If you eat all your peas, you can have pudding.’ ‘You can’t have ice-cream if you don’t tidy up your toys.’ Or, ‘You’re looking sad, let's have a biscuit to cheer you up.’ How many times as a child did you hear comments like these? The majority of us will have done, but is using food as a reward or bribe something that we should be continuing to do with young children?
‘We live in an environment where foods and drinks high in fat, sugars and salt like sweets, chocolate, doughnuts, crisps, sugary drinks and cake are readily available. This can make it really hard to teach children healthy eating habits and behaviour and to always make the right choices,’ says Helena Gibson-Moore, nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation.
‘Even with the best intentions in the world, parents and carers often find themselves offering these foods as a reward for good behaviour or for eating healthier foods like vegetables. They may also withhold dessert as a means of punishment or give food as a treat to make their child feel better.’
It is often sugary foods and drink that are offered as a reward or bribe because we are born with an innate liking for sweetness which makes them an ‘easy bargaining tool’. ‘It may also be that parents and carers feel they are making their child happy through the pleasure of giving them something that they enjoy,’ adds Gibson-Moore. ‘Using food as a bribe can be effective in the short term but may negatively impact the development of healthy eating habits in the longer term, so it is best avoided.’
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Eating should be an enjoyable experience, but if food is used as a reward or a bribe then it can become pleasurable for reasons other than the enjoyment of tastes, textures, smells and sustenance.
Encouraging children to indulge in unhealthy foods when they are feeling unhappy or as a reward can give them mixed messages. Registered dietician and British Dietetic Association spokesperson Anna Groom warns that having high-calorie food, such as chocolate, sweets or biscuits, as rewards makes them more attractive to have at other times. It implies that they are better than other foods and can lead to a heightened desire for them.
‘Using a high-calorie food such as chocolate or sweets, as a reward for trying a “healthy option first” – for example, if you eat your broccoli you can have chocolate cake for pudding – can encourage thoughts that the first food, the broccoli, must be really bad tasting if I get a tasty treat after. Otherwise why would I get the reward?’ she says.
‘From my experience with families, using food as a reward can set up emotional ties between certain foods – when they are sad they choose certain foods, when they have done something difficult or painful, such as a blood test, they get treat foods. This can encourage a difficult relationship with food.’
Using food as a reward can also interfere with a child's natural ability to regulate their eating. Gibson-Moore says it can lead children to eating when they are not hungry in order to reward themselves. ‘These “treat” foods and drinks are not part of a healthy, balanced diet so offering them often may also contribute to excess calorie intake, leading to weight gain and can increase the risk of tooth decay,’ she says. ‘If they are used to make a child feel better when they have hurt themselves, or if they are sad, then children can become reliant on them to help regulate their emotions. Research suggests this is associated with emotion-induced overeating in later life, or “comfort eating”, and can contribute to being overweight and obesity.’
WHAT TO DO
Gibson-Moore highlights that the high-calorie foods that are often associated with rewards and bribes are often also linked to advertising, which is designed to be enticing. She cautions, ‘It is also a good idea to limit their exposure to food advertising, for example by limiting screen time, as this might negatively influence their food preferences by encouraging liking of foods high in fat, sugars and salt.’
Nutrition director at Early Start Group, Edwina Revel, says nurseries following the recommended Eat better, start betterguidelines (see Further information) tend not to use food as a reward because it is recognised that it is not good practice. Advice includes avoiding providing sweet foods, such as cakes, biscuits and confectionery, between meals.
Along with not using food as a reward, Revel recommends being careful about how food is talked about. ‘The onus is very much on encouraging positive conversation around mealtimes,’ she says. ‘We’ve tried to remove the words “good” and “bad” when talking about food and focus instead on the nutritional benefits that they can get from eating the food. This can be introduced throughout the nursery day in lots of ways from story books to role play activities and gardening. We want it to be a lot more positive than encouraging a child to eat their carrots and they’ll get a chocolate bar later on.’
Being forced to finish all of a meal can also lead to children developing bad eating habits, such as eating when they are not hungry, and does not take into account the importance of considering the food a child is consuming throughout the day, not just for one meal. ‘Children should also always be offered all the food that's available across the day,’ says Revel. ‘It wouldn’t be fair that if one child didn’t have their bolognese then they were not allowed to have their pudding. If you restrict a pudding then you are putting it on a higher pedestal.’
Revel adds that there is often a misconception that desserts are not as nutritious for children, but if settings follow nutritional guidelines then they should be offering puddings that are beneficial to children's healthy development, such as ones that are dairy- or fruit-based.
Being good role models around food – reaching for a pretend banana instead of an imaginary biscuit when you are playing in the home corner with the children and showing them that you value your vegetables at mealtimes just as much as the sweet foods – can also help children to develop better attitudes to food.
TOP TIPS
Strategies for avoiding using food as a reward or bribe include:
- Remind yourself that food should be thought of as nourishment, rather than as a tool for rewarding or withholding.
- If you want to offer a reward, give something that is non-food-related, or simply give vocal praise.
- Deal with a child's upset through listening, talking and giving hugs and comfort instead of offering food.
- When sharing meals, grocery shopping or discussing food with young children, model positive language around all food types instead of labelling some as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ to stop there being a ‘hierarchy’ of food.
- Think of what a child is consuming during a whole day to meet their energy and nutrient requirements instead of focusing on the importance of the main meal. This will reduce the urge to instruct a child to ‘clear their plate’ and bribe them with dessert.
- Avoid sugary desserts and instead research nutritious puddings that will provide children with energy and essential nutrients.
- Get rid of any stash of ‘treat’ food that you may have stored.
- Leave ‘treat’ food as something that the children receive at home, rather than in the childcare setting. Suggest to parents that they only offer these foods occasionally, such as just on a Saturday.
- Include in your food policy that parents should not bring birthday cakes and food treats into the setting. Instead, find other ways of celebrating with children that do not involve food, such as giving them a birthday badge.
- Remember that getting children to eat a wide range of nutritious food is something that slowly develops over time.
FURTHER INFORMATION
- Eat better, start better: https://bit.ly/3EtM2k2
- British Nutrition Foundation: https://bit.ly/3JKOK80
- Early Start Group: https://www.earlystartgroup.com
- British Dietetic Association: https://www.bda.uk.com
