Blog.EmealsForYou

Will your kids pick healthy? – A Rant

August 20, 2009 at 10:50 am Leave a comment

cheese and mac

Traditionally when someone in our family and close group of friends has a birthday we ask them to select the food for the celebratory dinner.  My wife reminded me the other day that it was interesting to go back and look at the choices the kids made over the years… looking at the progression from kids’ food to adult food.  Because we cooked good food and because they were always welcome at the adult table they learned to try new food and develop an appreciation for food.  It helped them understand what they liked and disliked, and it helped them to begin to understand decision making.

Kids today are inundated with an assortment of fast foods, frozen then microwaved foods and snack foods.  The few meals prepared in the home are typically put together on the fly, with very little forethought.  So, now we come to the nexus of this post.  Ask your kids, probably age 9 and above works better here, to name their top ten favorite meals.  Write these down, stack ranked, top favorite first.  Now assign a number next to each favorite;  stack ranking their choices by nutritional value.

Evaluating the evaluation:  Look, if your kid puts something at the top of his/her list it means that they probably have this meal on a regular basis.  If this meal ranks high on the “good for them” scale then you are doing things right.  If, however, this meal and most of the other meals rank low on the nutritional ranking, then you have some work to do.  You should be preparing good, healthy and tasty meals so that your kids get used to and begin to like better meals.  If you say that you are unable, due to economic means, to create good-for-them meals I would have to say you are not trying hard enough.  Some basic chicken dishes, hold the creamy, fatty sauces and some salad cost little and goes a long way toward healthier meals.

I suggest you do this exercise, complete with evaluation and save it.  Six months from now, let’s say December 1st, do it again.  If the same foods and types of foods reappear then you are not doing your part.  Change just a few of their choices and you are on your way to a healthier future for your kids and for you as well.

Entry filed under: Rants, Semi-Rants and Non-Rants. Tags: healthy eating, healthy kids food test, kids' food challenge, mac and cheese.