I was really against using screens at mealtime because of everything I know about distracted eating. It prevents them from listening to their bodies, enables unnecessary snacking between meals, and increases their risk of obesity later in life; using screens at mealtimes seems to do more harm than good.
In addition, I’ve personally struggled with emotional eating most of my life and battled an eating disorder when I was a teenager. It wasn’t until my late 20’s when I started treating my body right. Learning to eat mindfully, listening to my body’s hunger and full cues and appreciating food instead of viewing it as an enemy was a significant part of my recovery.
And I want my kids to learn to self-regulate how much they need to eat early on so that they don’t go through what I went through.
But then, one day, in a fit of frustration while struggling to feed my son scrambled eggs, my husband turned the TV on, flipped it to a Cantonese episode of Peppa Pig and within seconds, there were silence and stillness.
