Even though you may know what you should eat, that doesnt mean you are going to make the healthy choice all the time. Well, the same is true for kids; we all need encouragement to make the less desirable choice, right? Why would I choose carrots when I can have a cookie? If you look back only a hundred or so years you find that around the table, mom and dad were telling their kids to eat up.  The environment back then was one that supported eating the food that was put in front of us; whether or not that was based on health or financial matters.

I am currently doing research on the Build Healthy Kids program in an elementary school in CT.  What I am finding is that many kids know what they should eat: ask a kindergartener how much of their plate should be made up of vegetables and many will say “the whole thing”.  While I am doing the research, I no sooner hear the correct answers that I turn and see the young student eating fruit roll ups, cookie dippers and chips, with no vegetable in sight.

We all need a little nudge to make the healthier choices, which is why Choose It! was created.  This 2 minute mini-lecture/motivational speech works really well with children who have limited attention spans. 2 minutes before lunchtime is over I stand up and present the Choose It! board.  I go over 4 choices based on the monthly theme.  During ‘treat’ month I compared two apple doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts; one had 2 tsp sugar and the other 12 tsp (1/4 cup)!  I also showed how much was in the Snapple drink they had available; sales went down the next day for Snapple and they were still down weeks later.  At the end of the 2 minute informational and motivational “show”  the students left pumping their fists and yelling “milk and water”. All it takes is a board or props; the information to compare the food and beverage products and a person who can motivate kids. Contact me if you are interested in learning more at DrDeb@buildhealthykids.com

When you think about the food and beverages that you consume, don’t you imagine that they were created in a kitchen somewhere? Maybe you haven’t stopped to think about it but I imagine a cook (be it a chef or a mom who loves to cook) pouring his or her passion for taste and food into a recipe and thus hot cocoa, or cake was born. At least that is what I strongly believe is supposed to happen.

Don’t you find it odd that the “inventors” of today’s most popular soft drinks were all pharmacists? Just as odd is that these drinks were invented, like in a scientific experiment. It is doubtful that the trained medical professionals that invented the soft drinks we consume today in outstanding amounts would have approved of Americans downing so much that it is the third source of calories in our diets.

John Pemberton looked for a cure for his morphine addiction and voila Coca Cola was born. In 1898 Caleb Bradham invented Pepsi and he believed his drink aided digestion. Charles Alderton a physician who decided to work as a pharmacist invented Dr Pepper in the 1880’s. Finally in 1866 Charles Hires created Root Beer and it is believed that he wanted his root beer to be an alternative to alcohol.

Perhaps we would all do better if we looked at a glass of soda as a drug and treated it as such: limiting the amount we ingested and not offering it to our children.

I took a walk this morning to the llama and cow farm down the street and said hello to Ferdinand, the name I gave the sole bull amongst the heifers. I watched as he threw up cud into his mouth a couple of times while we locked eyes. My instinct was to dry heave but I stayed with him and watched as no sign of uncomfortable-ness or fear or icky-ness passed his eyes. If I were to throw up into my mouth, I certainly wouldn’t be that calm.

I remembered that cows have 4 stomachs and their digestive tracts are set up so that a cow or bull needs to re-chew her/his food (cud) several times before he can digest the fibrous grass. This is from WikiAnswers: “The cow typically likes to swallow her food whole, so the process of fermentation is twofold: one after she initially swallows or eats feed like grass, hay or grain, then again after she regurgitates the partly digested matter, re-chews it to break it down even more, then swallows it again to complete the fermentation (or rumination) process’”

I realized that this action from Ferdinand was a metaphor for life. How many times have we tried to accomplish a goal and failed or “get over” an issue only to have it resurface? What if we remained calm and saw “failure” as actually one step closer to achieving our goal? Let’s try not judging ourselves so harshly or giving up because that issue we went to therapy about or talked with our friends about keeps coming back up.

So if you have “failed” another diet, couldn’t get your kids to eat the whole grains you purchased and have resorted back to feeding your kids what they want to eat instead of what is the most healthful for them try this instead of beating yourself up: look at the “failure” as not a failure at all but as a gift, an opportunity to try something new, a lesson in what did and didn’t work, and begin again. Perhaps you took on more than you could handle or you didn’t have the support to stick with it. That is what Build Healthy Kids is all about. Join me in making one small change at a time.

Let’s play “Let’s Pretend”. What would happen if you were invited out to dinner at a restaurant, knew nothing about the food they served there: if it was healthy or even tasted good?  Once you arrived, you were not given a menu or asked what your preference was and suddenly a plate of something ‘unknown’ and ‘unidentifiable’ was put down in front of you.  Do you dig in with a smile on your face or say “no way”?  I would imagine that only the extreme foodie wouldn’t have a problem with this but the rest of us would.  I wouldn’t eat a meal if I didn’t know what it was made of and how it was prepared.

Doesn’t the same thing happen to our kids at dinner on most nights of the week?  Children have been so far removed from food; the growing, selecting and preparation that it is no wonder that when they see a candy that glows in the dark or blue applesauce or neon pink yogurt, that they think these products are food. We need to engage all of children’s senses around food so that they come to their senses when choosing what foods they will and will not eat. Let them read about a new food (vegetable, fruit, legume, grain) pick it up, squeeze it, smell it, wash it, cut it up, play with it and really get familiar with the new food before asking them to take a bite.  This ‘play’ also teaches children what food should look and feel like so that when they are faced with junk food it will look like junk to them.

We all fear the unknown when it comes to food.  There is actually a name for it; neophobia, and this fear is built into our genes as a survival mechanism.  It kept us from eating everything we found while toddling around as a two year old. Years ago a child would have helped his parents till the ground, plant a seed, water the seedling, and pick the vegetable before they were asked to eat it. They also most likely helped their mother and grandmother in the kitchen prepare dinner.   This generation of children has no idea where food comes from.

I am not asking that you turn your kitchen into a short order diner but I do want you to involve your kids so that they are familiar with what they are eating before it is put down in front of them. Have your child choose a new food; vegetable, fruit, fish, or legume for example, at the store once a week and bring them back into the kitchen to play with their food before serving it to them to eat.