Happy children with hearty appetites.

When I was at medical school the hottest issue for young mothers was potty training. Whenever a midwife or GP or paediatrician held a child care course the first subject they wanted to discuss was how to let a baby poop. Mothers had been convinced by various magazine child psychology articles that if they got it wrong their child would grow up a serial killer or a psychopath. Fortunately by the time mine were born there were new fashions in child psychology. Potty training was out, discipline was out, and “self expression” was in. No one told us that the best way to let children grow up well balanced, fit and confident was to ignore them and let them run around naked all day with a dozen karimojong children, but we did it anyway and it worked very well.

The next big must-do for mums was nutrition. Magazines managed to convince worried first-time mums that unless their child had the latest scientifically approved nutrition plan every day from 1 month before birth they would grow up half brain dead and speaking scouse. They would only get to university if they ate the perfect diet. Pity no one told Mrs Einstein, or for that matter the mothers of Newton, Darwin or Leonardo Da Vinci.

This fad from the 70’s has lingered on. I can remember back then telling a mum in Birmingham not to give the baby expensive manufactured tinned baby food, just give it what they ate, mashed up. But we eat mostly Italian food she protested. What do you think Italian babies eat? Nothing has changed. People ardently read the list of nutrients on the side of the tin. Is he getting enough magnesium and zinc? It is all a load of pseudoscientific nonsense designed to do what all manufacturers do best: make money. Though I must admit the Purity ads on DSTV are very entertaining.

So what should babies eat? What should children eat? What should you eat?
Weaning
Once a baby is past 4 months you can entertain it with some solid food, they love to chew and it gets them into the habit of eating from a spoon. It’s not real nutrition, which is still almost exclusively from breast milk, it is harmless fun. A bit of banana, a bit of mashed potato, a Rusk. It’s cute and makes granny happy. And of course all babies love a finger dipped in beer. After 6 months, real food becomes necessary. The least-likely foods to give them allergies are potato, banana, carrot, and cereals. Egg and milk should probably be avoided until after 6 months and even longer if there is a family history of eczema. Once after 9 months most of the baby’s food should be from cereals and what babies like best: daddy’s food mashed up.
All this is pretty standard and accepted: our food mashed when they are at home and instant cereals from a packet when you are traveling.

The problem comes when they are off breast at a year and drinking milk and eating real food. Babies don’t have much control over their lives. They can’t walk far and can’t say much. They can turn their heads to one side and close their mouths or spit, and can howl and scream. So they do. They also love to be the centre of attention. So if turning their head to one side and closing the mouth when being fed gets extra special attention, they soon learn that this is an easy and acceptable way to get mum to play.

So from about a year children will refuse food when they are not hungry, and if mum tries to trick or tease or entertain or cajole them into an extra mouthful, the child soon realizes this is a great game. The game becomes a habit, and soon they refuse food even when they are hungry. This causes tension and anxiety, the baby learns to play the game, and because brains are very plastic at that age they quickly get into a habit of regarding meal times as a battle and food refusal as a weapon. Soon you have a sick, skinny child who won’t eat any nutritious food, has a psychological problem with feeding, and relies on junk food in-between meals provided either by dad, the house girl or a guilty anxious mother. They will be weak, difficult, thin children until they are old enough to leave home, when the bad eating habits learnt as a child will encourage them to become overweight, unfit adults with an early heart attack. Well done mum!

The answer is extremely easy.
Never try and persuade a child to eat. Eating is natural; all children will eat plenty if simply left to it. Do not trick, play, tease or cajole a child into eating. This causes behaviour conditioning and produces skinny, sick children who won’t eat and have no appetite.

What if you already have a child, who refuses to eat, has “no appetite” and is thin and sickly?
Again the answer is extremely easy: undo the conditioned behaviour that has caused the problem. This method works in 100% of cases in less than a week.
I have seen dozens of such children go off to boarding school with a seriously anxious mother desperately trying to convince the school nurse that their child has food allergies, has a long list of foods they won’t eat and needs a complicated regime of appetite stimulizers and nutrition supplements. The nurse listens politely and when the mother has gone puts the entire list in the bin. The child sits at the dining room table with 12 other children and either eats or goes hungry. There is no anxiety; no cajoling, no junk food, and no temper tantrums at the table. Within a week the child is eating good nutritious school food along with all his new mates, gains 10 kg in the first term and gets into the rugby team within a year.

However you don’t have to send your child to Turi to cure it from “poor appetite”. You can cure the child yourself in the safety and comfort of your own home

Rule number 1. No junk food.
What is good food? Anything that grows here and is available. Get good Ugandan vegetables, potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, cabbages, courgettes, the list is endless. There are literally dozens of good nutritious vegetables in every market or if you prefer grow them yourself. Whatever staple you prefer, rice, posho, pasta, whatever. Fish, meat, chicken, white ants, grasshoppers, dogs, even rats if you live in Tororo, whatever is culturally acceptable to you. Prepare it and cook it, it is all good nutritious food given to us by God in a land that grows almost anything. No vitamins, No supplements, No tinned food. Nothing from a packet. Consider them all treats for birthdays and holidays. Get a child hooked on Pringles, crisps, pizza and hamburger when he is young and it is very difficult to get all those chemicals and bad habits out of him when he is older.
And no vitamin tablets and supplements. New large studies have actually shown that vitamin tablets increase the risk of heart attacks! Look it up on the web sites and you will see no one except the manufacturers recommend vitamin tablets and supplements. It won’t be long before some country passes legislation that “this product can damage your health” has to be printed on the packets.

Rule number 2. Never cajole
Sit at the table with your husband and serve the food to each family member. Make fairly small helpings with plenty of fresh vegetables. Sit and eat without looking at the child’s food. Talk, laugh, and make a meal a happy time. No sitting watching TV. Make it a happy family time. Dad, you can watch the cricket after dinner, OK?
When you have finished eating, have a second helping if you want it, and then clear the food away, even if the child hasn’t eaten. Simply without any comment clear it away. Dad if you are hungry, you eat it. If not give it to the dog.
Now the kid will be pretty puzzled. Where are the appetizers, minerals, vitamins and where are the quarrel and fight and bribing and persuasion? He hasn’t eaten a single mouthful and no one has said a word! No problem:- in a few minutes I’ll have some chocolate, a pringle, a sugary soda.
Oh dear. Rule number3! No food at all in between meals. A drink of fruit juice, OK, but no sodas.
Next meal same again. Sit with the family, plate of food each, when you and dad have finished clear it all away without a fight, without question, without bribery and without comment. Serve the usual amount of second course, but very small for the child, unless he ate the entire first course.
Do make sure that the whole family cooperates: no TV. This is sit down family time.

After 2 or 3 days the child will be very hungry because he is not getting the quick sugar boost from sodas and junk food. He has discovered that no-one is bribing him to eat his vegetables with promises of sweets or a clockwork train set, and if he doesn’t finish his plate he doesn’t get jelly and ice cream instead. You will suddenly find he is the first to finish his meal and will want more. Still same rules: no comment, no rewards, no bribery, no food at all in between meals.
This only works if the whole family cooperates. Sit at the table with no TV until the meal is finished.

I can assure you this method cures all picky eaters in a week or less. Ask any boarding school nurse or teacher, they will all tell you the same. There are no fussy children or low appetite children or weak skinny children in boarding schools, and none of the good ones allow supplements or junk food or food in between meals until you are a prefect.

Once the child is cured you can allow sodas and sweets as a treat on birthdays and Sundays if you must, but never let there be a habit of food between meals. Junk food is bad for your health and causes loss of appetite.
Even more important you may find that family meal times become the best part of the day. A chance for all of you to chat, have a laugh and catch up.

Might even try it myself some time. When there’s no Rugby on.