Here at FMFP, Dani & I blog about anything related to healthy living. We generally focus on keeping it simple. We are both busy moms who work full-time jobs and enjoy spending our free time helping others find simple ways to increase their health and the health of their family. There is not a lot that fires me up. In addition to teaching middle school nutrition, I also teach stress management. My professional development this year involved learning how to teach meditation so I can incorporate it into the curriculum. It takes a lot for me to get worked up. Since my father’s passing in 2010, I learned about things you can control versus things you can’t control. I try not to let insignificant things get to me anymore. The last time I got fired up I wrote Stop Feeding my Kids: my Food in School Manifesto. The topic of that was obviously something dear to me: MY kids. But now I am fired up for a similar yet different reason; YOUR kids & MY students. Can we talk about “kids’ meals” for a second? You know meals/foods that are marketed specifically towards children under a certain age. The only thing that meals have going for them (aside from the price as they are usually cheaper) is the fact that they are smaller portions for smaller bellies. The quality of these foods is horrendous!
Let’s take a look at Lunchables…
How many of the 75+ ingredients do you actually recognize as food or recognize as something you could go get from your pantry or fridge right now? I’m betting not very many. This is the stuff we are feeding to our children?! I get why these things are popular, I really do. They are cheap & convenient; and when you’re short on time I’m sure they seem like the best choice. But I implore you, I beg you, I ask you very emphatically that you stop feeding this to your children. Frankly they deserve better and honestly it is just not fair to feed this processed garbage food-like substance to your innocent & trusting children.
I am constantly telling stories in my nutrition class about the junk foods I grew up with & loved. Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries, Flaky Puffs, Suzy-Q’s, Pinwheels, Ssips, & Twinkies are just a few of the highly processed food-like substances I ate growing up. There was even a cute nostalgic post called “10 Snacks From the 80’s My Kids Will Never Enjoy” that flooded Facebook a few weeks ago. I have an entire Pinterest board devoted to my childhood where you will find some of these products of the 1980’s pinned. So why did millions of kids, myself included, eat this stuff back in the day? Well for a very good reason-WE DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER. These products were fairly new & back then there was no reason to think that food companies would basically be allowed to poison us. According to Jamie Oliver, feeding these types of foods to our children should be considered child abuse. Here is a short clip of his Ted Talk that I show to my students:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Another reason we ate that junk was because there was very little nutrition education. I didn’t get my first nutrition class until I went to college in the early 90’s. And back then, just as it is now, the nutrition was focused on government guidelines and the stupid food pyramid. Listening to the government’s guidelines on how to eat…so how’s that working out for us as? How are we, as Americans, doing with our weight and our health? Not exactly a bang-up job considering overweight and obesity is 69% for adults (over age 20) & 48% for children (under age 20). SOURCE
According to the American College of Sports Medicine: (SOURCE)
We have observed an increase in the diseases (“comorbidities”) that had traditionally beenviewed as “diseases of aging” which are now appearing in children: type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea,and orthopedic problems. In addition, psycho-social problems such as low self-esteem and teasing from peers may cause life-long damage to children. There is now a generation of children who may not outlive their parents due to overweight and obesity unless we reverse this trend.
So maybe, just maybe we need to go back to basics, stop listening to the “professionals”, and use some common sense and think for ourselves for a change. WE KNOW BETTER NOW. There is so much information out there if you would only just read it. Some of our children are being taught nutrition in school but unfortunately most curriculum is guided by My Plate, which is only slightly better than the food pyramid.
We need to take it upon ourselves as parents to educate ourselves on what is truly the most nutritious food to eat. But I have good news! You don’t have to devote your life to nutrition & healthy eating like I have in order to help yourself & your family. All you need to do is go back to basics, hit it up old school style, retro, vintage, or whatever you want to call it. Basically go back to eating REAL, WHOLE FOOD. We need to get back to cooking and away from processed convenience food.
Here is another short clip from Michael Pollan called “How Cooking Can Change Your life.”
Click here to view the embedded video.
The quote that resonated with the most was this one:
What mattered most about one’s health was not necessarily the nutrients, good or bad, that you were consuming or staying away from or even the calorie counts. But what predicted a healthy diet more than anything else is the fact that it was being cooked by a human being and not a corporation.
I took this information straight to my students. Not only do I promote eating nutrient dense whole foods, but I encourage my students to get in the kitchen & help cook meals together as a family. I love when my students come up to me to tell me what they’ve eaten. Even if it’s not technically healthy (like baked goods) if they tell me they made it themselves or someone made it for them I give them a big smile, a high-five, and say great job!
Here is another example of garbage I see people feeding their innocent kids.
A popular “nutrition” drink for kids.
Now you guys know that I am not a big fan of drinking your calories to begin with. I’ve written this post & this post about liquid calories & satiety. I also wrote this post about meal replacement shakes (Shakeology). I will not ever support or endorse the notion of replacing REAL FOOD with a PROCESSED “nutrition” shake…nope, no way, never. Now if these shakes serve as the catalyst towards healthier decisions (adding exercise and whole foods to the diet & decreasing processed food consumption) then I have no problem with these shakes as a temporary means to and end for an adult. Adults are done growing and they are old enough to weigh the pros & the cons and make their own informed decision. See where I’m going here? Kids do not fall into that category. Our children rely & trust us as their parents to do the best we can for them. I find this shake above to be a far cry from the best we can do.
Now don’t get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with kids drinking homemade real food smoothies. You want to blend up some kale or spinach, and add some fruit, and maybe some grass-fed organic protein? Have at it. That’s 100% better than most of the stuff I see my students eat for breakfast each day. But seriously with the shake above? I see pictures of kids drinking these shakes that their parents post bragging about the fact that their kid is drinking them. Are you seriously proud that you are feeding your kid a processed, chemical-laden product with soy as the first ingredient & sugar listed in 2 different forms as the second and third ingredient? (Oh and FYI, ingredients are listed in order of most abundant to least abundant by weight in a label. By using 2 different forms of sugar (fructose & sugar) they are able to avoid sugar as being listed as the first ingredient. Think about it; 2 out of the first 3 ingredients are sugar.)
I started off as just shaking my head at these pictures but then I got mad. Our children deserve better and they need someone to advocate for them. As a teacher that’s my job and I won’t feel bad for doing so.
End rant.
Further reading:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/childrens_longevity.aspx
http://www.webmd.com/children/news/20100409/baby-boomers-may-outlive-their-kids
