Posted on 04/03/2015 9:01:35 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Apparently, parents should visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) website to find out how to teach their children good eating habits.
The agency in charge of the country’s agricultural sector is now in the nanny business, thanks to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to fight childhood obesity, which links to choosemyplate.gov on its website.
In the kids’ section of My Plate, advice is dished out on how parents can help pre-schoolers “develop healthy eating habits,” including a warning about praising an empty plate.
“Avoid praising a clean plate,” the website states. “Your child should stop eating when he or she is full, rather than when the plate is clean.”
And apparently, your child knows better than you do how to manage their nutritional needs.
“Babies know when they have eaten enough,” the website states. “Help your children keep listening to their bodies as they grow.”
When my kids were growing up – and during my own childhood – being “full” was usually an excuse not to eat the food that was prepared. And that excuse didn’t fly in my house or with my parents.
But the USDA says you should trust a child’s eating assessment around the dinner table.
“Give your kids a chance to stop eating when they feel full, even if you think they aren't,” the website states. “They'll feel more independent and you'll help them keep a healthy weight.”
The website also acts as the speech police for parents, offering a link that states: “Use phrases that help not hinder when helping them know when they’ve had enough.” One more click on “what you say” and you’ll know how to be a better parent.
Words that hinder: “You’re such a big girl. You ate all your peas.”
Really? Yes, because saying that will “teach your child to ignore fullness. It is better for kids to stop eating when they are full or satisfied than when all the food has been eaten.”
Instead, USDA says, use words that help: “Is your stomach telling you that you’re full?”
And whatever you do, don’t say, “No dessert until you eat your vegetables.”
No, because “offering some foods, like dessert, in reward for finishing others, like vegetables, makes some foods seem better than others.”
My favorite? These words that USDA classifies as those that hinder: Don’t say “Eat that for me.” (Does anyone ever say that?)
Instead, the USDA recommends these words that help: “This is kiwi fruit; it’s sweet like a strawberry.”
I admit, I never thought about comparing kiwis and strawberries when my child was having an eating issue. Instead, I used these words, which helped make almost every meal the blessing that it was.
“Thank you God for this food and now let’s eat and be grateful!”
USDA Nanny State PING!
I was told that I had to eat all on my plate because there were starving children in China. That was 68 years ago.
“USDA Tells Parents”
Tells?
Go !@#$ yourselves.
People in India will starve.
LOL! You and me both, also 68 years ago.
Just sayin'
The last thing that Michelle Obama cares about is starving children in China.
Or anywhere else.
And we dumb parents cannot figure out for ourselves which foods our children already prefer. Thank Mother Gaia that we have the USDA to inform us as to which foods our own children prefer in all cases.
Do these people really think anyone listens to a word they say? Or do they just keep the charade because, hey, it’s a paycheck?
So, now the USDA has NOTHING else to focus on...it’s going to tell moms across the country how to feed their kids.
Do the jerkoffs at the USDA have any idea how many people have very little on their plates these days thanks to the deliberate destruction of the US ecomony by democrat fascists?
“I was told that I had to eat all on my plate because there were starving children in China. That was 68 years ago.”
Yep. In my case it was India. Now the child will say “well mom if I don’t clean my plate won’t that be an insult to all those starving people overseas?” Then the enlightened liberal soccer mom’s will say to their child “screw those starving bastards over there ... I want you lean and mean ... and liberal”
Mission creep.
My hippie in-laws let their child decide what to eat and she became malnourished.
Awesome.
Clean plate is great for kids when parents don’t shovel adult proportions of food onto them.
Why we need govt butting in, I just have an instinctive STFUG reaction.
Days like this, I cannot wait till the big reorg.
Well after completely effing the food pyramid, hard to find something to eff up worse.
My father was fond of that. In the end, his morbid obesity killed him.
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