[sethammons]

Mom: "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!". Thanks Mom; kids are still starving there, and now America is fat. --unkown comedian.

I was told, as a kid, that it was rude to not eat all the food put in front of you, especially at other people's houses. Other parents would comment on how polite we children were for clearing our plates.

[matte_black]

It’s funny because I think in China or some other Asian countries it’s considered rude to actual clean off your whole plate, you should always leave a little bit. Otherwise what you’re basically saying is “What the fuck!? You’re so fucking poor you can’t afford to give me more than enough food?”

[johnisgood]

> "There are starving kids in China, eat all your food!"

This does not make much sense to me. If eating all your food is the only alternative to throwing food out, it is sort of OK, but even then, it does not solve the issue at all because you are the one eating all the food, not the starving kids in China.

Additionally, why come up with such nonsense? This is one of the worst things you could do to your kid. You should instead educate them and tell them the actual reasons for why one should not waste food.

Mind you, if you cook less instead, then you would not have to eat them, nor throw them out. :)

[delinka]

The missing implication, that even parents completely missed, was “you should be grateful to have food, and you show that gratitude by eating all the food on your plate.”

Still completely unhelpful to the starving, and still orthogonal...

[lifeformed]

And also that eating all your food implies that you thought it tasted good. Leaving a bunch behind says: I didn't like it.

[pkaye]

I think what they are really meaning is "There are starving kids out in the world. Be grateful you have all this food available and don't waste it."

[johnisgood]

Hmm, yes, I agree with that, but then again: if the kid's parents were to cook less, then the kid would not have had to eat it "forcefully". The only reason I assume force here is because the kid would not need any reasons to be told if s/he is hungry. It seems to me that this is a special scenario, but being grateful for the things you have is not, and should not be a special case, IMO.

I am not sure that this is how I would teach my kid to be grateful, especially because the kid might perceive it to be forced and might backfire in the future.

Anyways, we might be overthinking this. :)

[jdminhbg]

It's not so much about "I cooked a lot of food, eat all of it" as it is about "you ate the French fries but haven't touched the broccoli," usually. In other words, it's a cliche dragged out when a kid is being picky about something.

[lazyasciiart]

Do you have kids? Some of the little kids I've known would literally not want to eat anything all day. I don't know if they didn't feel hunger or just didn't yet associate it with eating. And plenty of kids (and adults!) will refuse food they don't like even if they are 'hungry', because during a normal western life they don't actually get that hungry. Because parents don't want to starve their kid into eating vegetables, they need to find methods other than "let them go hungry".

[johnisgood]

That is not the case being talked about, and even in your case, this is still not how I would teach my kid to be grateful. I never said I would let them go hungry, I am really not sure from where you got that.

I assume you are only responding to "the kid would not need any reasons to be told if s/he is hungry.". It is true in most cases, I was not accounting for depression and so on, but that in itself might dissipate hunger.

Most toddlers will eat when they are hungry, they will not just go hungry. Power play or power struggles complicates things, I deliberately did not bring it into this. Regardless, I still do not see that it is necessary to come up with reasons that are completely wrong or silly. :)

[lazyasciiart]

Yes, if you simplified it to the point of triviality then every comment on the topic is silly. That's basically how parenting works.

[Nasrudith]

It is authoritarian parenting - it isn't supposed to make sense it is done because it is done or else the consequences.

[torstenvl]

When I studied in France, my host family taught me that, instead, it was an insult to eat everything on your plate.

Eating everything on your plate indicated that you were ravenously hungry, taking advantage of your host's hospitality.

Leaving just a little uneaten meant that you ate as much as you could because you found the food delicious.

[vidanay]

Mom: There are starving children in Africa.

Me: Got a stamp?

Mom: <SMACK!>

[tonysdg]

I know that Allen Sherman did a version of that joke in his "Ode to Fat People" :-)

[flaque]

Speculation, but does food waste reduce food prices?

[marcosdumay]

It makes absolutely no difference if you eat the extra food on your plate or if you throw it at the trash (how could it?). The only thing that changes is that one gets you fatter.

[xvilka]

China? These days it is largely not suffering the problem of starving people. There are new countries who joined this "club" though. Not to mention Venezuela and Yemen where everyone is on brink of death from starvation.