Watching children eat their lunch of beef with vegetables in oyster sauce with rice in an excellent preschool in Ekamai, near Thonglor in Bangkok offering English, Mandarin and French, one can’t help but notice the cultural differences, the effect of nurture on kindergarten aged children’s eating habits. There are definite Western, Eastern beliefs in how best to ‘feed’ and nourish our babies. Often parents take it on themselves to offer what could be described as nutrition-poor, ‘dumb downed’ kinds of food believed as ‘fun’ enough for their children to taste first, for fear that new tastes might ‘shock’ their children’s palate. Meals are offered in front of television, ipad, iphones featuring screens full of action that add to this preoccupation of offering ‘fun’ and a distraction to having to learn the art of sitting, listening and/or making conversation and learning family mealtime etiquette.
Preschool children in the west tend be to prepared ‘different ‘meals to their parents- first tastes tend to be sweet, foods are simplified- e.g. chicken is served fried, in batter, devoid of sauces, most vegetables for some reason seem to have to be ‘hidden’, cut very small or turned into whimsical items, “here Johnny, eat this carrot on your plate look, it looks like an orange rocket doesn’t it?”….. Whereas in many Asian homes and residential areas around this excellent preschool in Ekamai children’s first tastes are often savoury rather than sweet, meals are family occasions around a table, all eating the same things albeit in softer textures perhaps for the preschool children, but with the expectation that children learn to eat a large variety of healthy foods and vegetables as a fact of life.
This kind of nurturing saves shopping costs—no longer is there a need to prepare and make a different meal for the children, it helps children learn social interaction- being able to sit for 20 minutes during a meal with others is a life skill, it teaches children respect for simple foods, aids the growth of healthy bones and bodies in general and research maintains that good diets provide nutrients valuable to brain development. Poor nutrition can stunt the growth of neurons, intelligence.
