‘I’m on a diet Mummy’. These are the words that came out of my four year old sons young mouth tonight and my heart completely sank when I heard them.
He had been into the fridge and grabbed himself a handful of pepperoni and strolled back into the living room and sighed as he sat down exclaiming he was having this as he was on a diet.
I looked at his little face and the sullen look he was giving me and I just couldn’t believe what had already been planted in his young, impressionable mind.
When I asked him what a diet was he simply said it was because he was going boxing. My husband is a martial artist and has to make weight for his fights several times a year. This is always a big thing in the house as he loves his food and so mealtimes becomes a big issue that are spoken about a lot. Seperate meals are prepared and there is a big emphasis on how, where and what he eats.
In my late teens I had big issues with food that lead to my periods stopping for over a year and I became quite ill. This is something that I would never wish on anyone, especially my children and I have had a real wake up call tonight about the negative food issues we are displaying as a family.
I have always taught them the importance of a healthy diet, ensure they have a good, well balanced diet and try not to let them go overboard with sweet treats.
As of today there will be no more seperate meals, the scales will be banished from the bathroom and the word DIET will be banned for good!
Children’s minds are like sponges and I dont want my little one’s to be soaking up rubbish about diets and weight loss that could so easily lead to such damaging choices in later life.
Yeah, kids still need to have enough nutrition. They should not go for diet unless there is doctor’s instruction or special condition.
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That’s very true, I will pop over and have a look now 🙂
This is fantastic. My husband recently started 5:2 and I told him I was worried about our son seeing him sit down to dinner with a crust of bread. He thought I was sabotaging his diet, you have reassured me I was right!
Thank you! Food issues are such common place these days that I really feel we need to build good foundations for them from a young age. Seeing is unhappy and making strange food choices can’t be good for them xx
It is so easy to unintentionally put these ideas in our childrens heads. I tried to always be very careful of what I saidand did around my kids, but I know the word diet must have been mentioned in front of them. #TwinklyTuesday
It really is hard and we all try our best I’m sure. It’s just nice to keep their innocence and lack of inhibition for as long as possible x