When I was growing up, I had a mother who loved to cook and bake. It wasn’t unusual for me to wake up smelling homemade cinnamon bread just out of the oven, and come home from school smelling homemade rolls for dinner.
In my family, if you didn’t eat everything mom made on your plate, she worried there was something wrong with you.
It seems that healthy eating is everywhere. It is on television, magazines and even the First Lady of the United States has made it her mission to fight childhood obesity. Over the last few decades, I have seen all the news programs and heard people talking about healthy eating while I went about my life not really paying attention to what was in my food. Calories, fats, good fats, bad fats, sugar, high fructose corn syrup was enough to make my head spin. I grew up in a house with the motto “If you want it; eat it”. And in my family, no one had any weight issues.
When my children came into the picture, I pretty much approached food with the same mentality I did while I was growing up. I didn’t pay attention to calories or sugar. I introduced both my children to solid foods the same way. I made sure they got their fruits and veggies, meats and grains, and I thought I was doing great. At snack time, I started buying Goldfish crackers for my son when he was very small and that pretty much became my “go to” snack for him, and my daughter.
When my son was three, I wanted him to start drinking out of a regular cup and that was when his “love affair” with chocolate milk started. He stopped drinking white milk altogether and was having chocolate milk multiple times a day. In my mind, I thought “At least he’s drinking milk, so it’s okay.”
I never had chips in the house and I rarely bought juice. After all, crackers are healthy, right? I made sure they had a fruit with whatever they had for breakfast. They had a meat, veggie, starch and fruit with lunch and dinner. They had crackers for snack time and I thought they ate pretty healthy. I remember hearing other moms talk about how their children didn’t eat any vegetables, and I thought I was doing great because my children loved vegetables.
A few years ago, my son started to add a bit of weight a little quicker than the doctor thought he should. In my mind, I just thought, both my children eat the same thing and he will just be a little bigger than my daughter. I wasn’t going to alter anything because I knew he was eating lots of healthy things, and I was a firm believer that you can have a treat after dinner. He played on a soccer team and baseball team, and he loved swimming so I knew he was getting exercise also.
This past doctor’s visit was a real eye opener for me.
His doctor was very concerned about how much my eight year old son weighs now. I explained to his pediatrician that both my children eat the same things and they eat healthy foods. Then, he asked me at a regular dinner how much my daughter (5 years old) eats compared to my son and when I sat and thought about it, I realized that she ate about half the amount of what he was eating.
Then, he asked me what my son was drinking, and I told him chocolate milk. He told me that the chocolate I was adding to the milk (three times a day, mind you) was adding so many extra calories to his diet each day. When he asked me about snacks, I told him that I gave them crackers. He asked me how many crackers and I told him a big handful. He asked me if my son comes back for more and I said “Yes, almost every time.” The doctor told me that I really needed to be paying attention to the serving size of what I was giving him.
Serving size?? I had never paid attention to a serving size in my life and until now, I never had a reason to.
I could see in my pediatrician’s eyes that he was very concerned. The real eye opener for me was when my son’s doctor said to me, “He is only eating what you are giving him. It is up to you to monitor and alter what and how much he is eating. You will have to approach food in a different way.”
I remember sitting there looking at the doctor thinking “This is all my fault…I have done this to my son…no one else.” Had I taught my son to have a dysfunctional relationship with food?
Needless to say, after that doctor’s visit, there is no more chocolate milk and we have switched from 2 percent milk to skim. There are no more crackers in my house and I am paying attention to serving size.
It was a life changing experience when I read on the side of a Cheerios box that a serving size is only three quarters of a cup!! I have probably been eating three servings my entire life every time I sat down with my bowl. I now have to monitor his calorie intake and make sure that he is getting enough protein so he does not feel hungry all the time.
I really did not know how to approach this with my son without making him feel as though he had done something wrong when it was my fault. So, I was honest with him. I explained that Mommy didn’t really know how much of things we were supposed to be eating and that from now on we were going to focus on being healthy. He was not happy about no more unlimited crackers for snack and no more chocolate milk, but he does want to be healthy, and he has really adjusted well to our new meal plans.
All four of us are doing this together with him. Instead of letting him have everything, we are learning together how to make choices. I do believe you can have everything in moderation, but I am learning as I go what that moderation is. Do not get me wrong, we still can have a cookie…just not three or four at a time. This past month has given me some real “food for thought” about how I was looking at food and how my view on food can really impact my own children’s relationship with food as well.
How do you approach snacks and meals with your children? Have you had to monitor your child’s diet for weight issues?
This is an original post by Meredith. You can check out her adventures overseas as an expat in Nigeria and her transition back on her blog at www.wefoundhappiness.blogspot.com.
Photo credit to the author.
That must have been such a shock for you, Meredith!
I am pretty health conscious and tend not to have too many treat foods around, but have found myself conceding on a few things as the boys get oider…just so they will eat something at school where playing with their friends is more attractive than refueling!
I come from a culture where love seems to equal food – so you clean your plate even if you’re full otherwise mom or grandma feels unloved! Obviously this led to a lifelong struggle with my weight. When I had my kids, I knew that I didn’t want to pass this same baggage on to them. I never forced them to eat and never bribed them with treats. Since no food was deemed more or less desirable, they didn’t feel “deprived” if they didn’t get dessert. My daughter told her grade 1 teacher that her favourite food was broccoli! That was probably because she considered broccoli a treat as I didn’t make it very often! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this important information, Meredith! Everyone I know is totally surprised to learn that a normal stomach (one that hasn’t been stretched by constant overeating) is the size of our fist! They’re even more shocked when they learn it’s the size of their toddler’s fist too! Next time you are worried that your toddler isn’t eating enough, look at the size of their fist and realize that their stomach is WAY smaller than what we think it is! That’s also why 5 small meals are recommended instead of 3 large ones. 🙂
Don’t be hard on yourself, Meredith, we all do what we know how to do, and when we know better we do better. I’m sure that your experience and your post will help some other mom do better!
In my college nutrition class the professor stressed the idea that we chose what and when our children eat but they chose how much. We’re all born with an instinctive ability to eat appropriate amounts of food. You never see obese babies, chubby :), but not unhealthy obscenely obese ones. It sounds like you’ve raised your children with a very healthy attitude towards food. Go you!
I would let your son decide how much, but then you have the huge responsibility of deciding what.
(Warning, this is going to sound a bit radical.) Before you continue to make any more adjustments I think you should take a look at the work of Dr. Weston Price author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. It’s a rather hefty, long book so I can’t say that I’ve read more than 75%, but it’s changed my definition of a “healthy diet” forever. These are some of my thoughts after reading 10-15 dietary books including a couple based off of his research.
1. I would start by eliminating vegetable oils from your diet. (For more information on why they’re awful you can look up the vegan book Thrive by Brendan Brazier or the paleo book It Starts with Food by Melissa Hartwig or the traditional diet book Real Food by Nina Plank.) This made a noticeable difference in how we feel. They’re in just about every processed food ever so if you can manage that you’ll probably have made some huge wonderful changes in your diet. I use primarily butter (yes, butter), coconut oil, lard (now you’re thinking I’m crazy), olive oil, and some other oils mentioned in Thrive and Thrive Foods.
2. Cut the sugar in half. I haven’t managed this one completely, but there are also other more healthy sweeteners out there that we use instead, just go for natural.
3. Cut out processed flour and cereal. I felt that Brendan Brazier was correct in saying that people often overeat not because they crave food or calories but because their body craves more nutrients. I find it remarkable that the drastic physical changes Dr. Price witnessed in the children who’s parents switched from traditional to modern western diets during the 1930’s were not caused by chemicals, pesticides or even super processed foods. They simply replaced healthy foods with empty calories in the form of sugar, white flour, and canned goods. Now here’s where I run into the problem of what do we eat?
4. Keep up the fruits and veggies!
5. Add whole grains prepared in traditional ways. I don’t mean the crackers that say “whole grains”. I’m talking sprouted wheat berries, soaked oatmeal, sprouted wild and brown rice, quinoa (can also be sprouted), etc. Stuff from scratch that takes a bit more planning.
6. Since your son loves milk I would feed him milk, organic, non-homogenized whole milk from grass fed cows. It costs more so he probably won’t be able to drink as much but it’s worth it.
Good luck!
Meredith — great, important post! I read “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan (about 4 years ago?) and it really changed how I shopped. It motivated me to start my own vegetable garden and we choose whole grains over white. Our intake of fruits and vegetables increased, too.
I grew up having soda whenever I wanted, and was in a situation similar to your son! At home now, we have limits. We don’t say no to everything, but we’re more careful about what we bring into the house in the first place.
It sounds like you are making great changes!
Jen 🙂
Great post! Like Jen I am trying hard to feed my kids real food and avoid as much processed fake food as I can. It is hard yet with cancer rates, heart disease and so much obesity in this country I believe we need to teach ourselves and our children to eat real food. Fruits, veggies not too much meat and while grains. Of course they sometimes get whole what goldfish which are chips in my book or McDonald’s fries once in a while but overalls strategy is to feed them real homemade foods as much as possible. It is so hard in today’s busy world
To do so but once you start it gets easier and you feel so much better.
Thank you all for your great comments and Ideas! I am glad to know that I am not alone.:)
My kids are not overweight, but I have always tried to keep them away from sweets, and processed foods… I also explain to them why they can’t have the sweets (for instance they are only allowed 1candy a day of their halloween candy – and I get rid of much of it when they don’t notice). Only water, coconut water or milk allowed to drink – never any soda. I am guilty of going to pasta dinners when I am short on time, but it is usually with a homemade sauce which has veggies in it and whole grain pasta, and always accompanied by a salad. And of course kids make food difficult, so my son loves the salad, but my daughter won’t have it with the homemade dressing, so I just give her cut up raw veggies on her plate. The key, I have figured out, is to plan ahead. When you offer snacks, make them raw fruits and veggies. When you plan dinner, try to include a salad chock full of veggies (not just iceberg lettuce and some tomatoes). Also, let the kids help with meal prep – it will get them more interested in eating the healthy foods. You can do it!
Thanks for all of your info!:) I have been and still continue to give my son lots of fruits and veggies and am now making sure I give them to him for his snacks as well. We have always made sure to have half a plate of veggies at dinner. My daughter is not crazy about salads so I, too, cut up other veggies for her to eat along with whatever our dinner is if I am serving a salad for vegetables. The snacks are what I really had to change up, and we are doing it all together. We had been eating okay, but I had no idea how many carbs and extra sugars were in the crackers I was also offering. We also have always followed the one piece of candy a day after Halloween rule and I also throw much of the candy away. I am also realizing that metabolisms for people are all very different and my two children have very different metabolisms when they eat the same things. It is a learning curve, but we are adjusting and taking it one day at a time. I guess I wanted to let people know that you can be eating okay and still have issues you need to deal with. Thanks so much for all the comments.