Needless to say this article was a bit of a shocker to me when I first read the title. Ever since I was a child, gosh as long as I can remember, I have been told breakfast is the most important meal of the day. At home, in school we were always told that eating a good breakfast sets up your metabolism for the rest of the day. By constantly skipping breakfast as a child, we would be messing with our future metabolisms as well.

Well it seems that scientists are now questioning if making your child eat breakfast is contributing to a form of obesity. If you think about it, what if you as an adult were not hungry and someone was forcing you to eat before you could leave the table? Kind of puts a different twist on things doesn’t it? Of course if your child is repeatedly refusing to eat morning after morning, there may be some other underlying health or mental issues happening. Try offering something different to the child rather than what they keep turning down. It may be a case of they are just tired of the choices you are giving them. This doesn’t mean that you have to offer them candy and donuts, but apples, oranges and other fruits are usually very popular with kids and aren’t super filling enough to make them feel weighed down. Banana’s are and excellent source of brain food for example.

When force feeding your children breakfast at the same time every morning, there is also the physiological issues to consider. For instance you may be adding to a risk of diabetes. Someone with diabetes could suffer severe glucose spikes when eating at a time that they are not ready to. Waiting until a little later in the morning could make all of the difference in keeping those levels down to the normal range where they belong. Don’t panic and for sure check with your child’s pediatrician, but it is another factor to be aware of.

In essence, there is a very big deference between “forcing” and “coaxing.” Certainly always encourage your youngsters to eat, especially healthy foods to get their little brains going in the morning, but it doesn’t seem that it is a real good idea to force. I guess the word force should be enough to tell us somethings up that we should consider.

To read on further about forcing kids to eat breakfast….CLICK HERE.