ZisBoomBah

Your primary goal is to teach kids how to eat right. Whether or not you feed your kids on a schedule is simply a question of what vehicle will best help you teach the right lessons.

I’ll cut to the chase: it doesn’t matter.

All right, it does kind of matter. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) First, though, it’s important to remember that the primary goal is to teach kids how to eat right.  In that regard, whether or not you feed your kids on a schedule is simply a question of what vehicle will best help you teach the right lessons.

In this age of nutritionism (to borrow a phrase from Michael Pollan) where so much emphasis is placed on getting the right nutrients into your kids, it’s easy to forget that in order for your kids to consume a healthy diet they have to learn a variety of lessons.

In order to eat right kids need to know how to…

• Try new (sometimes weird) foods. I’m not talking about eating fish eyes like I’ve heard they do in the Philippines, but perhaps it would be good for your kids to step out of their comfort zone by trying Brussels sprouts.
• Expand their palates so they can acquire a taste for mature delicacies such as grilled salmon (and one day beer…remember how long and how many repeated attempts that took?).
• Enjoy snack foods in the right proportion so they eat less candy corn than actual corn.

And of course, the whole reason we’re debating whether or not to feed on a schedule, kids need to know how to…

Start eating when they’re hungry instead of when their friends are, their parents want them to be or when the clock tells them they should (and how to stop eating when they’re no longer hungry, instead of when their friends are, etc.)  But, they also need to be social creatures who enjoy a meal or two with others, or, perhaps, even go to school where eating on a schedule is required.

And the list goes on…

Now, bearing these goals in mind, only you can decide if feeding your children on a schedule will help or hinder your efforts. My guess is that most parents will find the hybrid method most successful: try scheduling most meals and snacks and then give your kids some flexibility within that structure.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

Read part 2 of this series on when to have kids eat, where Dr. Dina Rose elaborates on specific pros and cons for feeding on schedule versus on demand to help you decide what strategy works best for your family.