If it’s hard for adults to eat the right food, imagine how hard it is for kids. They want to eat what other kids eat and fit in, and don’t have much in the way of impulse control.
Or at least I didn’t. I guess I had an extended childhood in that I didn’t really develop any impulse control when it came to food until rather recently.
Frank Bruni’s recent article in the New York Times about how parents struggle to educate kids about food resonated with me as a parent trying to find health without turning my kids into diet freaks. So far, neither of them are showing my early proclivities to eat excessively, but they treat vegetables like toxic waste.
I try to keep my program to myself, but every once in a while my kids will ask me how many points are in something they are eating, or ask me how much weight I’ve lost.
One of the reasons why I started on my journey was because I wanted to tell my kids how to eat and live more healthily, but knew that my actions would speak much more loudly than anything I said. And I was being a hypocrite if I said they couldn’t have the cookies I bought for myself because I wanted them to be healthy, but wouldn’t do what it took to be healthy myself.
So now we don’t have cookies for anyone. We do have some desserts, but none of us get desserts unless we eat our vegetables, or, in their case, a vegetable. You’ve got to take care of business for your body first, before you get extras.
Sometimes, they actually do it and get that ice cream treat. In fact, Sam waxed so euphoric about the virtues of green beans the other day he told me he would always eat them and never eat dessert. I was concerned he was going too far the other way, and told him dessert was ok as a treat, but it wasn’t a treat if it was all the time. I needn’t had worried; he hasn’t touched the green beans since.
But he is drinking orange juice again, so my fears of scurvy are assuaged for now. And the boys are at least talking about what makes a healthy diet. I can’t force them to eat anything, but I can provide healthy choices and a healthy example for them to follow if they choose.
