This Ad Seeking a Skinny Person to Scare Picky Eaters Can’t be Real… Can It?
Skinny-person-shaming a picky eater? For shame!
Oh, dear God in heaven someone tell me that the ad, below, which someone found on a Phoenix craigslist board, is some kind of “I dare you” hoax. Because if this is even a teeny bit true, I think I’m going to throw up in my mouth a little. And you’ll see as you read it that maybe if I did throw up, this parent would hire me in what totally appears, if true, to be an effort to shame her “picky” eaters into eating.
My kids are becoming really picky eaters and aren’t finishing their plates. I told them “There are starving people out there who would love to have that,” but they don’t seem to get it. I would like to force them to throw away the food from their unfinished plates in front of someone who is really really skinny who will act hungry.
I’d love for you to get into the role. Maybe a wide-eyed-whimper and extension of an emancipated claw/hand as the meatloaf slides into the trash can. Must be able to pull off dejected as you sulk away.
I’d love to avoid meth skinny for obvious reasons. Also actual hunger skinny because that meatloaf is staying in the trash. Also would like to avoid some sort of body-image-malfunction skinny because my daughter is so impressionable right now (which is why it’s prime time to teach this lesson). My #1 choice would be parasite skinny, but I know chances of finding that are slim.
I read it again and I’m stuck on “emancipated claw/hand” that the ideal job-filler here would extend, pleadingly, as the child tossed his uneaten dinner in the trash. Putting aside that I think she meant “emaciated,” and not “emancipated,” really? Your idea is that your young child who won’t eat meatloaf will feel so bad about the skinny-claw person sighing dejectedly at the sight of the meatloaf in the trash that she’ll eat some next time?
And can I also point out the poster’s probably unintended irony? He/she doesn’t want “meth skinny” or actually hungry skinny, and not obvious-eating-disorder skinny. So the poster is PICKY about what kind of skinny-shaming actor he/she will hire to scare her picky eater. That, my friends, is rich stuff.
I’m not sure I have a whole lot else to say about this except to ask these questions:
1. Does anyone know if this has been exposed as a joke/hoax?
2. Does anyone else have good ideas for healthfully helping a child connect the value of food with that child actually eating? I’m not sure it can be done. Anyway, if it can, it can only happen gradually. You tell them, “we worked hard to provide this food,” maybe, while also continuing to offer a range of foods (over and over) and not cater to whims. Far as I can tell, that’s the only way to help a child grow out of the “I won’t eat that, ever!” phases they go through.Fear and revulsion? I think that prompts the wrong kind of habits, no? (Maybe the kind that’ll get them an acting job in the Emancipated Claw category someday, just guessing.)
I am sure, however, that we should retire the dismissive, self-fulfilling label “picky eater” for good.
Thoughts?
[photo: Everystock.com]
June 6, 2013 @ 8:38 am
I’m still shaking my head over this ad — it can’t possibly be real!!
I can’t add anything at all except to say, having a frequent “that’s yucky” and “I don’t like this” kid, that I agree the only way you can get a “picky” child to eat is to offer a healty variety (small portions help) and not give in when they won’t eat something (i.e don’t offer them something else). Then it’s not as much about eating as it is about control.
A lot of people don’t like having kids compared to dogs, but I have to say it’s true: They will both eat just about anything when they are truly hungry.
June 8, 2013 @ 3:15 am
I ask my children to try new foods and tell them that it doesn’t matter if they don’t like it but it does matter if they won’t try it. They invariably do like “it” but sometimes not. But then I don’t like everything either and I certainly didn’t when I was a child.
One thing that works a little is to say “never mind, it is quite a grown up taste – you will probably like it when you are a bit older”. This works to slightly offend them, make them determined to like it to show they are grown up and also leaves hanging the possibility of changing tastes. Just because they don’t like it when they are 5 doesn’t mean they won’t like it when they are 10.
Also – small portions of lots of things works better for us than 3 things on a plate but a huge portion of each – it just puts them off.
June 9, 2013 @ 2:20 am
When my oldest son was about 8, he used to say, “Why did God make us so rich?” He was growing up in Mauritania, one of the poorest countries in Africa, and he knew how rich we were compared to so many people in this world. One time, I was about to throw away some rice that was crawling with bugs but a neighbourhood girl was shocked and took it home to her family. I think living in this environment is prob the only way to pull off what this woman wants. She’s really whack. Couldn’t she just take the family to volunteer at a homeless shelter or something a little more logical/normal?