Tag Archives: Nutrition

Halloween Candy is a Learning Opportunity

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As @KPKiddoc I posted this recently on Twitter:

Don’t have 2 hand out candy on #Halloween Kids like stickers, pencils & sm toys as much! http://1.usa.gov/1N1HVcC 

Only to get this response from a follower:

#delusional

Beyond guessing this person had not read the study I linked the tweet to, I was sure she was not giving our kids enough credit. Sure, they like candy but, they enjoy toys and non-candy treats. If you allow Halloween to be a “learning opportunity” as the nutritionist Ellyn Satter advises, you will find that they learn to manage their own stash of candy and make wise choices. Those choices may be a cool Halloween pencil over yet another mini candy bar. And, I know this works – for 19 years I have offered both candy and fun non-candy items. The pencils and toys are definitely popular!

 

Before becoming a parent, there were many things I thought I’d never do as a mom. You know, like just wipe off the pacifier and plug it back in. Or, buy them a cell phone. Or, let teens wear sagging jeans. Or, let them eat as much Halloween candy as they want. I have had to eat my words a few times and Halloween is one of those.

 

I enjoy Halloween with its fall colors and crisp air. It has little in the way of obligation or work associated with it and feels for the most part, like pure fun. But as parents and teachers, we worry about the amount of sugar kids get each Halloween. This concern is for good reason. The average child in the U.S. is reported to eat 32 teaspoons of sugar a day.  The Centers for Disease Control tell us that American children eat 16% of their total caloric intake or 442 calories a day from added sugars. We buy nearly 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween.

 

Given this, Halloween offers us a chance to educate our kids about sugar, nutrition and exercise. Here are some ideas for how to navigate around these mounds of sugar:

 

  • Tonight at dinner, talk with your kids about sugar, candy, excess and moderation. Is it ok to eat small amounts of candy? Is it important to learn how to stop after one piece? How does eating too much candy make them feel? What can they do with extra candy?
  • Partner with your children’s teacher to teach about nutrition. Kids respond well to the graphics of http://www.choosemyplate.gov/kids/ . Consider using the statistics and articles about sugar consumption cited above.
  • Volunteer to bring a healthy snack to school for Halloween parties. One idea are these seasonal pumpkin muffins.
  • You don’t need to hand out candy on Halloween. Try packs of sugarless gum. A recent studyshowed that kids like getting stickers, pencils and small toys as much as candy!
  • If you hand out candy, give out one small piece per kid.
  • Start off Halloween night with a big, healthy, plant-based dinner. Full kids eat less candy (full grownups too!)

Then, after trick or treating comes the biggest challenge: what do parents do with all the candy? There are many approaches to this and you have to find what works for your family. I suggest that teaching kids moderation is important. Trying to control or prevent all sweet intake can backfire.

  • Some families allow a piece or two a day (many a mom takes one piece for herself each day too!)
  • Some parents “buy back” candy from their kids. For example, a pound of candy can earn a book.
  • Candy can be donated.
  • Show younger kids they can have fun by sorting the candy by color, shape and type. Make graphs of what they got.
  • Do some candy science– there are lots of fun experiments to try!
  • Make trail mix with dried fruits, nuts and small candies.

 

I asked my kids last night at dinner about Halloween candy. I asked why they end up with a pile of uneaten candy each year – rather than chowing down every last grain of sugar? They all felt that it had a lot to do with my unconventional approach. You know those things I said I’d never do as a parent? Well, I do tend to let my kids eat what they want out of their bag of candy. I recognize how crazy that sounds coming from a pediatrician, but – I temper my laid back approach with loads of education. It all comes back to using Halloween as a chance to talk with our kids about health choices, nutrition and exercise.

 

 

Veggie Pizza

In my post on eating dinner with my teens I owned up to sometimes cutting corners by ordering pizza for dinner. During a recent interview with the group Thriving Schools I also referred to surviving the work-kid juggle by ordering pizza. I was asked about the wisdom of these admissions. Perhaps @KPKiddoc should be putting a healthier face on her slice of life?

Let’s face it – pizza is everywhere. Hard to raise kids without pizza. Schools serve it often. Every soccer team party features pizza. And yes, tired working moms depend on it. Pizza can indeed be a nutritional nightmare. Given this and its ubiquitous nature, it is not surprising that I might be warned to appear more health conscious.

We want to feed our kids well. We are looking out for tips on how to do so; a google search of “is pizza healthy?” generates 132,000,000 responses. My answer is yes – it can be.  Here’s how:

Have just one or two pieces. One piece is more than enough for a small child; consider cutting it in half. Two pieces are sufficient, even for my athletic teens. At the dinner table discuss the concept of moderation with your kids.

Fill the rest of their plate with salad. 

Have a whole wheat crust. And definitely don’t “stuff” it.

Order or use less cheese. You can order extra cheese right? (don’t do it!) Turns out you can order less cheese also.

Skip the meat. Your kids will be happy with pizza – they don’t need to pepperoni to bribe them into eating it… just say no.

Add veggies. Same concept – kids like pizza enough that they usually will choke down some veggies with it. If not – that’s what the salad is for.

Skip the fast food restaurant version.

Make your own. Ok, not for a night when you are tired but – definitely a fun family project. Try this healthy recipe from 9-year-old Kayla Wayman of Montana.

Given that 93% of Americans eat pizza once a month, 3 billion pizzas are sold annually in the U.S. and 350 slices of pizza are eaten each second – it seems that our love affair with this meal is here to stay. Let’s just work to make it a healthier message for our kids.

In Napoli where love is king
When boy meets girl
Here’s what they sing

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie, that’s amore

– Jack Brooks

My Top 10 Nutritional Soundbites

Family Mealtimes, Parenting,
  1. make snacks count
  2. you serve, they choose
  3. limit drinks that taste sweet
  4. don’t worry
  5. don’t be a short order chef
  6. go with their strong suits; average nutrition over a week or month
  7. talk with your kids about nutrition
  8. allow treats
  9. raise cooks
  10. family meals

What’s a parent to do? The news is so full of nutritional advice it can seem impossible to know where to begin an attempt to feed children well. Sugar is increasingly viewed as a dietary mistake. Fiber is fantastic for preventing constipation, irritable bowel syndrome and is linked to a reduction in colon cancer. Blueberries and walnuts have antioxidants, salmon and tuna have vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids. Too much tuna has too much mercury. Too much cow’s milk can lead to iron-deficiency anemia. Too much soy milk is risky as well. How does a parent put all of this advice into action?

My patients’ parents often ask questions about nutrition. I offer them a collection of nutritional advice soundbites. Over the next few days I will share details of my top 10 of these soundbites. Please, comment and join in with yours!

Hungry Caterpillars and Hungry Minds

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The AAP decided recently to use the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a tool to promote healthy eating. Great idea! In fact so great it brings me back 7 years ago to a presentation I gave to my daughter’s preschool class. I used the food pyramid and The Very Hungry Caterpillar to explain healthy eating to that group of 3, 4 and 5 year olds.

You know the story right? That little guy starts off well, growing up eating lots of fruit. Then he branches out to the junk. Sausages, lollipops, cake, pie. Not surprisingly he gets a stomach ache which is only cured by a return to his prior plant-based diet. Since that preschool presentation I have time and again explained this story to my patients and given them the book (courtesy of fabulous Reach Out and Read).

When I heard about the AAP’s promotion I tweeted about it “This is great! I have used same book to teach nutrition for years!”. A fellow tweeter was surprised. His response (in 140 characters or less):

I can see the connection, but I would not have made it myself. Are the kids really open to understanding nutrition that young age?

Ah, yes. They are. Here is a little understood fact (one my mother understood well):  talk to children just as you would any other human and they rise to the occasion. If they don’t understand they will ask you. If you teach down to them they will tune you out and you will lose their respect.

This point came up again this week while I was in the locker room after a swim. We swimmers solve all the worlds problems in the locker room. I ask the vet about my “dog”. Folks ask me about their kids. The discussion Tuesday was how and when to have “The Talk”. My answer was simple: don’t. I suggested instead, that making sex ed a natural part of their upbringing week in and week out was far more effective. Don’t wait for a big talk at a time when you think they are ready or old enough. Have books to read together. Have books for them to look at alone. Talk early and, talk often. And that brings me back to the caterpillar: answer their questions as they ask them without worry for what material they are old enough to understand. Kids are curious sponges; ready to soak up whatever knowledge you are ready to offer them be about sex or caterpillars.

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