The Yummy Mummy’s Family Handbook. Liz Fraser

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СКАЧАТЬ ladies have complicated issues with body image and food.

      Fact 2: All mothers are ladies. (At least, they once were ladies, but are now exhausted, stretched and irritable forms of such beings, hence all the shouting and unladylike behaviour in the checkout queue. Be kind to them.)

      Using basic logic, we can deduce from the above two facts that many mothers have issues with body image and food. There, I’ve said it, and by the sound reasoning above you can hopefully see that it’s true.

      The result of this is that in every city, street and household in the land, lots and lots of ladies are trying to change their body shape, either to make it thinner, curvier, firmer, or just ‘more like that gorgeous actress I saw in that film last night.’ It’s really rather sad, when you think about it, that so much energy, money and time is wasted on a few rolls of subcutaneous fat, when there’s the planet to save and people unintentionally starving all over the place, but there it is: women obsessing about muffin tops and bingo wings are everywhere.

      Every mother I know has been on one weird and wonderful food programme or another at some point in her post-childbirth life, because the body she once inhabited has been replaced by something two dress-sizes larger and covered in a saggy outer shell of loose skin. This is fine if you live alone, or perhaps with a cat or a cactus collection, but when you are eating together as a family, any peculiar eating habits come sharply under the spotlight, because everyone can see what you are, or aren’t, eating. Most children need a lot of food to keep them going through all their tree-climbing, growing, brain-using and sibling-bashing, so ‘family food’ needs to be wholesome, healthy and full of energy. When you are trying to shift a pound or two, or are about to go to a Legs, Bums and Tums class at the gym, sitting down to a two-course, filling meal isn’t really what you want to do. So you don’t.

      This is where the ‘Why isn’t Mummy eating?’ question arises, and it’s a very tricky one to field. Do you say: ‘Well, darling, it’s because when Mummy sits in the bath and looks at her enormous wobbly thighs and her Michelin Man tummy, she feels like a beached whale and wants to drown herself’, or do you plump for something more heartfelt, like: ‘Because I’m fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! Now eat your dinner!’

      All joking aside for a moment, the way you handle your own food fads and body issues is critical when you have kids, because the last thing you want to do is introduce the body issue before they discover it for themselves in the school changing room. What I do, if I’m just having vegetables while everyone else is tucking into the accompanying shepherds pie followed by bread pudding, is to be very logical and casual about it, and move the conversation on. Explanations that work include:

      

I tasted a lot as I cooked, so I’m not very hungry any more.

      

I had a very big lunch so I just want a small dinner. (Liar!)

      

I’ve been sitting at my desk all day but you’ve been running about for hours and are growing like a sunflower, so you need much more than me!

      

I’m going to meet a friend for dinner later. (Double liar!)

      There are lots of other things you can say, which may also be true by the way, and my kids always accept any of these perfectly rational explanations very happily. I have the double problem that my husband is six foot five and can eat more food than anyone I’ve ever met without gaining an ounce, so there is a stark difference between what he consumes and what I do. This often leads to, ‘But Daddy isn’t growing either, and he eats lots’. This is easily explained by my replying, ‘Yes, but Daddy’s about three times bigger than me, and if I ate that much I would explode!’ Lots of laughter and satisfaction all round, and we move on.

      Yuk! I’m Not Eating That! Dealing with fussy eaters

      If parents could pick and choose the characteristics of their children (and if you are reading this any time after about the year 2020 then they probably can, so please forgive my antiquated musings) then Fussy Eater would lie somewhere near Bad Sleeper and Tantrum Thrower. Fussy Eaters are a nightmare, but almost every family has at least one and it can affect the way the entire family eats.

      Before I go into how to a) prevent this from developing, and b) solve it once it’s set in, I should probably define my terms. By ‘Fussy Eater’ I do not mean a child who doesn’t like broccoli. That’s just ninety-nine per cent of children out there, and it’s nothing to worry about. Neither do I mean a child who hates every breakfast cereal you offer except for Sugar-Crunchy-Lard-Pops™. This child is very smart, and knows how to piss you off. He actually rather likes healthy Bran Flakes, but knows that refusing them makes you cross, so continues with his game.

      No, a true Fussy Eater won’t eat at least fifty per cent of the food you offer him if it’s not exactly as he likes it.

      Let’s take bread as a simple example. Surely he’ll eat one slice of a humble loaf of bread? Well, white’s OK, but not brown. Oh no, wait: some brown breads are OK, but not if they have those little seed thingies in them, and definitely no crusts. Righty-ho. Next up, vegetables. Peas: yes. Carrots: yes, but only if they are raw and cut into sticks. Slices are disgusting and will be hidden under a potato skin. Potatoes: baked, yes (but not the skin); boiled, never; roasted, yes (if cut into triangles, not slices). Broccoli: didn’t you read what it says above? NO broccoli. Courgettes: eeeeuugh! Are you trying to poison him? If he can’t pronounce it, he certainly won’t be eating it.

      And so on. That’s a Fussy Eater. As you can imagine, living with one of these is tantamount to being in purgatory, because every time you think you’ve cracked what it is he does and doesn’t like, the blighter will change his mind and go off peas for the season. Oooh, you little…

      So, how can you avoid finding yourself in such an unpleasant situation? Well, there are two methods—prevention and cure—and I strongly recommend the former. I know I said above that some kids are just born Fussy Eaters, and I stand by that having seen my second baby spit out anything with tomato in it from the age of four months unless it was precisely the same temperature as slightly-too-cold tea, but there is a lot you can do to stop this tendency from taking hold and giving you an ulcer:

      

Serve a large variety of foods from an early age. Kids who only ever eat sausages, peas and potatoes will find it very hard to move onto such delights as curry, pâté and bean sprouts later on. Keeping their palette stimulated and their diet very varied makes them much more adventurous in the food department.

      

Think about why your child is refusing the food. Is it because something in it tastes bad to her or she is allergic to it, or is she just testing the limits of your patience? If you think she really doesn’t like it—and not everybody likes the same tastes—then leave it out of her diet for a while and find an alternative. Then try re-introducing it a few weeks later when the aversion may have passed. If she is just mucking about (e.g. the slices versus sticks example above, or eating only certain kinds of yoghurt) then I have found that using a ‘don’t be ridiculous, it’s that or nothing’ approach can work, because they eventually get hungry and eat anything they can.

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