Is withholding food for discipline purposes moral?

Nothing to add.
Just reading some article about withholding food from kids at Psychology Today and there was everything OK about it ?!?!??

What do you think?

Not from my perspective. I view that as abuse.

I guess it would depend on what "withholding" meant and what "food", etc. I could see not giving treats/"dessert", favorite foods, maybe "terminating" dinner or whatever because a child would not behave appropriately and had been duly warned what would happen if they did not sit and eat properly, etc. I don't think it is about the food, the child is not going hungry or being threatened with that but it does not seem that much different from rewarding learning to become potty trained with M&Ms :-) or going out for ice cream on one's birthday, etc. Food is woven into our life and is a "social" event and is a good socializing element, can help children learn how to give and receive, is a good platform for thought and conversation, in my view. That many now seem so much busier and grab food "on the go" so often and eat alone, gulping the food down as fast as they can, not even tasting it, etc. is a greater "crime" to me than working with food in the opposite direction, to teach a child to "value" it and the relationships one has.

Without the article, the question is pretty vague. Like Perna said, define "food". Define "withholding". Are we talking treats? Snacks? Allowing only healthy food while withholding junk food? There is a huge spectrum between that and the other extreme which would be starvation. Can't really say without context. The article would help. Do you have the link?

I have no problem withholding junk food, sugary drinks, ice cream, deserts and things like that from my son. He can always drink water, or wait for a sit down meal. As for using for punishment I find that just strange.

Yeah, I agree of-course about cutting the junk food, their development is in question.
But the article was about teaching children about authority, making them submissive and using it as a punishment... at least my eyes were wide open on that!
I would also say that it would be very poor parenting skills, cutting them of their basic rights.
Also I think that these kind of parents have control issues.

Here is the article:
Withholding Food from Children: What Are They Thinking? | Psychology Today

You apparently misread the article. There was nothing okay about it per the author, and this thread needs a trigger warning.

OMG what was I reading?! What happened?
Sorry guys for this, I don't know if it was my English (fast reading), or prejudices, but if you say I'm wrong, I'll take a good look again. Also I'll take a look why I misread the article. Pretty shocking!
If this needs to be deleted, I absolutely agree.

I talked to my t about this. He thought psychology today was doing it to sell magazines. I think it was purposely written to confuse. Sorry, i was upset by it yesterday and shouldnt have taken it out on you. Like did you ever see an article that had lists of do's and don't's, and it's very confusing to read because they have one dont at the top of a list, then they list a bunch of bad things - and if you start reading in the middle of the list, youre like wtf? Thats kind of what they did here. I think the writer took a bunch of bad articles as his source and threw them together for this article, without really rewriting them. It comes across as a guide to the wrong way. Truly an immoral way, you are right. Im disappointed in psychology today.

no no no no

Abuse, plain and simple if it is the withholding of meals like dinner, etc. Also a very big trigger in childhood for eating disorders.

eugh.

@ hankster, maybe your therapist was right, and I was pretty mad cause in the article is stated that "some people believe...", "some people think..." without judging that it is not normal. If a food is conditional, than it is and going to the bathroom, sleep, breath. Every living being would wanted to leave that type of principles. You can't develop further when your basic needs are in question. You will constantly think about your hunger, the priority.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

I don't like the idea of using food, or a lack of food, as punishment. As others have said, it can lead to eating disorders later. However, in families trapped in power struggles over food (which is usually symptomatic of power struggles over everything) I don't see a problem with tell a child, "This is what's for dinner. Eat it or wait until breakfast." No one is going to starve if they miss a meal.

I think it's possible the Psych Today article was walking on tiptoes around a child rearing scheme based on religious principles. There is a book called To Train Up a Child. "The book advises parents to use objects like a quarter-inch plumbing tube to spank children and "break their will". It also mentions withholding food and putting children under a cold garden hose"

Michael Pearl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are other similar child-rearing schemes out there. There are a number of families in the area where I live who believe in this crap. They believe in it sincerely. Some of these parents have been prosecuted for child abuse. Most don't come to anyone's attention. These parents do not come across as monsters. They're friendly, keep orderly homes, are liked by their neighbors and seem to be devoted to their children.

The Psych Today article ends with this paragraph: It's easy to be angry at adults who harm children by limiting their diets, however beneficent their intentions may have been. Rather than being ineffectively angry, though, we would do better to be aware of food-withholding practices and be ready to "say something if we see something". Teachers and neighbors have been responsible in a number of cases for helping rescue children whom they saw eating from garbage cans.

That's the point. Keep your eyes open because some of these kids need rescuing from their sincere parents.

@ SnakeCharmer, best Amazon customer review of the book "To Train Up a Child":
"What the hell is wrong with you people!?!
2 people wrote this book. 900 people gave this book 5-star reviews. That's 902 people that the police should be keeping an eye on."

Parenting is pretty tough for people with low emotional battery capacity. I'm not a parent yet, but wonder about my sources and support system.

A good number of those "positive" reviews of that book are actually written intentionally sarcastically so that anyone just looking at the 5 star reviews would get the real story of how abuse the techniques are. Good for them. Smart move.

It certainly is NOT okay. It brings back some memories in fact, I don't think this thread needs to be deleted though. Maybe it can be edited so there's a trigger warning?

It's not moral, it's neglect.

100% without a doubt using food as punishment or reward is WRONG, immoral, and abusive!

Are those things even questions for this day and age ! Smacking children and depriving them of food is just wrong imo. If someone came on here and said they hit their husband or wife and refused them dinner when they didn't behave the way they wanted, we would say that was abuse. So why would this not apply to a child?!

I understand that being a parent is a difficult job and everyone gets cross, that's natural. As a punishment of choice I find unacceptable.