Parent Resources – Obesity

Some families think that preparing healthier food can be more expensive for families.  In some ways the exact opposite is true!  Here are five ways that you can save money at the grocery store while preparing healthier meals for your kids:

1) Get organized with a list. Figure out what meals you will serve for the week and make a good list. When you go to the store then you are armed with a plan to buy on the good high-quality foods you need and no more. You also waste less time when shopping with a list.

2) Buy local. Local produce prices at farmers markets are often very reasonable. Not only does the food taste fresh, it often lasts longer because it’s been picked and quickly delivered to the market. To find a list of farmers markets in your area visit localharvest.org (link).

3) Buy in bulk. This means buying oats out of the bulk bins at the grocery store and not the box. Find large tubs of yogurt instead of single servings. Packaging costs extra money. Why pay for it if you are not going to eat it?

4) Buy less processed food. Processed food, for the most part, costs more. A store-bought granola bar costs 2-3 times what a homemade one does. Popsicles, granola, muffins, cookies, and soups are all examples of things I used to buy but now make. Homemade foods also mean less preservatives, additives, dyes extra salt and sweeteners.

5) Buy less store bought drinks. Juice, sports drinks, sodas and other sweetened drinks cost money and can inflate your weekly grocery bill. These drinks also add unnecessary calories without adding much nutrition.  Water out of the tap is just about free, and has zero calories! Getting kids used to drinking water and lowfat milk with mealsl is a great lifelong habit that can promote maintaining an ideal body weight.

For more tips on preparing healthy food for your family visit doctoryum.com, a pediatrician’s nutrition website.

One of the biggest contributors to the excessive amount of calories that American children consume is BEVERAGES. The average American teenager consumes in the neighborhood of 400 calories. That’s the equivalent of a four mile run! In my practice I give many of my overweight young patients a food journal to keep track of a week’s worth of eating. In talking to their families and reviewing their journals I often find that I can help them get back to a normal weight just by getting them off of sweetened beverages.

Here are some of the beverages I see kids drinking excessively.

1.Fruit juice and fruit drinks. These are loaded with calories and sugar. Even 100% juice is high in calories and low in nutrition. Consider than 8 oz. of apple juice has about 20 more calories than 8 oz of coke! What about eating an apple? It’s less calories and has fiber, which many kids diets are lacking. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children from age 6 months to 6 years get no more than 4-6 oz of juice per day. I see so many  toddlers and young children in my office with sippy cups full of strangely colored fruit drinks. Ultimately these extra calories can translate into extra weight and early tooth decay.

• Sports Drinks.  I see many families overusing these drinks for their young athletes and letting them drink them regularly at home.  Most children are not sweating enough to require the calories and electrolytes in these drinks.  As an every day drink most sports drinks are high in calories and artificial dyes. I keep one bottle of an electrolyte drink in the back of the fridge just in case one of the kids is sick and needs a rehydration drink.  These are not really a healthy choice for every day.
• Sweetened tea.  I’m not sure why families are giving young kids caffeinated drinks anyway, and decaffeinated teas often use chemical solvents to extract caffeine.  Yuck!  Sweet tea only tastes good when there’s enough sugar to rival soda! Most prepared sweet teas have about the same number of calories too.
• Soda. Not much to say about his except your “nutrients per calorie” is just about ZERO.  Regularly ingesting that much sugar puts strain on the pancreas, which can ultimately lead to diabetes. At my house soda is a “special occasion drink” but definitely not an everyday drink.

So what’s wrong with water?  It’s free, for the most part.  It’s ZERO calories and frees up some calories for us to eat foods with real nutrition.  Water does not promote tooth decay. It’s good for us, and it’s what humans are meant to drink!

Families say to me, “But my kids don’t LIKE water!”  Just like many things, with time and patience kids WILL adjust.  I used to keep lots of juice boxes, orange juice and lemonade in the fridge to share with friends.  I have slowly phased those products out over the past few years.  In terms of drinks, I now buy milk and that’s about it.  Three amazing things have happened after I made that decision.

• My kids drink water.
• My kids LIKE to drink water
• I spend less money at the grocery store. This money now can be put in my pocket or used for other healthful changes like more organic produce and local farmed raised meats. Two small packs of juice boxes plus one carton of orange juice per week was costing me almost 500 per year!!

One thing parents can do to get kids off the sugary beverage train is STOP BUYING THESE PRODUCTS.  If parents bring sweet drinks into their homes, just expect that kids will drink them.  It’s up to adults to set an example and not buy these drinks regularly.  Phasing drinks out slowly may help the transition  (cutting juice with water at first, or limiting sugary beverages to once a day or a few times a week).  But ultimately parents need to get on board, shop differently, and start drinking water themselves. In my opinion, drinking water is one of the best habits parents can teach their kids.

To get more ideas on raising children who have healthy eating habits, visit doctoryum.com, a pediatrician’s nutrition website run by The Doctor Yum Project, a Virginia non-profit organization.

In a quest for constant improvement of our family’s diet, I recently decided I would tackle one issue that constantly plagues us: SNACKING!

Let me first backtrack. I read a fascinating book recently called French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon.  In the book this mother describes the year she spent in her husband’s native France trying to get her two small children in touch with the French way of life.  She soon discovers that the typical North American way that kids eat just won’t do in France. The French seem to have a cultural sensibility about how to get their children eating healthy delicious food from a VERY young age.  Leek soup, beet salad, fresh bread and French cheese -no problem!  This is typical kindergarten fare at the school cafeteria.  She spends the next year trying to get her kids accustomed to the French way of eating by exposing them in a very matter-of-fact fashion to all sorts of local foods.

What I have done with my own kids is very similar to how the French teach kids about food-and my kids do eat EVERTHING!  However, our family faux-pas  is how much my kids snack.  I don’t think I’m much different from most American moms.  I carry snacks for “just in case.”  What if someone has a meltdown? What if we are stuck somewhere without food? I have a compulsion to be prepared for all of these “what if’s.”  We also have a big “Snack Basket” in our kitchen, and the kids always seem to be hitting it right before dinner (which drives me a bit nutty!)

What I learned from Le Billon’s account of her time in France is that French kids just don’t snack.  Period.  After school they have a small “meal” called le goûter. This is given to children when they get home from school, sitting down at a table. Typically it may be yogurt and fruit or bread and cheese.  Then food is put away and there is no snacking until dinner, typically at 7:00 to 7:30.  Easy as that!  What if kids get hungry? Well, hunger is a normal human sensation that kids get accustomed to, and it also helps them to eat more nutritious foods at mealtimes.  A child who is faced with broccoli at dinner is more likely to eat it if she is not full of fishy crackers and fruit snacks.

For the past month, I have instituted “no snacking” and le goûter, at my house, and I’m please to say it has worked brilliantly.  During soccer season, our heartier snacks held the kids over until after practice and the kids were much more able to eat a nutritious dinner that I served because they weren’t munching in the car on the way home.  The kids now understand the rules about snacking, and as long as the kids have plenty to do, they don’t seem to miss the snacks.

Here are some five simple rules regarding snacking for kids:

• Small children should probably be offered a mid-morning snack and a later afternoon snack. Other than that snacks should be put away so that children are more likely to eat their meals.
• Older children (approximately 5 year old and older) can be offered a mid- afternoon snack. Other than that, snacks should be put away so that children are more likely to eat their meals.
• Children will probably whine at first when they are getting used to not getting snacks on demand.  It’s okay. They will get used to it.  Provide simple explanations for the change in your routine, and then don’t give in.
• Snacks should consist of foods that one would give at meal.  Instead of “filler foods” like fish crackers, pretzels, chips, and fruit snacks which don’t offer much nutrition, try to provide a balance of fruits, veggies, whole grains and proteins.  See our “Super Snack Plate” for an example.
  
• Avoid sweet drinks like juice, sports drinks, soda, or other sweetened beverages with snacks.  Water and milk are good choices for snack time. Smoothies that combine fruit, veggies, yogurt and other nutritious ingredients can work well too as a snack.
  

Here’s a link to Karen LeBillon’s book:  French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters.

To get more ideas on feeding kids, and for more snack ideas and kid-tested recipes, visit doctoryum.com, a pediatrician’s nutrition website.