{"id":386338,"date":"2026-04-07T12:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/386338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:48:09","slug":"food-noise-why-parents-eating-hang-ups-are-ruining-their-childrens-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/386338\/","title":{"rendered":"Food noise: Why parents\u2019 eating hang-ups are ruining their children\u2019s lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Food is a bit like the weather \u2013 a topic we talk about all the time<\/a> without realising we\u2019re doing it. We ask each other what we\u2019re having for lunch and describe dinner plans<\/a>; we say we\u2019ve \u201cearned\u201d a brownie after a hard day at work or announce \u201cthe diet starts tomorrow!\u201d when we take a piece of cake.<\/p>\n

In the midst of all this, children and young people are absorbing all kinds of messaging about food before they\u2019re even conscious of the fact, and parents are often unwittingly passing down their own hang-ups and toxic attitudes to the next generation. Some foods are labelled \u201cgood\u201d and some are \u201cbad\u201d. Food can be entertainment, a treat, a reward, a pick-me-up, a source of guilt, a weakness, or a stick to beat yourself with.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s complicated,\u201d says Alicia Eaton, a psychotherapist and author of Mind How Your Kids Eat<\/a>, of this dynamic. \u201cLet\u2019s face it \u2013 we use food for much more than just nourishment.\u201d She cites the current conflict in the Middle East: \u201cWe can\u2019t shield our kids from news events<\/a>. It heightens the sense of anxiety and tension in the home for our children, and there\u2019s a desire to help them feel better.\u201d Cue parents reaching for the ice cream or popcorn as a knee-jerk balm to dampen that anxiety.<\/p>\n

All of this means that \u201cfood noise\u201d \u2013 a term used to describe the intrusive, uncontrollable mental chatter about food that leads some adults to have cravings even when not physically hungry \u2013 is trickling down to children. \u201cKids have it too,\u201d says Eaton. \u201cAnd I think parents today have a much tougher job raising kids, given the change in the food landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shocking recent stats reveal that the UK has one of the worst obesity rates in Europe<\/a>, with about 3.8 million children between the ages of five and 19 in the UK recording a high BMI \u2013 around twice as high as rates in France and Italy. The World Obesity Federation\u2019s ATLAS 2026 report estimates that there will be about 228 million children worldwide living with obesity by 2040.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t realise the sheer quantity of food that we\u2019re consuming that has nothing to do with nourishment, nothing to do with satisfying your appetite, and is not actually at a meal time,\u201d says Eaton. <\/p>\n

Processed foods aren\u2019t a new invention; most people were chowing down on Angel Delight and Monster Munch at some point in the Seventies, Eighties or Nineties. But food manufacturers \u201chave got cleverer in getting us hooked and addicted, because they understand the exact combination of fat and sugar, the ratios that are needed,\u201d says Eaton . \u201cAnd then there\u2019s the attractive packaging, the bright colours\u2026 Are we creating a generation of dopamine-addicted children<\/a>? Yes, most definitely we are.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"TheThe proliferation of ultra processed foods has seen obesity rates rocket (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n

She stresses that none of this is about blaming or shaming parents. Chronic overeating is a societal problem \u2013 a collective fault, rather than an individual failure. The proliferation of cheap ultra-processed food (UPF)<\/a>, products that contain refined sugar and expansion of portion sizes are all huge contributing factors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot populate the high streets with UPFs and takeaway shops that we know damage our health, and then go, \u2018Well, it\u2019s your own fault because you went and shopped there\u2019,\u201d Eaton adds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why she\u2019s also scathing of the sugar tax<\/a>: \u201cWe allow the manufacturers to make sugary foods, we allow the retailers to stock those foods. But guess what? If you walk down the high street and make a purchase, I\u2019m going to slap your wrist and tax you. This is madness.\u201d <\/p>\n

Are we creating a generation of dopamine-addicted children? Yes, most definitely we are<\/p>\n

Alicia Eaton, psychotherapist <\/p>\n

On the other side of the food noise coin is the rise of weight loss injections<\/a>, which act as appetite suppressants; an estimated 1.6 million adults in Britain used such drugs between early 2024 and early 2025, according to a UCL study<\/a>. While there are myriad health benefits, including dampening food noise<\/a>, there are concerns that this treatment is already being touted as a solution for children, instead of proactively and preventively tackling the overeating problem at its source. <\/p>\n

Liraglutide (Saxenda) and semaglutide (Wegovy) are currently approved in the UK for obese adolescents aged 12 and over to use for weight management. Meanwhile, drugmaker Novo Nordisk has asked US regulators to expand the use of its Liraglutide medication for kids as young as six<\/a> after successful trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to see children on medication,\u201d emphasises Eaton. She sees weight loss drugs instead as an opportunity to initiate a reset, change our flawed relationship with food as adults and break the cycle, to \u201cavoid passing on the same problems to the next generation\u201d. It would be a shame, she says, to waste that opportunity; to \u201ccontinue to stuff our faces with UPFs, and allow our children to grow into obese teenagers and adults \u2013 because, \u2018well, it doesn\u2019t matter, there\u2019s a weight loss drug that you can use afterwards.\u2019 That is not the legacy that we want to be giving our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what can parents do to instil better attitudes, behaviours and habits when it comes to eating? And how can they quiet the food noise for their children?<\/p>\n

Recognising signals<\/p>\n

Differentiating between real and imagined hunger is a key life skill, says Eaton. Interoception is the method by which we perceive internal bodily sensations. \u201cIt\u2019s about helping children to understand this internal messaging system so that they can recognise feelings of not only hunger, but also thirst and temperature and whether or not they need to go to the toilet,\u201d says Eaton. \u201cAll of that messaging takes time to develop.\u201d So when a child says, \u2018I\u2019m hungry\u2019, they may well actually be bored, thirsty, tired or lonely. <\/p>\n

Eaton recommends creating a \u201cfeelings menu\u201d and sticking it on the fridge to help children to identify internal signals and interpret them correctly. <\/p>\n

\"TakeTake a seat to eat: Sitting down to dinner as a family encourages conscious eating (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n

Hunger is nothing to fear<\/p>\n

Even when hunger has been correctly identified, it\u2019s worth dismantling the idea that we need to eat immediately, argues Eaton. She gives the example of France<\/a>, which is an outlier \u2013 they have managed to stabilise child obesity rates, unlike much of Europe. As well as doing more home cooking and eating more mindfully, \u201cthey take the view that you welcome hunger pangs, because if you\u2019re feeling hungry, that\u2019s a message telling you that you\u2019re going to enjoy lunch later,\u201d says Eaton. \u201cIt\u2019s not something to be feared.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the UK, a usual response to hunger is to immediately grab a snack. \u201cWhy not wait?\u201d asks Eaton. \u201cQuite often, the hunger pangs go away if you just wait 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mind your language<\/p>\n

Children are like sponges; they mop up every word that\u2019s being said about food. Even if kids are sitting in the room next door and you\u2019re whispering, \u201cthey have amazing hearing,\u201d says Eaton. \u201cAnd if they hear us rewarding ourselves with food \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve had a really stressful day, I deserve to have a cupcake\u2019 \u2013 they\u2019re learning that food compensates for bad feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the flip side, describing a child as being a fussy eater<\/a> can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. \u201cA lot of parents bring anxiety to the meal, and will say things like, \u2018my kid never eats vegetables.\u2019 If your child is listening to that, they live out their labels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Make mealtimes an event<\/p>\n

One of Eaton\u2019s biggest recommendations is to eat consciously and mindfully. That means not gobbling dinner on the go in the back of the car or in front of the telly.<\/p>\n

Children are like sponges; they mop up every word that\u2019s being said about food<\/p>\n

\u201cSit around the table and eat together,\u201d she instructs. \u201cI really recommend trying to make it an event: you could have a candle on the table; you could have some music playing. It means you\u2019ve satisfied all of your senses: as well as tasting, you\u2019re seeing something, you\u2019re hearing it, you\u2019re smelling it. This is an all-round sensory hit, and that\u2019s going to help limit your craving for more hits with food.\u201d<\/p>\n

From packet to plate<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we teaching our children to eat out of packets?\u201d Eaton asks. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to introduce conscious eating, which includes opening up a packet of crisps and putting them on a plate.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"PacketPacket in: Even transferring crisps from a bag to a bowl can help shift the experience of eating (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n

The packet itself is designed to be appealing \u2013 research has even been done on the most attractive colours. This can confuse our senses, explains Eaton: \u201cAre we eating because we\u2019re hungry or because we like the sound of the packet, the shiny foil, the cartoon character on the side?\u201d<\/p>\n

Relax about the menu<\/p>\n

As a behaviour change expert, Eaton believes fostering good habits, such as mindfully eating smaller portions, is paramount \u2013 and much more important than forcing children to eat certain foods. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe habits that become imprinted on your subconscious mind as a child become much harder to erase and change later on,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe can always change the menu later, but habits and behaviours will help a lot more than trying to talk about food.\u201d <\/p>\n

As Eaton puts it: \u201cRather than correcting things as an adult, let\u2019s teach our children the good habits in the first place \u2013 because, if you\u2019re not careful, someone else is going to come along and hijack your child\u2019s appetite and ruin it for life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Food is a bit like the weather \u2013 a topic we talk about all the time without realising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[103,61,60,446],"class_list":{"0":"post-386338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-nutrition"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}