Healthy Children

The truth is: food really is love. A baby learns to associate the divine smell and taste of milk with warmth and cuddling and soft skin and gentle words and human interaction and nurturing and cozy love - a multi-sensory emotional feast

Plus, our brains are wired to love the taste of food (alas, the more fat and the more sugar the better!). How can we not then appreciate and love the vehicles who generously put it in our eager mouths? What better way to promote child-parent attachment? (When I collaborated with Dr. Spock and he recommended a milk-free diet, I was horrified by the thought of a childhood without ice cream!) As George Bernard Shaw, the Irish dramatist, wrote, "There is no love sincerer than the love of food."

So too does food = love for parents. A woman's first official act and most solemn responsibility as a new parent is to nourish her infant. A "fat baby is a healthy baby" has long been a universal truism. A fat child is a sign of high social status in many cultures. We may not have nearly as much control of our kids' lives as we might want, but we can feed them 3 squares a day. It's an easy, "can't miss" way to demonstrate our love.

Try to help parents change their awareness to "health, not food = love." Even if your child won't really appreciate it until much later, as a parent you can best show your love by having a healthy child. (And then launch into my usual healthy diet and exercise mantra.)

Admittedly, this is a tough sell in our culture, but "smaller portions have their advantages." There is not much deprivation in the type and wonderful variety and tastes of food you can eat. A nice small dessert is allowed. I'm convinced we have been programmed in childood not to be satisfied unless we are very full, instead of just a little hungry (or at least not stuffed) when we leave the table.

"There are other ways to show your love." In the shorter time it takes to eat smaller meals, you can be with your child, do fun things together, interact in great ways. Yes, I'm talking about some extra quantity of quality time together as a way to supplant food as the best way to express your love.

As you can see, this is a work-in-progess I'm sharing with you. I'm getting desperate to figure out ways to inspire parents to follow sound nutritional advice. And I'm hoping to use my Blog to improve and refine my ability to improve outcomes for overweight kids and their families.