Forget tracking protein, calcium and grains. If you want to determine how often your children should eat something, you only need to consider 3 things: How natural or processed is the food. How sweetened is it. How much fat does it have. These three factors act as proxies for everything you might want to know about nutrition: the more they show up, the less … [Read more...]
When is a Cookie NOT a Cookie?
NEVER. A cookie is always a cookie. No matter what you do to it Oh sure, I know you know this. But parents often say, “well, it’s home made and I used apple juice instead of oil, a banana instead of sugar” as if this somehow changes the status of the cookie. From a nutrition-perspective that makes sense. Cookies make from healthier ingredients, are indeed healthier. … [Read more...]
My child only eats Cheerios and Puffs: When to seek medical help.
I recently wrote about a woman whose 1-year-old daughter fusses if she is given anything other than puffs, Cheerios and other crunchy snacks to eat. I gave her a 5-point plan for correcting this problem from a behavioral perspective. But what if your child has a puffs or Cheerios fixation because she has a problem chewing or swallowing? The mechanics of eating are actually … [Read more...]
Chocolate Milk vs. Chocolate Bars
If you read my posts on juice and yogurt vs. coke, you may be thinking that I'm anti-sugar, but I'm not. Really. I love the stuff. But when it comes to teaching kids to eat right, highly sweetened foods are not your best friend. Chocolate milk is a good example of that. When it's a staple, chocolate milk teaches kids to like chocolate, not to like milk. Try this … [Read more...]
But Plain Yogurt is Gross!
"Yuk" is one of the most common reactions I get when I suggest that parents give their children plain yogurt instead of the sweetened varieties. Even when parents are silent, their faces say it all: they can't imagine torturing their kids with plain yogurt. "It doesn't taste good." "It's tart and tangy." This is a follow-up to my Yogurt vs. Coke post. Now that you know … [Read more...]
My 3 year old scores junky snacks from other parents & kids. What can I do?
I was really glad to get this question from a reader because it is a problem most parents can relate to: You bring a stash of healthy food to the playground and then your child makes moon eyes at everyone who has tastier treats. It doesn't seem to matter whether the other moms have pretzels, goldfish, fruit strips, cookies or lollipops. Your child wants whatever … [Read more...]
Yogurt vs. Coke
Did you know that eating one small container of sweetened yogurt is the same as drinking half a can of sugary soda? I know it is hard to believe, but get this: one 12-ounce can of soda has about 40 grams of sugar (depending on the brand) and one 6-ounce cup of sweetened yogurt can have 20 grams of sugar or more (again, depending upon the brand). True, some of the sugar in … [Read more...]
Why won’t my child eat dinner?
I'm often asked by parents to help them figure out why their child won't eat dinner. Or, more often, why their child won't eat enough dinner. To figure it out, I usually ask them to identify what incentives their child has not to eat. Incentives not to eat? Yes, because when children aren't eating well it usually has very little to do with the actual … [Read more...]
Adopt The Habits-Frame-of-Mind
If you do nothing more than keep the habits frame of mind when you feed your children, you'll start getting the results you desire. That's because adopting the "habits-frame-of-mind" automatically steers you in the correct direction. Do this short exercise and see what I mean: Think of some type of less-than-ideal food you give your child on a regular basis -- maybe it's … [Read more...]
What do you want for dinner?
Give your children choices -- it's standard parenting advice. But what about when the choices are counterproductive? That's one of the messages in a recent article by researchers at Penn State University who were trying to identify what things parents can do during mealtimes to produce kids who are healthy eaters. What they found is that children whose parents … [Read more...]
