|
January
2001
What Kind of
Parent Are You? |
| Children
form eating habits early in life. If you are setting a poor
example in terms of diet, then you and your child may both lose. |
 Are you the kind of parent who espouses the old concept, "Do as I
say, not as I do."? If you are, then perhaps you have some
health and lifestyle habits (maybe your diet?) that aren’t so exemplary.
Children form eating habits early in life. If you are setting a poor
example in terms of diet, then you and your child may both lose. On
the other hand, if you encourage healthy eating and you follow your own
advice, you may both be in a win-win position. A regular pattern of
healthy, low-fat eating -- beginning in childhood -- is the best start for
a healthy heart in adulthood.
Since children often model their parents, you may be sabotaging your
efforts to raise healthy eaters if you do the following:
- Discourage "fast food," but when you
give into an occasional trip to McDonald’s (as every parent must)
you can’t resist the urge to pilfer french fries from your child’s
plate.
For convenience sake, rely heavily on take-out
meals, which are likely to be high in fat.
Utter commands such as "eat your
broccoli" at the dinner table, but personally choose to skip
the broccoli, or perhaps even skip dinner entirely because you’re
"dieting".
Use trips to the ice cream parlor as rewards
and treats.
Make frequent references to your weight, which
heightens your children’s own weight-consciousness and may lead to
unhealthy attitudes toward food.
Are susceptible to the latest fad diet, which
teaches unhealthy eating behaviors to your children.
Talk about exercising but never get up and do
it.
It’s a good idea to occasionally try to see yourself as others see
you: are you a health-food hypocrite? It’s also a good idea to
occasionally evaluate your children’s eating habits, to see if some
changes are in order. With young children, this is usually easy. Often,
their greatest dietary fault is too much snacking on high-fat
"junk" foods. With adolescents, the scenario becomes more
complicated.
Teens often take things to the extreme -- and eating is no exception.
Going overboard, such as cutting out entire food groups, fervently
following a fad diet, or consuming a single food to excess are all
common characteristics of teenage dieters. And when dieting progresses
to an eating disorder such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating, the
physical and psychological consequences can be devastating. For teens
that want to lose weight, the good old Food Pyramid with its balance of
grains, fruits, vegetables, and protein groups is hard to beat,
registered dieticians say. The whole family might just benefit from this
tried-and-true approach.
Source: International
Food Information Council |
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|
Pyramid
for children |
|
Remember
the pyramid? Well, here's one just for kids.
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School
food |
|
Can we promote healthy
eating a
school? go her to learn more.
. |
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Food
play |
|
This
Emmy Award-winning nutrition and health theatre and video
company produces
school theatre shows, video kits, media campaigns, and
educational resources to improve children's health.
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