Take some time for a meal
Children go through the world with different eyes to us adults. As I walk past the little snail, I can be sure that my daughter is discovering the animal, looking at it in detail and at the same time hearing the helicopter noises in the background and pointing them out to me. Children see, hear and feel more intensely than adults. Even when eating - children should perceive food with all their senses, especially during their first eating experiences. They can feel it with their hands, smell it with their nose, recognise the different textures in their mouth and with their first teeth and get to know the flavours.
However, because children can take in so much, it is also easy for them to get distracted while eating, which means that intuitive eating takes a back seat. Children, and toddlers in particular, are born intuitive eaters. They cry when they are hungry and stop when they are full. No matter what time of day or night. Children rely on their inner stimuli. The only purpose of food is to satisfy hunger. The older we get, the more our eating is influenced by external stimuli or rational attitudes. These factors that override our intuition when eating include, for example
Food bans: If certain products are banned for children, this increases the desire for precisely these foods - forbidden foods are interesting. As a result, decisions are made less intuitively.
Distractions when eating: If children eat in large company and with lots of distractions, this can lead to them eating more than they actually need. Or the opposite happens and they eat too little because of all the chatter. The biggest distraction of the moment is the smartphone. If you're checking emails or watching videos at the same time as eating, the meal only tastes half as good. And this is really the case: when we are distracted or multitasking, we perceive the flavour of the meal less intensely. This leads us to eat more of it in order to still achieve a satisfying feeling.
Evaluation of food: Sometimes rational decisions influence our choice of food, for example that a certain product is considered healthy. Flavour is of secondary importance at this point.
Externally imposed quantity: If it is not hunger that decides how much we eat of something, but the size of the packet, then the ability to judge for ourselves what is good for our own body and in what quantity steadily decreases. If children are limited in the amount they can eat, this can lead to them no longer trusting their feelings of hunger and satiety.
Eating as a reward: Food is no longer used to satisfy hunger, but as an incentive to achieve a desired behaviour in the child. The inner stimuli (feelings of hunger and satiety) are ignored.
Emotional eating behaviour: This is a major issue, especially at a time when stress is part and parcel of life and eating is often instrumentalised. People who eat to suppress their own feelings, dampen strong emotions or simply forget all their worries for a moment no longer perceive their body's signals correctly.
Practising mindfulness
Mindfulness has become a buzzword in recent years. We should always and everywhere go through life mindfully. Even if only very few of us succeed, it is still worth taking a closer look at our food and utilising our valuable senses. Because more mindfulness when eating means longer and more intense enjoyment and more well-being in the stomach. Your children will learn from you and your eating behaviour, and you can encourage your child's intuition with your own behaviour. By taking time to eat, sitting at the table with your children and eating slowly without any distractions.
In this way, you can introduce yourself and your child to mindful eating in a playful way:
- Riechen: Mit geschlossenen Augen Düfte erraten.
- Fühlen: Mit den Händen essen, auch für grosse Kinder und Erwachsene.
- Schmecken: Verschiedene Nahrungsmittel probieren und beschreiben – kann auch mit geschlossenen Augen gemacht werden.
- Sehen: Zusammen farbenfrohe Teller anrichten.
What seems important to me in this context is the fact that everyday life, with or without children, cannot always be planned and occasionally harbours surprises. The urge for mindfulness should not be an additional pressure, but an opportunity to give yourself and your children more conscious moments in your hectic everyday life. If things don't go so well one day, the next day will soon follow with all its opportunities for more mindfulness.
7 tips for more mindfulness at the table
- Handy, TV, Radio und alle anderen Geräte ausschalten.
- Bequem sitzen.
- Augen schliessen und am Essen riechen.
- Mindestens 20 Mal kauen und bewusst herunterschlucken.
- Abwechselnd mal mit der linken, mal mit der rechten Hand essen.
- Fingerfood in die Ernährung miteinbauen, um auch immer mal wieder haptische Erlebnisse zu haben.
- Ausreichend Zeit fürs Essen einplanen.
