I frequently see parents stressing out and forcing their kids (3+) to eat or eat enough, when the kids don’t want to eat. So which one is it? Do kids really lack the capacity start eating before it becomes unhealthy and need to be coerced.… or are parents doing something irrational?
Before the Industrial Revolution, people ate when they were hungry. Our insistence on meals at fixed times is a modern effect of accurate watchmaking and the introduction of work shifts.
That seems… less than obvious to me. One could as easily say that modern food-preservation technology (refrigeration, sealed containers, chemical preservatives) enabled snacking, and that preindustrial people would have had a stronger incentive to eat preplanned meals. That’s a just-so story, granted, but most of the preindustrial cooking methods I’m familiar with would have taken hours and produced food for many people: not exactly conducive to eating individually as a response to hunger.
Of course, eating at precisely 7:00 or whatever is enabled by modern timekeeping, but my understanding is that the concept of a noon or an evening meal has been around for a long while. (Breakfast in the modern sense is more recent, though.)
Click through to the page on medieval diet and it presents a two-meal structure based on grains and alcohol, with the main meal around noon and a lighter one in the evening. Which is about what I’d have thought. Also some interesting moralism around meal timing.
Though it does say that snacking was common (if disapproved-of by the church), so I guess my wild-assed guess there was wrong.
My point was that the technology of the time did not prevent snacking on prepared food. Not that people actually did so. Probably should have actually said that instead of just giving a bare link.
I mostly agree with you, but let’s not take this “reversing stupidity” too far. Centuries ago, many people died in their child years, so this is not as strong evidence as it would be in a hypothetical universe where people ate when they were hungry and all children survived.
I mean, maybe with 90% of children, letting them wait until they are hungry would be okay, but with 10% it would be harmful. Such hypothesis can only be proved or disproved by someone with detailed knowledge, not by simple comparison with eating habit of our ancestors.
It may also be a matter of convenience for the parents—if you let the child stop eating when they feel like it, they might be hungry in a half an hour, when you were hoping to do something else.
I’d want to see some cross-cultural work on how much parents control the amount small children eat.
I frequently see parents stressing out and forcing their kids (3+) to eat or eat enough, when the kids don’t want to eat. So which one is it? Do kids really lack the capacity start eating before it becomes unhealthy and need to be coerced.… or are parents doing something irrational?
Before the Industrial Revolution, people ate when they were hungry. Our insistence on meals at fixed times is a modern effect of accurate watchmaking and the introduction of work shifts.
That seems… less than obvious to me. One could as easily say that modern food-preservation technology (refrigeration, sealed containers, chemical preservatives) enabled snacking, and that preindustrial people would have had a stronger incentive to eat preplanned meals. That’s a just-so story, granted, but most of the preindustrial cooking methods I’m familiar with would have taken hours and produced food for many people: not exactly conducive to eating individually as a response to hunger.
Of course, eating at precisely 7:00 or whatever is enabled by modern timekeeping, but my understanding is that the concept of a noon or an evening meal has been around for a long while. (Breakfast in the modern sense is more recent, though.)
Perpetual stew
Click through to the page on medieval diet and it presents a two-meal structure based on grains and alcohol, with the main meal around noon and a lighter one in the evening. Which is about what I’d have thought. Also some interesting moralism around meal timing.
Though it does say that snacking was common (if disapproved-of by the church), so I guess my wild-assed guess there was wrong.
My point was that the technology of the time did not prevent snacking on prepared food. Not that people actually did so. Probably should have actually said that instead of just giving a bare link.
I suspect that there was/is a big difference between foragers and farmers in that respect.
Snacking also doesn’t require modern food-preservation technology. It’s easy to snack on apples, berries, bread, cheese, etc.
Which unfortunately means that even refraining from buying junk food doesn’t completely stop me from eating before dinner! :-(
I mostly agree with you, but let’s not take this “reversing stupidity” too far. Centuries ago, many people died in their child years, so this is not as strong evidence as it would be in a hypothetical universe where people ate when they were hungry and all children survived.
I mean, maybe with 90% of children, letting them wait until they are hungry would be okay, but with 10% it would be harmful. Such hypothesis can only be proved or disproved by someone with detailed knowledge, not by simple comparison with eating habit of our ancestors.
It may also be a matter of convenience for the parents—if you let the child stop eating when they feel like it, they might be hungry in a half an hour, when you were hoping to do something else.
I’d want to see some cross-cultural work on how much parents control the amount small children eat.