"Finish your plate"

In my nutrition class there was a lecture on developmental nutrition. This was very interesting to me... My professor talked about how small children are very good at determining how much they should be eating. She said somewhere along the line, we lose touch with our bodies. And that probably has to do with being told to finish our plates.

I can remember being six and walking away from the dinner table with food on my plate. I remember being told to finish my food. Sometimes I'd be able to delegate the task to my brother, a living garbage disposal. Or sneak food to the dogs. And once I remember my oldest brother wrapping up my greenbeans in a napkin for me so I wouldn't have to eat them. One of my favorite childhood memories, actually.

I also remember when I started finishing my plate. I was proud of myself.

It's also largely that I got eating habits from my parents. A "daddy-sized" bowl of ice cream got me in trouble in the fifth grade. It was like five scoops. I don't think I was old enough to make the connection between eating and chubbiness, even if I already suspected I was chubby.

Point is, when I have kids - I'm going to let them eat however much they want, and probably try to make them choose small portions and go back for seconds if they want them. lol, I admit I did "make my eyes bigger than my stomach" a lot when I was little. I wasted a lot of food and hated leftovers. I hope they'll see food to be as trivial as my boyfriend does, and not feel bad throwing out half a burger if they can't go home to wrap it up.

This whole guilt thing I deal with has to go! I feel guilty eating, I feel guilty throwing it away... and I feel anxious wrapping it up because I worry it will get touched. Hopefully things will get better when I'm out of that awful house.