okay parents parents are the fundamental
cornerstone of our society because they
raised the next generation by defining
the rules in a household and by being
the core examples for their children
some are researcher on parenting
practices and I’m a parent too so I know
all about the worries the questions and
the feelings of guilt that parents may
have did I handle this tantrum okay
should I set more rules should I be more
involved or is it better to just let go
a bit we have these questions and
worries about many domains of child
development we have them about school
achievements about interactions with
peers sports manners about how much
children watch television what video
games they play about sleep and of
course about eating so what do we as
parents do when we worry or we have
questions we ask for advice from our own
parents or friends or we look in
handbooks or at the Internet and luckily
there are hundreds of handbooks and
websites on parenting practices
available but today I will tell you that
some of the advice that is given on the
Indies handbooks may actually be wrong
so I’m a psychologist and I study eating
behaviors of children so I’m interested
in how we can help children to develop
healthy eating habits and I’m interested
in how we can help parents to achieve
this so they’re very two very common
problems with children sitting at the
kitchen table they eat too much or they
eat too little and both drive parents
nuts so to start with the first eating
too much we all know that obesity is a
worldwide problem it’s an epidemic at
this epidemic often starts already
in childhood and this makes parents the
Gateway to solving or at least reducing
the obesity rates and with my research I
want to offer parents two tools to solve
this problem in the best way possible so
what do we as adults do when we want to
lose weight or prevent weight gain
exactly we cut foods out of our diet
no more sugars no more snacks no more
fast food no more soft drinks and that
is what parents will do to their
children too but just google it and many
many websites will tell you that strict
control and the banning of foods is
dangerous so buying no cookies anymore
and putting chocolate on the top shelf
will backfire parents are warned because
the banning of this food will lead to a
desire which will result in overeating
when these foods are freely available
and that eventually leads to weight gain
and over weight so wait a minute parents
are warned that the banning of foods
will result in obesity which is actually
the one thing that they’re trying to
prevent this doesn’t make sense it
contradicts logic it contradicts
intuition and unintentionally it leads
to feelings of guilt among parents so
these guidelines are based on some
experimental studies and these are
really great studies very well-designed
experiments but that is also the problem
with these studies because findings have
not been replicated outside the lab in
real life and work from my own research
group has actually led to different
conclusions so using a different design
and observational design in which we
follow families over time we found that
parents aren’t actually causing the
overeating know they’re doing their best
to prevent it to control it because they
worry about
their child’s weight so parents relax
and don’t worry
it does not seem so much harm in putting
the chocolate on the top top shelf okay
now let’s move on to that other problem
at the kitchen table children who are
difficult picky eaters you know does
children who don’t want to eat their
broccoli or beans or fish or who all of
a sudden claim I hate milk yes you
probably know or one or two of those
children or you were one like this
yourself and that’s not so strange that
you notice behavior because it’s really
common about 50% goes through a phase of
picky eating at some point and in most
children the vegetable hatred disappears
over time although in some it may last a
bit longer in most children this
difficult behavior is not really a
health problem per se but it does drive
parents nuts because parents don’t want
their child to be hungry or
undernourished so they try to persuade
their child to eat a little bit more
come on one more bite please or okay so
this is your plate well then at least
finish this part of it again this is
very logical parenting behavior but the
handbooks advise against it pressuring a
child to much will have negative
consequences that’s what the handbooks
saying because children will start to
hate the forced foods and eventually eat
less again this idea is based on
experimental studies conducted in the
lab but observational work from others
and also from my own group has led to
different conclusions at pushing a child
to eat something is not really causing
picky eating it’s much more the other
way around it’s parents who try to help
their child and solve the problem so my
advice is parents don’t worry if you try
to persuade your child
eat the broccoli when he is he or she is
being a picky eater parents don’t worry
or don’t feel guilty when you try to
limit the food intake of your child when
he or she is becoming a bit heavy it
seems that this intuitive parenting
behavior is actually not so bad after
all it is much more people like me who
need to do more because we cannot just
based guidelines on one type of study so
we need to do more and we need to look
at the problem from different angles so
we should do more research and yes we
should do experimental studies but also
observational studies in real life and
interviews and we should do intervention
studies to test if what we put in these
handbooks is really helping thank you
[Applause]
cornerstone of our society because they
raised the next generation by defining
the rules in a household and by being
the core examples for their children
some are researcher on parenting
practices and I’m a parent too so I know
all about the worries the questions and
the feelings of guilt that parents may
have did I handle this tantrum okay
should I set more rules should I be more
involved or is it better to just let go
a bit we have these questions and
worries about many domains of child
development we have them about school
achievements about interactions with
peers sports manners about how much
children watch television what video
games they play about sleep and of
course about eating so what do we as
parents do when we worry or we have
questions we ask for advice from our own
parents or friends or we look in
handbooks or at the Internet and luckily
there are hundreds of handbooks and
websites on parenting practices
available but today I will tell you that
some of the advice that is given on the
Indies handbooks may actually be wrong
so I’m a psychologist and I study eating
behaviors of children so I’m interested
in how we can help children to develop
healthy eating habits and I’m interested
in how we can help parents to achieve
this so they’re very two very common
problems with children sitting at the
kitchen table they eat too much or they
eat too little and both drive parents
nuts so to start with the first eating
too much we all know that obesity is a
worldwide problem it’s an epidemic at
this epidemic often starts already
in childhood and this makes parents the
Gateway to solving or at least reducing
the obesity rates and with my research I
want to offer parents two tools to solve
this problem in the best way possible so
what do we as adults do when we want to
lose weight or prevent weight gain
exactly we cut foods out of our diet
no more sugars no more snacks no more
fast food no more soft drinks and that
is what parents will do to their
children too but just google it and many
many websites will tell you that strict
control and the banning of foods is
dangerous so buying no cookies anymore
and putting chocolate on the top shelf
will backfire parents are warned because
the banning of this food will lead to a
desire which will result in overeating
when these foods are freely available
and that eventually leads to weight gain
and over weight so wait a minute parents
are warned that the banning of foods
will result in obesity which is actually
the one thing that they’re trying to
prevent this doesn’t make sense it
contradicts logic it contradicts
intuition and unintentionally it leads
to feelings of guilt among parents so
these guidelines are based on some
experimental studies and these are
really great studies very well-designed
experiments but that is also the problem
with these studies because findings have
not been replicated outside the lab in
real life and work from my own research
group has actually led to different
conclusions so using a different design
and observational design in which we
follow families over time we found that
parents aren’t actually causing the
overeating know they’re doing their best
to prevent it to control it because they
worry about
their child’s weight so parents relax
and don’t worry
it does not seem so much harm in putting
the chocolate on the top top shelf okay
now let’s move on to that other problem
at the kitchen table children who are
difficult picky eaters you know does
children who don’t want to eat their
broccoli or beans or fish or who all of
a sudden claim I hate milk yes you
probably know or one or two of those
children or you were one like this
yourself and that’s not so strange that
you notice behavior because it’s really
common about 50% goes through a phase of
picky eating at some point and in most
children the vegetable hatred disappears
over time although in some it may last a
bit longer in most children this
difficult behavior is not really a
health problem per se but it does drive
parents nuts because parents don’t want
their child to be hungry or
undernourished so they try to persuade
their child to eat a little bit more
come on one more bite please or okay so
this is your plate well then at least
finish this part of it again this is
very logical parenting behavior but the
handbooks advise against it pressuring a
child to much will have negative
consequences that’s what the handbooks
saying because children will start to
hate the forced foods and eventually eat
less again this idea is based on
experimental studies conducted in the
lab but observational work from others
and also from my own group has led to
different conclusions at pushing a child
to eat something is not really causing
picky eating it’s much more the other
way around it’s parents who try to help
their child and solve the problem so my
advice is parents don’t worry if you try
to persuade your child
eat the broccoli when he is he or she is
being a picky eater parents don’t worry
or don’t feel guilty when you try to
limit the food intake of your child when
he or she is becoming a bit heavy it
seems that this intuitive parenting
behavior is actually not so bad after
all it is much more people like me who
need to do more because we cannot just
based guidelines on one type of study so
we need to do more and we need to look
at the problem from different angles so
we should do more research and yes we
should do experimental studies but also
observational studies in real life and
interviews and we should do intervention
studies to test if what we put in these
handbooks is really helping thank you
[Applause]
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