obesity crisis.
