Archive for September 11, 2008
Are We Creating Poor Eating Habits in Our Kids? – A Rant
We establish many habits and traits while we are very young. Some are taught to us, some we pick up along the way and some nature has a hand in. What this means is that as parents, aunts and uncles and friends we have a duty to make the most of the few “training” years we have with the next generation.
I know people, and I am sure you do as well, who state “If I didn’t eat it by the time I was 5 I won’t eat it now.” While this is a rather rigid attitude it does enforce the fact that we have so very few years to develop good eating habits in our kids. So where do we go wrong? If you think about it; in the infant years we chose the food for our kids. We make our decisions based on what is good for the child, not what we like or want. We start with cereal and then on to mushed up veggies and finally some meat or fish. Gerbers, or am I dating myself here, made all the nutritional choices for us and in turn for our kids.
My belief is that we begin down the path to “bad eating” by allowing our schedules to dictate what, when and where we feed our kids. Sure it is easier to pop those chicken nuggets into our families then it is to make sure we have the time to eat properly. Today many kids grow up without knowing that meals do come without french fries. Try to make it a goal to sit down to an organized meal at least once a week. Look, not everyone likes green beans or carrots or whatever, but if you start early enough making sure that your kids try different things they just may learn to like some of them. An added benefit to feeding your kids better is that you will be feeding yourself better and we all can benefit from this.
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