"Oh but parents do have a right to control what their children eat. What if they just want to eat candy for every meal?"
Most parents can't even distinguish between random whims and autism dietary limitations and end up saying shit like this and starving their disabled children.
Really love the underlying logic of "if you would eat when you're desperately hungry than it must never really have been that bad";
I would eat a lot of things if I got hungry enough; spoiled food, defiled food, food that might make me sick but definitely will give me some energy.
People will resort to cannibalism if left long enough with no food. That doesn't make their revulsion at doing so any less real.
There was a guy a few years ago who said that if you say you can’t walk, but you could walk if he held a gun to your head, it really means you don’t want to walk. For some reason, Rationalists treated this guy like he was worth discussing.
Things that aren't food are not food. It's cool if they're food for you, but trying to convince me to eat something that my brain insists isn't food is roughly equivalent to trying to convince me to eat a bowl of paint chips.
My cousin hated meat and at 8 years old she straight up refused to eat it.
Traditionally Australian bogan food is typically at least half meat product, usually more, and the rest like mashed potatoes, with steamed carrots and peas. The patties or the sausages or the steak is where most of the nutrients are.
So she refused to eat any meat and my uncle refused to feed her any differently, insisting that if she wasnt going to eat it then she wasn't getting more food and that he would just wait for her to "get over herself". 9 months this went on. She lived off mashed potatoes and cereal for 9 fucking months.
She ended up so sick she was in hospital and he had to ring the whole family and tell us that the doctors think she has leukemia, they're just running some more tests.
Turns out she was so malnourished her immune system had given up and she contracted galandula fever and another virus at the same time and was fucking dying because he wouldn't give her food she would eat.
Yes he got screamed at by a bunch of doctors and nurses, and then the rest of our family, because you can't just starve a kid bc you think they're being difficult.
"let them starve?" They will. They fucking will and it will be your fault.
Ok my kid as a toddler had a majorly restrictive diet due to autism and other things
We needed to get them to eat more variation
So we got advice and were patient
Our firm line was that we were not going to traumatise them about food
So we offered food. We enouraged them to try just touching it with their tongue and if they did they got heaps of praise and if they didn't that was okay
They could walk away from the food and come back when they were ready
And we always always had a safe back up food ready
Kiddo's palate did expand as they found things they liked and what they didn't like we asked why so we could learn not to offer foods of certain textures or flavours
To further encourage them we grew carrots and got them involved with cooking and baking so they wanted to try the things they made
Kiddo is still pretty restrictive in what food they will eat at 15 but it's much much broader then it was at 3 and they still are willing to try new things
Not often. They need to be in the right mood, but they still ask.
And they aren't traumatised by the experience
You can't force your kid to eat without fucking them up for life but you can be compassionate and help your kid expand their diet through patience and rewards and most importantly - by respecting a no
Kiddo was able to try stuff because we didn't force them when they said no. They got as much cuddles and love and understanding when they refused as when they did try things
People are always going on about "back in my day we ate what we were given!" and like, maybe they did but my dad was an extremely picky eater and PB&J was one of his safe foods, so my grandmother would make whatever dish she was making for the family and a PB&J for my dad. It was simple and easy to prepare so it's not like she was cooking multiple dinners each night. This was the 1960s!
She just let my dad try new foods at his own pace. He remained really picky until college when he tried a bunch of new foods because his palate was ready. So if the process described above sounds daunting, don't worry, lots of people will try new foods on their own when they're ready.
And don't let anyone lie to you about "back in my day." Being cruel to children has always been a choice you can choose not to make, whether it's 2025 or 1965.
Apparently being cruel to children is bad for them
