Yes, grade-school kids can be trained to eat better

[HuckleB]

Yes, grade-school kids can be trained to eat better

http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=18493cca-a6d1-45ad-afe9-476a27dd2332

"Simple kid-friendly training in good nutrition got eight- to 10-year-olds to eat healthier for three years, although snacks, desserts and pizza still make up an astonishing third of the youngsters' diets, researchers reported Wednesday.

It's the biggest study ever to track the impact of childhood nutrition education.

"It suggests that kids who learn to eat healthy during their adolescence will continue to eat healthy," said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, chief of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which sponsored the research and on Wednesday begins the "We Can!" program to spread the results.

One key: Don't forbid the foods that children find yummy, but teach balance - that there are "go foods" for every day, "slow foods" for a few times a week, and "whoa foods" to eat only once in a while.

..."


Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds so simple. Still, so many parents seem to throw their hands into the air and just give up.

[SmokingJacket]

1. Kids don't go grocery shopping.

If they won't eat what you buy.... too bad! Hungry kids!

Don't know what the big deal is. You get almost 100% control until they're making their own money.

[LostinVA]

2. We didn't have alot of money growing up, so we didn't eat junk

We drank water, milk (and chocolate milk), and real juice. For snacks we had fruit, carrots, cheese and crackers, and the occasional cookie. We had a huge garden in the summer full of good stuff. WE ate alot of chicken -- because chicken was cheap then! We fished and crabbed alot in season. Soda and candy bars were a HUGE treat for us. My Dad got paid every other Friday, and on payday Friday we would get pizza or subs, split a soda, and have a Tastykake pie for dessert. Kids will eat what's there. Good food taste good (except for beets -- ewww!).

And, we played outside and in the basement alot.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Same here

To this day, I don't drink pop because I wasn't allowed to have it as a kid. So I never aquired a taste for it.

[LostinVA]

19. The last time I had a soda was three years ago August

I had just spent hours moving, and it tasted so good -- probably the sodium and potassium. Gatorade tastes better to me, usually though!

[yorkiemommie1]

3. my daughter thought raw broccoli was a treat

she could take to share for her birthday at school.

to this day she has very little taste for sweets, not like her mommie.

[HockeyMom]

6. They called me Bugs Bunny in school

when I was a little kid. I ate raw potatoes, celery, carrot sticks, etc., because I liked them. Never saw I RAW veggie I didn't like. But then I was always a skinny kid genetically, didn't weigh what the charts said I should, and everybody was always trying to fatten me up. I could have easily become a vegetarian if my parents and society at the time would have let me. Potato chips I considered GROSS.

To this day, half a century later, I prefer salads to steak. Never been on a diet in my life and weigh 5 lbs more (105) than I did at 20, two kids, and 35 years later. My Mom used to say to my Dad, "I just have to LOOK at a piece of cake and put on 5 lbs, where you can EAT the entire cake and not gain an ounce." Genes have a lot to do with it.

[progressivebydesign]

4. Thank you. I'm tired of being accused of damaging our 13 year old.

You know.. when we tried to keep healthy foods in the house, limit the junk food in her diet, and train her to eat healthy (all the while still having nice treats and goodies sometimes) we were accused by other family members of potentially giving her an eating disorder. The world has gone crazy! If you don't let you kid eat whatever junk is mass produced, you are somehow depriving them and damaging their psyche. Seriously.

We still eat all the yummy stuff.. but lots of it is made at home with ingredients we can pronounce. Also, we don't do fast food, unless it's one of those fresh food type places. I don't think she's suffering, but she's making better choices. People don't understand that some kids have eating disorders already, and it's called compulsive eating. Training a kid like that to make good choices is all you can really do. Now.. if only her school didn't sell candy, soda, and if the teachers didn't reward everything good with candy and ice cream.

Refusing your child unlimited junk food is not child abuse.. training is the way to go. My parents didn't let me eat anything I wanted, and my siblings and I have no eating disorders.

[KurtNYC]

5. Somehow junk food went from being a treat to being a right

If we were moths, I suppose people (other moths in this wild analogy) would be telling you that you should let your child have more flame!

IMHO people aren't cynical enough about the processed food that is marketed to them and their kids. It is designed to keep you hungry and it works! Pepsi and coke don't trigger satiation the way other foods do. They are designed that way. And they are therefore "perfect" in the eyes of fast food chains because they are high margin and won't keep you from buying side orders and dessert.

I read up on cholestrol last night and I'm still sorting it out but an Australian research was saying that many of the items which got labeled "No cholesterol" are actually items which induce the body to produce cholesterol, namely saturated fat. Cholesterol is confusing for consumers but my point is marketers seize on these popular nutrition ideas and twist them to sell whatever processed food they want. If something is pure fat you can call it "low carb" If it is all carbs, call it "low fat."

I'm not sure I could name a processed food which is healthier than the food it wants to replace. MArgarine was introduced to replace butter and until recently margarines were a huge source of trans fat. It is a game and the way to win is not to play. The less processed food we eat, the better.

[Lisa]

7. how is encouraging her to eat a wider variety of foods "damaging"?

Personally I think your relatives are blowing things way out of proportion. From what you've explained about your approach to junk food, and food in general, you are being sane and healthy. Plus you're explaining things to your daughter and giving her a choice. You're not saying "never", just "not at certain times". In no way does this compare to what happened to one of my classmates, for instance, whose parents simply forbade her from going to birthday parties or even on the school camping trip "because she might be offered sinful foods like pop and chips" -- that was a control issue, not a dietary one, and the junk food avoidance was just an excuse to limit her exposure to other kids.

My own mom was probably stricter than most other parents I know, when it came to junk foods -- but like you, she didn't ban "yummy stuff" and would try to learn how to make it from scratch. In college, some of my friends came over for dinner at my place, and one of them commented after, "I didn't realize it was possible to make marshmallows at home." Mom was a Depression era baby and a public health nurse, and even today she doesn't think it's worthwhile to spend a lot of money on bad food that will make you unwell later on.

A couple of years ago I saw the documentary "The Cola Conquest", about how much money corporations like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are making off "sugar water" -- and I called her up and told her that she had been right all along. She'd been warning me about that since 1970!

Anyway, I like sweets and don't feel I was deprived as a kid, but thanks to my parents, I can walk past vending machines without feeding coins into them -- I have a soda once or twice a month, chocolate a couple of times a week, and I haven't eaten anything at a McDonald's/Burger King for more than a year. This has probably saved me a lot of money (a cola and a candy bar per day, at 7/11 or vending machine rates, takes more cash out of your wallet each week than a movie ticket or a CD). I'm not a fussy eater, but fast food and prepackaged convenience meals turn me off after awhile, so that was more incentive to learn how to cook things for myself -- this saves more money and obliges me to appreciate food when I see how much work goes into it.


p.s. speaking of junk food being a "treat" -- I suspect that in previous generations, the servings were much smaller than they are now. People weren't expecting to make a meal out of them, just have "a little something". A while ago Coke was selling commemorative replicas of the first bottles they made (first time I've bought a Coke in 5 years!). I came in to teach my Environmental Studies class holding an empty Big Gulp container I'd scavenged from the trash -- reached into it and pulled out the "traditional size" Coke -- the kids were shocked by how big the servings are now.

[MisterP]

11. I can taste the bland lard they use in a lot of cheap-o generic foods:

it reminds me of Vaseline

[Lisa]

15. plus the salt and artificial flavoring ...

I would even eat that kind of stuff, when I was younger -- but once I was past my teens, I just lost any craving for it.

No kidding about the lard -- I always think it has a kind of plasticky aftertaste! One summer I had a job that involved cleaning out the jumbo plastic buckets used in cafeterias, after they'd been full of lard, coleslaw, and whatever. I know that foodsafe plastic isn't supposed to have a smell or taste, but I sure could detect something.

[HuckleB]

12. Yeah, serving size changes are mind boggling.

Nevermind the amount of sodium in a can of soup or a fast food burger.

[HuckleB]

8. Indeed.

I grew up in a household where the food was usually fresh and cooked at home, and, yes, we could have a couple of cookies or a couple of scoops of ice cream after dinner. We learned moderation, and the habits have remained long, long into adulthood. I note a big difference between this and the household my spouse grew up in, where her father ate unlimited junk, and where the variety of food was minimal. The eating habits of her two siblings are scary, and she has struggled with binge foods off and on, though I think she has come to moderation via living with me, for the most part.

As for eating disorders, the idea that someone would develop an eating disorder based on having some basic rules and teaching about food is pure hogwash.

Salud.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. I have a student in my class this year

who brings food to school in his pockets. Every day. Yesterday, at the end of the day he said he couldn't wait to get home so he could eat.

It's very sad. He is 11 years old and huge.

BTW, I am one teacher who doesn't hand out candy as a treat - except on rare occasions. When my kids do something good and ask 'what do I get?', my standard answer is 'SMARTER'.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. When I was in grade school, we had our "Friday night treat"

that we'd get after supper before sitting down to watch TV.

In the winter it was popcorn, popped in a kettle on the stove, and in the summer, it was either root beer floats or chocolate sundaes.

Dessert--usually homemade pie or cake--was reserved for birthdays and other special occasions. Cookies for Christmas.

We drank pop only when we were traveling (milk aggravated our car sickness) or when it was really hot out.

Otherwise, we ate plain old food. We walked home for lunch, as most kids did, and the ones whose parents were not home at noon brown-bagged it.

[HuckleB]

10. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Root beer float!

Dang. It's been years.

Salud!

[Massacure]

17. I always thought soda tended to dehydrate you more...

[HuckleB]

20. Certainly caffeinated soda would do so.

But sometimes perception serves the same purpose. Soda does sound good sometimes on a hot day. Still, it's interesting. Biologically, if the point of the drink is to help one cool down, one would actually be better off drinking some hot tea or hot lemon water, as desert dwellers around the world knew before they were inundated by northerners in the post-air conditioning world.

[XemaSab]

13. Article also says

that a "portion" is the size of your fist.

Dunno bout y'all, but I got a little girlie fist.

I have turned into a real lardass since graduating college.

[Massacure]

18. Four ounces actually. Its a tidbit inconvenient to weigh meat though.

Thats why they say about the size of your fist.