Hunger vs Fullness

Almost all children (3-5yos) I called for a meal asked me “What is it?” wanting to know what foods were on offer. My answer: “That doesn’t matter, chicken. Are you hungry? If you are, go wash your hands”.

I’m a casual educator and not at every shift have the opportunity to conduct mealtimes. Recently I did though. At the childcare centre I work, they start meal service with ten children (sitting capacity at the meals area) and then call others as these ones finish eating and vacate chairs.

As I replied their inquiry of the menu, I could see a bit of confusion on their faces and I suspect this is because, usually, they are told what’s on the menu – in fact the usual practice is to call the children to “so-and-so foods” (mentioning only the ‘appealing’ items like chippies, but not rice, veggie patties and meat balls) instead of “If you’re hungry, come on over”. So, my response was new to them.

But interestingly, many children took two seconds to think about it and decided they were not hungry and didn’t come for that meal. I made sure to tell them I wasn’t going to call them again and they would have another chance to eat at the next meal which was about two hours away. All of those who said “No thanks” were cool about it and did wait until the next meal, without drama. This particular meal is offered about 1.5 to two hours after the previous one.

This story is a good example of a couple of important points about feeding young children.

Prompt to eat in the absence of hunger

To exemplify the first important point, I’ll mention a study recently published* that listed the 4 most common forms of pressure to eat used by early childhood educators:

4th place: Referring to health benefits/consequences. Saying things like “Your muscles are going to grow big and strong”

3rd place: Offering praise such as “I am so proud you’re eating your fruit”

2nd place: Encouragement to try food: “Did you try it? Show me one bite”

1st place: Offering and encouraging eating without referencing hunger or satiety. An example: “Let’s see if you can get a few more bites” or, in the case of my story, enticing the children to come for a meal because this-or-that food is on offer.

These prompts don’t look like pressure to eat to most people because those who make use of these strategies are convinced they are doing the right thing which is encouraging children to eat well. But this practice is not evidence-based and can actually hinder children's positive relationship with food in the present and in the future^.

Note that all these strategies disregard the child’s hunger/fullness, also their preparedness to eat a particular food. I don’t mean only physical preparedness like being able to chew food and use the tongue to move it inside the mouth. But also, hedonically (if they like that food or not) and culturally (child’s familiarity with the dish or flavours).

Consistent meals timetable

The second point is a positive one which is that mealtimes in a daycare/preschool setting are mostly consistent and kept the same day-in-day-out. This is good because children learn and know roughly how long in between meals. I believe this was a big factor in some children’s decision of not taking that meal I called them for. They were confident they could last until the next meal as they knew when it was going to be.

Although the story that prompted me to write this article happened in a daycare and I cited a situation and research related to the same environment, both points apply to any feeding environment, including the home.

Families that adopt a more consistent number of meals and times in the day, and that also avoid ‘talking children into eating this-or-that’ experience much calmer meals and see their children’s interest in new and not-liked foods increase by the day.

If not yet, have a look at who I am and what I do to help children’s food literacy.

references

*“A few more bites?”: Manifestation of pressure-to-eat in child care (Podanovitch et al., 2025, Canada) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1747-0080.70041

^Changing children's eating behaviour - A review of experimental research (DeCosta et al., 2017, Denmark) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.03.004