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How to Wean Your Kid from the
Junk Food Joneses
by Phil Goglia
I'm sure you've heard the expression "Keeping up with the Joneses." It
used to mean creating a life-style that had quality, pizzazz, and
followed the "trends." But what if you live in a culture where "the
Joneses" our kids see every day on TV commercials and media ads are
endorsing low-nutrition, heavily processed fast foods and soft drinks?
Getting the whole family to eat healthy meals in a culture where some
kids think that a potato chip is a vegetable can be a real challenge.
But there are realistic, easy-to-implement strategies that can help you
to gradually wean your children away from poor nutritional choices and
toward delicious more wholesome foods.
Just Because You've Seen the Light….
It's highly unlikely that your children are suddenly going to wake up
one morning and stop eating junk food just because you've seen the light
about healthy nutrition, or just because you want them to. Our children
are bombarded by the fast-food culture from the day they enter this
world, and they know the names of the fast-food chains even before they
know their colors.
It isn't by chance that there is an entire market of convenient
processed foods positioned just for kids. These foods are very savory
and appealing, usually salty, sweet, or easy to chew. Microwave pizza,
macaroni and cheese, soup in a cup, and canned spaghetti are all
examples of the kind of foods that are highly addictive to children's
taste buds.
Unfortunately, these foods provide very little nutritional value. They
can cause your children's health to decay and can make them overweight.
Even worse, your kids become addicted to the flavor and short-term
energy rush that junk food provides them.
The challenge is to learn how to create healthy family meals that are
not only user-friendly for adults, but realistic options for the kids.
The following strategies will help you create meals and snacks that are
not only nourishing, but also fun for the whole family.
Get Your Kids Out of the Junk Food Ghetto
To start with, don't let your kids live in a junk food ghetto. How many
times have you and your children sat down to meals that were separate
and nutritionally unequal? Adults eat chicken, steak, fish, salad, baked
potato, and vegetables while kids eat hotdogs on white buns with a side
of potato chips, macaroni and cheese, and/or pizza. Just because these
foods taste good doesn't mean they are healthy for your kids. You have
to wean your kids away from "kid's food."
Another version of the junk food ghetto are the microwavable kids' meals
aimed at busy working parents who have to face a roomful of cranky,
hungry children at the end of the day. While these frozen taquitos,
pizzas, and breaded chicken nuggets will temporarily satisfy your
children, ultimately, they are filled with bad carbohydrates, saturated
fats, sugars, and chemicals, which give them their good flavor. The end
result is not a nutritious meal that will help your child to grow and
develop in a healthy manner, but high-fat, high-sugar foods that may
contribute to hyperactivity, poor cognitive ability, mood swings, and
poor sleeping patterns.
And, don't think you are immune just because you are an adult. If you
eat these junk foods yourself, you will have the same problems. In some
instances even Mom or Dad can be the junk food Jones. One client at my
nutritional clinic told me recently that she knew her son had become
overweight because he was eating "just like his father." Dad ate nothing
but junk, and was none too healthy himself.
Creating "Bridge Foods" for Your Kids
Once children get used to eating processed foods, they become addicted
to the flavor and the short-term energy rush. So, how do you wean your
kids off these unhealthy foods and introduce them to healthier eating
patterns?
To rescue your child from the "junk food Joneses," you need to slowly
wean them away from the foods they are used to by introducing healthier
versions. I call these "bridge foods," nutritious foods that you can
slip into unhealthy meals. Here are some suggestions.
If your child's favorite meal is instant macaroni and cheese, start by
serving them a plate that is ½ the old food and ½ a new healthier
version, made from whole wheat or organic noodles and organic or low-fat
cheese. You can then increase the percentage of healthier food until
your child is used to eating something better. You could even mix in
turkey meatballs with their mac and cheese to give them a higher
percentage of lean and nourishing protein.
You can do the same thing with fast-food burgers. Start by giving them
half of a fast-food burger, and half of a lower fat burger that you have
made at home. You can gradually wean their taste away from the high fat
meat by buying leaner and leaner ground beef, eventually mixing it with
ground turkey, serving it on a whole wheat bun, and melting organic
cheese on top.
To wean your child from cheese quesadillas to baked chicken, you could
start by slipping some chicken into the quesadilla. Or, instead of
pepperoni pizza, try pizza with chicken and vegetables. If your kids
want a sandwich, instead of using bread, wrap their turkey or tuna fish
in whole wheat pita bread or lavash—or make the sandwich a burrito wrap
and add in some vegetables and black beans.
If your child wants a sweet snack, instead of candy bars, cookies, or
cake, give them an apple or a frozen banana with some kind of natural
(without added sugar) nut butter, or yogurt with fruit and raw almonds,
or even jelly and peanut butter on pita bread. Another great bridge
treat is an energy bar (Clif Bar, PowerBar, etc.) with nut butter.
Creating Lifetime Habits of Good Nutrition
A lot of times parents who are trying to improve their children's eating
patterns at home feel powerless about what their kids might be eating
away from the house. Because many schools have experienced budget cuts
in recent years, school lunches certainly aren't what they used to be
nutritionally. Many times these meals are high in starchy foods and low
in lean protein and fresh vegetables. But unfortunately even grade
schoolers don't feel that it's cool to brown bag it—even when that would
mean getting healthier fare.
And—let's face it—the temptation to enjoy after-school fast-food snacks
at the homes of peers can be well nigh irresistible.
What should you do? My answer is this: don't sweat the stuff that you
can't control. As long as your child gets good nutritious meals at home,
he or she will be able to develop lifetime habits of good nutrition.
Try these strategies and see how well they work with your whole family.
About the author
Philip Goglia is a Los Angeles-based nutritionist, trainer, and author.
Goglia has just released SmartJourney, a metabolic food program that is
personally tailored for each individual. "There is no one-size-fits-all
diet," says Goglia. "We realize that everyone has their own unique
metabolic type, and we design a program just for you." For more
information about children's nutrition please visit his website
www.SmartJourney.com.
Article Source:
www.homehighlight.org
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