After many trips as a family and culminating with our last week in Thailand I’ve realized that like many aspects of raising kids, understanding a child’s consumption for a given meal (i.e. how much they will eat in a sitting) can be deduced into a fairly simple mathematical function with a few key variables. 

For those of you that do not have kids I hope to help you understand a kid’s behavior at the table next time you are out with a family and be able to judge your friends as parents accordingly. For those of you with kids, this will help you evaluate expected consumption for your child in any country, restaurant type or situation.

Let’s review the factors. 

Factors in your control

There are those you can control for when you choose a restaurant / menu item. For example, if you’ve decided that this will meal will be an “educational experience”, good for you and best of luck. If your child has started to resemble Tom Hanks in Castaway due to a week of “educational experiences” then here is where you can adjust your choices accordingly:

• Nutritional Value (A)
• Familiarity of taste (e.g. how much does it taste like pizza / pasta / hamburgers) (B)
• Familiarity of texture (e.g. how much does it feel like pizza / pasta / hamburgers) (C)
• Familiarity visually (e.g. how much does it look like pizza / pasta / hamburgers) (D)
• Overall kids appeal (is it basically pizza / pasta / hamburgers) (E)

Factors outside your control 

Other factors are pre-determined ahead of the meal. Unfortunately, once you are at the point of decision about a meal, there isn’t much you can change here. Plan / Drink accordingly:

• How tired the child is (F)
• How much you’ve had them try new foods before the trip at home (be honest…) (G)
• How much your kids have eaten prior to the meal (H)
• How much you’ve taught your kids to listen and fear you (I)
• If eating with the child’s friends, the friend’s consumption likelihood % as determined through this formula divided by 100 (J)
• Are you eating with older kids from other families (binary)? (K)
• Is there an option of dessert that they want in order to bribe them (binary)? (L)

The Equation

Now, all you need to do is rate each item on a 1% – 100% scale and insert into the below equation to come up with a consumption likelihood value on a 1-100 scale (100 = eating 100% of the meal) 

Y (Consumption Likelihood Index) = ((47.6 – 35.4(A) + 5.3(B) + 8.5(C) + 3.2(D) + 12.3(E)) x ((1%/F)^(1/2))) + (2.3(G) – 12.7(H) + 0.3(I) + 5.3(J) + 2.4(K) + 13.4(L)) x ((1%/F)^(1/2)))

Results can be categorized as follows:

1-25: I just want to focus on my own meal, which is going to be delicious. I don’t care if they try a damn thing

26-50: They will at least eat the (insert base side here, e.g. rice, noodles, bread) but as long as the kids are quiet and I can keep ordering beers I’m good

51-75: We’ve been pushing them to eat new things for X days now. Better get them some sustenance

76-100: Thank god we are in Italy