How healthy eating habits have positive effect on our kids. All of us try to be the most caring, supportive and invested parents as best as we can. And we wish our kids only the best. Hence, it comes naturally to us because we are all evolutionary wired to ensure that our offspring is warm, safe and fed.

But unfortunately, since our primary instincts were developed in a pre-kids’ menu world, they might not be as effective as 1,000 years ago.

Dr Chu Hui Ping, consultant paediatric at the Raffles Children’s Centre commented, “In the older times when food was scarce and there were more children, it all came down to either eating or staying hungry. Nowadays, there are fewer children per household and more food options available. The feeding style of caregivers has also changed over time.”

Here’s an overview of the four basic parenting feeding styles.

Responsive Feeding

“The responsive parent is one who interacts well with their child. During the feeding process, the parent takes responsibility for deciding what’s going to be fed, when it’s going to be fed and where it’s going to be fed,” said Dr MacLean.

The parents have to respect the child’s hunger signals, and part of what responsive parenting does is to help children recognise when they’re hungry and when they have enough to eat. The way we do that is to give the responsibility to the child to decide on how much they should eat. There’s a reciprocity between the parent and the child; therefore, trust and boundaries are the basis of this parenting feeding style.

Example of mealtime conversation

Child: “I do not want broccoli. It’s gross.”
Parent: “We do not say bad things about the food we eat. You do not have to eat anything that you don’t like. There is plenty of food on the table that you can choose from.

Research findings

• Children are more likely to self-regulate food intake
• Eat higher amounts of fruits, veggies and dairy foods
• Tend to be physically active and have a healthy weight

Controlled Feeding

This is also known as a “clean plate” style of feeding. The parent puts a lot of pressure on the child to eat certain foods, finish what’s on the plate, restrict less healthy foods, and in general disregard the child’s preferences when it comes to eating. (P.S. this is definitely the way my parents approached feeding when I was a kid, because not finishing your food was considered very wasteful!)

Dr MacLean shared that the controlling feeding style is usually more common in fathers than mothers. “This usually leads to punishing the child for not eating, and using pressure and prompting to try to manipulate their child’s food intake. But kids raised in this style often lose touch with their body’s signals of hunger and satiety, which can ultimately lead to overeating and weight issues,” added Dr MacLean.

Example of mealtime conversation

Child: “I do not want to eat the broccoli.”
Parent: “You have to eat the broccoli! Otherwise, there’ll be no dessert or no TV for you!”

Research findings

• Diminished ability to recognise hunger-satiety cues
• Eat less fruit and vegetables
• Tend to be overweight or underweight
• Show decreased enjoyment of food
• Fussiness at mealtimes

Indulgent Feeding

Also known as “the-say-yes-to-anything parent”, the indulgent parent allows the child to eat what and when they want. The parent is not setting limits or providing clear boundaries when it comes to mealtimes.

This feeding style is “too soft”, and is more common in mothers than fathers. It is the child who decides what they will be eating at mealtimes. Short-order cooking ang grazing between mealtimes are some of the signs of indulgent feeding style.

Example of mealtime conversation

Child: “I do not want broccoli.”
Parent: “What would you like? I’ll cook something else for you.”

Research findings

• Eat more junk foods and treats
• Tend to be overweight, especially in pre-schoolers

Neglectful Feeding

According to Dr MacLean, this feeding style often produces two types of parents:

• Very active parents who have a busy lifestyle, and are simply not spending much time with the child as desirable
• Parents who are overwhelmed by having a child, and who may be suffering from depression, anxiety or any other illness.

With this feeding style, there is a lack of structure in meals and an unreliable meal schedule.

Example of mealtime conversation

Child: “When is dinner? What’s for dinner?”
Parent: “I have no idea.”

Research findings

• Emotional insecurity in the child
• Preoccupation with food

The New Era

So what is a parent who’s worried about their child’s nutrition to do? Changing the feeding strategy is the most obvious answer, but we all know that it’s easier said than done.

Learning to feed the child in a new way means forgetting all we have heard from our parents and grandparents, and learning to ignore the most basic instinct: worrying about how much or whether our children are eating.

In summary, parents have to assume the role of a leader when it comes to feeding, but give children more independence in making their food choices within certain limits.

Setting The Rhythm

It is very important to have a solid structure of meals and snacks in place before embarking on this “new feeding journey”.

“Most importantly, parents have to trust their child to decide how much and whether to eat,” advised Dr MacLean.

This is the hard part due to our natural tendency to worry about how much they eat. But ultimately, if parents do their jobs with feeding, children will do their jobs with eating.

• Children will definitely eat
• They will eat the amount they need
• They will learn to eat the food their parents eat
• They will grow predictably
• They will learn to behave well at the table

Feeding Principles

Systematically introduce novel food

• Reward consumption of new food with praise for younger children, and perhaps a small toy for the older ones.
• Respect the child’s tendency to neophobia. which is a fear of eating new foods, and offer a food repetitively, for about 10-15 minutes.

Feed to encourage appetite

• Allow three- to four-hour intervals between meals.
• For younger children, time the meal frequency to coincide with the parents’ meals.
• Three main meals and two to three snacks are typical.

Limit duration

• Eating should begin within 15 minutes of the start of the meal.
• Meals should last no longer than 30-35 minutes.
• Do not become a short-order cook.

Encourage independent feeding

• The child should have their own cutlery.

Serve age-appropriate food

• Offer food commensurate with the child’s oral motor development.
• Use reasonably small helpings; the size of the child’s fist is a good estimation.

Maintain appropriate boundaries

• The child decides whether to eat and how much to eat.
• The parent decides where, when and what the child eats.

Source: Singapore’s Child Magazine

SG.2022.27905.PDS.1 (v1.1)