Helping kids maintain a healthy weight

If you're a parent, or if you plan on being a parent, read this article: http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/08/31/how-to-win-the-weight-battle.html?PageNr=1

It's full of helpful information on what to do to help kids maintain a healthy weight: set a positive example, develop healthy family habits, don't talk about weight issues, help kids learn that their self-worth is more than their outward appearance, etc.

Several of my clients have taken these ideas to heart, and are making great progress in helping their kids learn healthier eating and activity habits. The results apply to everyone in the family, kids and parents alike. Setting limits for after school snacks for the kids means that the adults also choose healthier snacks. Wanting your kids to eat more fruit for desserts means the entire family enjoys fruit more often. Incorporating non-food activities into family time, such as taking a walk, throwing a frisbee, or playing board games keeps everybody occupied and reinforces the idea that eating is not a hobby.

If all parents would read this article and make only one or two changes in their families lives, we'd go a long way toward helping our kids maintain a healthy weight, which translates into a longer, healthier life.

Lunchables: health food or junk food?

I never let my boys purchase Lunchables, or any other packaged meal aimed at kids. My reasons were three-fold: low nutritional value, too much packaging which is bad for the environment, and high cost.

Now I find out that Lunchables is trying to make their foods healthier with a Sensible Solutions option. These foods have an upper caloric limit range of 250-600 calories, no more than 30% of calories from fat, and no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat plus trans fat; and no more than 480-960 mg sodium. The threshold for sodium criteria in Sensible Solution varieties of Lunchables will continue to decline by more than 10 percent over the next two years. For more info, check out their website at www.lunchablesmom.com

Does this make them healthy? It's definitely moving in the right direction, but we still have the problems of lots of packaging which is bad for the environment and high cost. I much prefer that kids - and grown ups as well - eat more foods that are less packaged. Packaging means processing, and processing means decreased amounts of nutrients and more sodium.

I won't call these products health foods, but if you're going to buy packaged foods for your kids, they're better than many other choices. But why not set some rules and limits and ban these packaged foods completely? As one of my very wise colleagues likes to say: You don't let your kids play in the street, right? So why let them eat food that we know is bad for them? It's just as risky.