Can Children Be Manipulated into Eating Their Veggies?
All flesh used to be grass, but nowadays quite a lot of it is fast food. Although the rate of obesity among American children did not increase between the years 2007-8 and 2009-10, according to a survey recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it is still alarmingly high at one in six. American children do not any more go to school hungry: they go to school fat.
Can anything be done about it and, if so, whose responsibility is it to do it? The U.S. government believes that children do not eat enough vegetables; it might very well be right, of course, but I suspect that the founding fathers might have been surprised that it had any opinions on the subject.
Researchers in Minnesota, also reporting in JAMA, attempted to encourage (or inveigle) children from kindergarten to fifth grade into eating more vegetables at lunch. As far as I can see, the ethics of the attempt did not bother them: the desirable end justified the mildly manipulative means.
They took the lunch trays of the children, predominantly from disadvantaged homes, and put photographs of carrots and green beans in the bottom of two of the compartments. The theory, or hope, of the researchers was that the children would conclude either that other children ate vegetables, or that that were expected to do so, or both.
The researchers measured how many carrots and beans the children took and ate, comparing days when the photographs appeared in their lunch trays with those on which they did not. The children were free to choose, and the researchers were careful not to confuse choice with consumption. They assiduously measured how much vegetable matter the children actually ate, going as far as to weigh the beans and carrots to be found on the floor or left on the trays.
Why don’t we enlist them in a youth organization, government sponsored, and have them swear to do only that which the government finds is healthy. If the government’s goals conflict with those of their parents, then they should confess these parental degeneracies to their group leader, so that the parents can be appropriately counseled. We could call this organization something catchy and attractive, like, say, ‘Young Pioneers.’ A little marching wouldn’t hurt either. Soon, everyone will be properly appreciative of what the government does for them, and realize, that without the government, they are at great risk.
“How come French children don’t need to be experimented upon by psychologists to get them to eat well?”
The French are superhuman, that’s why!
We are forever reminded that the French are superior thus:
1) they eat real food produced and preserves by real peasants, no-one ever visits McDonalds, other than to protest the evil junk food.
2) They drink copious amounts of wine every day, moderately and slowly, without ever any behaviour problems and it makes them live longer, without cancers and other health problems.
3) The women stay slim and sexy all their lives, naturally so, no-one in France ever gets fat and/or ugly.
4) The French men are the worlds best, most romantic lovers and no women can resist them.
So, no wonder that French children are perfect little angels and eat all their vegetables and live happily every after.
;-D
French parents have one advantage over American parents — their young children don’t speak English! That means French children are much more sheltered from Hollywood’s sick and violent visual media and the uncivilized attitudes they promote.
You forgot to mention that there also are no drugs and crime anywhere in France, so French TV and media is honorably making their money with feel-good stories instead of sex-scandals, tawdry gossip and close-ups of crime scenes and nekkid ‘ladies’.
And all the films shown are quality art, made in France for the French, by the French, and no-one ever would even consider to translate anything non-french either
Plus all the pigs used for chacuterie have had the freedom to fly before slaughter!
This are the benefits to be reaped if the nation eats all their vegetables
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On a serious note: children’s taste buds are very different to adults. When I was a kid, asparagus tasted absolutely foul, so did carrots.
You may have as well have asked me to consume cat faeces.
Luckily no-one bullied me into eating disgusting things, the adults simply side-stepped my picky eater problem by serving foods that I actually liked eating (peas for example, and creamed spinach), instead of pestering me with their foodie ego trip (but but but I cooked it for you!).
Today, I happily eat asparagus and carrots, because they now taste delicious, instead of like cardboard soaked with astringent chemical.
Also see: http://ihatecilantro.com/taste.php — and don’t forget that much of what makes your ability to experience taste is genetically determined, different people experience different tastes differently
that is the funniest thing I’ve read all week!!!!!
omg, that was funnier than Friday night’s comedy movie!!
I’d like to claim you ruined my keyboard- b/c I’d spit up, laughing at your post, but I hadn’t had coffee, yet! I’l make some, and tell you how you ruined electronics with your rapier wit!!
Big smiley faces over here!!!!!
Here is the author elsewhere on French intellectuals’ criticism of American food:
“What infuriates the French intelligentsia about the success of such chains as McDonald’s (the French are among the largest consumers of its products in Europe) is not American malfeasance but the fact that so many of their countrymen are susceptible to the blandishments of the trashy popular culture of which McDonald’s is the culinary manifestation.
“At the same time, however, the French intelligentsia have long claimed to be on the side of the common man. The success of the meretricious in France confronts them with the uncomfortable realisation that many, perhaps most, of their compatriots share the same bad taste as the rest of humanity. The fury caused by the arrival of a chain such as Starbucks is not caused by fear of wicked American exploitation, therefore, but by cognitive dissonance. The intelligentsia love the people, but hate what people love. That is why they invent such abstract entities as American cultural imperialism to explain away the success of American popular culture.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/thunderer/article1094689.ece
And here he is elsewhere on a much larger French problem (referenced below by BettyBlue):
The Barbarians at the Gates of Paris
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_the_barbarians.html
I don’t know what’s worse: simplistic assumptions of French cultural superiority or simplistic denials that they have any advantage whatsoever. Truth is often difficult and complex, and blanket absolutist assumptions fail to capture this.
In all fairness, French McDonald’s serves largely French foods, rather than its usual fare — the business was brought over by a French executive, whose objective was not “colonize the country with Big Macs” but “sell something that the French will like and McDonald’s can make money from.” Reportedly many of the French think that McDonald’s is a French chain…
And other American chains which have tried to repeat McDonald’s accomplishment without repeating McDonald’s cultural adaptations have gotten the fates they deserved. If only the rest of the world were as dedicated to traditional foodways…
When I was in school in Italy, our choice was very simple: either we finished everything on our plate and we’d be allowed out to play or we could stay there until we were done eating.
Also, we didn’t have a choice about food: we’d eat what we were given (i.e., bread, pasta or soup, meat or fish with vegetables.) No exceptions.
Making kids eat more food than they want or need is a bad idea. The school system did the same thing to me 50 years ago and it didn’t do me any good at all. Not every kid can digest every food. Suffice it to say I threw up a lot, and not deliberately.
Hear, hear! Altho the rule at our elem. school was we had to TRY everything, meaning 3 bites. I couldn’t stand two things served, and the @*&#^$ teacher made me eat the 3 bites EVERY, SINGLE, DING-DANG time (and they were served waaay too often – as if I’d develop a love of said items within 2-3 wks). The worst, by a long shot:
Back in the stone age of my youth, we had school parties last 2 hrs. of the day for Halloween, Christmas, Valentines Day, and Easter. On one of these party days, we had 1 of things I hated. Here comes the 3-bite rule. I teared up (as usual) which helped start the gastric juice of upset churning. I was made to sit there until lunch was almost over and teacher finally scared me enough I ate the cr@p. Back to school room; I promptly heaved into the wastebasket, then barely made it to restroom to do it again. I could eat NONE of the wonderful goodies, or play the games, etc. for the party that aftrn. At least after that, the “try it” rule was gone for me over that awful goop.
A society of manly men vegans is something out of sci fi…or where?
Hunger is a good tool for getting children to eat vegetables and if that does not work it takes weeks to starve to death, try the same dish tomorrow and they may eat it then.
Certainly worked for me in raising my kidlet – I absolutely refused to play the food like/dislike game with her. “This is what we are having for lunch, or dinner, sweetie. Eat as much of as little of it as you like … but remember, the next meal is in four (or eight) hours, and there will be nothing more to eat until then.”
Worked like a charm … and also, we were living in Greece, then and I was shopping in the local weekly street market. We’d go vegan for weeks at a time, because what was on offer in the market was so fresh and so good.
I grew up in the 50′s and 60′s. Sure we had 1 or 2 fat kids in my classes, but that was usually it. So why now are there so many fat kids? Well the gov’ment has gotten into the food business in a hugh way. The motto might as well be food stamps, onward, upward, and forever. Then there are the multiple feeding programs at our public schools; since apparently mom can’t be bothered to fix meals (in spite of getting food stamps to do so). And in some places, food stamps can be used in restaurants. And, why not, after all, they’re “free”.
And then there is welfare, unemployment, Social Security Disability, and SSI doling out benefits with no corresponding work. So we work less, and eat more.
It’s bound to pack on the pounds.
We made the mistake with child #1 – and let him choose. He’s 16, and skinny, but we still fight about food. Luckily, we learned and #2 & #3 are very healthy eaters!
Another far bigger factor is what kids do. American kids are bludgeoned into inactivity. Play time at school/recess is cut or eliminated because kids playing puts them at risk of injury (and thus the school at risk of being sued), at home the same is true because of the idea that every little scrape or bit of dirt will kill the kid (thus they’re not allowed outdoors) and the ever increasing idea that letting kids play outdoors shows you’re a bad parent (resulting in kids being taken away by child services).
In addition any even somewhat active child is diagnosed as having ADHD and drugged into a stupor.
End result: instead of active kids we’ve generations of children who never do anything except hang out in front of the television with their game consoles.
No wonder they gain weight, as their diet hasn’t changed to keep track with the reduced energy use.
I didn’t eat school vegetables as a kid either. Why? Because they are terrible. Green beans were overcooked. Today they are probably still overcooked, but back in my day there was the redeeming bacon fat. The carrots were worse. Funny thing was, I ate both when mother prepared them because she didn’t overcook them. Or at least not as much.
Ahhhh,,, I remember the overcooked veggies from the school menu. Apparently so does my wife, after 30 years she still cooks them until they turn to goo. If I may say so, good food needs to be attractive as well as tasty in order for children to learn to love it. On the other hand I cannot explain my kids long time love affair with Mac&Cheese. Some food preferences are beyond understanding.
The U.S. government believes that children do not eat enough vegetables; it might very well be right, of course, but I suspect that the founding fathers might have been surprised that it had any opinions on the subject.
I suspect the FF’s would be surprised at US gov’t opinions on a whole host of subjects.
HHS Sec’y Kathleen (“thin as a social x-ray”) Sebelius travels around the country showing Obesity Maps of America. That’s her day job. In the dead of night, she’s up with her large team of bureaucrats writing volumes of minutiae to implement “healthcare”.
Michelle (“french fries are my favorite food”) Obama’s replacement for the “food pyramid” is a plate with 5 or 6 food groups that would embarrass your average 3rd grader for its simplicity. It took several million dollars (at least) to come up with that.
Here is a little bit (not a lot) of comic relief…
The Obama Show
“Hey kid, you’re going to eat what I put in front of you because I worked hard to pay for it and I outweigh you by over 100 pounds, so there’s nothing you can do about it. You either eat it now at supper, or you eat it tomorrow for breakfast – and you get nothing else until you do.”
There’s your child psych lesson for the day. It ain’t complicated. It’s worked with my kids. That same basic line of “reasoning” works for other things too like picking up their toys, and doing work around the house. You should try it. As they mature, they learn to do the right thing because it’s the right thing. But, for the first few years that stuff’s all a little too vague. Sorry to say it, but being a parent is more important than being their buddy.
BTW, screw the French. They make their kids play soccer and eat snails.
Another answer for today’s diet; 50 years ago, Mom was at home, not working or working “out”. Mom had time to prepare school lunches, prepare foods that took hours to cook and children were not “allowed” to go outdoors, they were forced outdoors. Today’s Mom, is probably single, employed somewhere for most of the day and too tired to come home and cook. Enter: fast food from the restaurant or the freezers at the market. Result: too much salt, fat in our diets.
When I was a student in France, little French kids were twisting the heads off of just caught crayfish at the beach and sucking out the guts, mmmm, mmm, eating crayfish like popcorn.
At a student restaurant in Bordeaux, once I had on my plate a large, whole steamed cow’s brain, complete with some of the brain stem attached. mmmm, mmmm, mmm…
These days, you might worry about angry bovine (aka Mad Cow), but in those days, it was just one American finding the meal impossible.
It really is all about what children become accustomed to eating in their earliest years that will stick with them the rest of life. We made our own baby food, avoiding all the sodium and fillers in commercial baby food. We just used adult food mixed rather randomly in a blender with some cottage cheese or yoghurt to make it smooth.
We might have overdone the cooked beets, anathema these days to our son (now in his 30′s) but generally he eats healthy stuff.
Interestingly, I sometimes work at a non-profit community center that from 1904 until the mid-1970s was an elementary school. Decorating the building are pictures of kids over that seventy-year period. Some things clearly changed, particularly the sort of discipline being applied. One of the first pictures shows kids sitting ramrod straight in their chairs, looking straight ahead. One of the last shows them climbing out of a window onto a rooftop 20-feet in the air.
But what doesn’t change is the near-absence of fat kids. From the earliest to the latest, even slightly chubby kids is rare. Most of the kids would strike us today as scrawny. My own hunch, based on my own memories of grade school in the late 1950s, is that the reason is as much the abundance of outdoor activities as it is the absence of fast food instead of simple fare cooked by parents.
The fact that childhood obesity didn’t exist in the absence of any government program should make us a bit skeptical that government indoctrination will have that much impact today. Parents laying down rules will do far more, including one to get out and play. And for that, we need more of what we had during those seventy healthy years: fewer overloaded, off-at-work single mothers and more intact, two-couple homes with a mom at home to send the kids outdoors.
Will encouraging the latter become government policy, even if it is shown to be the only approach that will work? I doubt it. Bureaucrats would rather mess with the heads of other people’s kids, known in this case as “students.” The latter term, of course, implies that they’re fit subjects of manipulation. Using a term like “children” would suggest that this kids are someone else’s children and someone else’s responsibility.
So, if the government, or in this case university researchers, uses social proof to influence students to eat more veggies this is a horrid, horrid thing. However, if the food industry uses social proof–and the rest of the influence tools–to get everyone to eat crap that’s okay. Did you get a check from McDonald’s or Monsanto for this ad?
You want to decry a government experiment, try the ones from the 1940s-1960s where unwitting subjects were injected with plutonium to see what happened. Or the Tuskegee experiments where men with syphilis were not treated in order to study the disease’s progression.
“I found the research mildly disconcerting. Moreover, the heart of the problem — the poor diet of many American children — is for me symbolized in the researcher’s use of the word “student” for children of kindergarten age and for those only a year or two older. Kindergarten children and pupils are not students: they grow into studenthood with age, as their studies become more self-chosen and self-directed. At first, they need a lot of direction.”
We are students from the day we are born until–hopefully–the day we die. Humans are learning organisms. More specifically, the children in kindergarten are students as they are taught and learn in a setting dedicated for the purpose.
It’s the element of compulsion (and intrusion) that offend, the Nanny Statism.
Any given so called problem seems to grow proportionately with the level of state intrusion.
Teen pregnancy rates went up and up and up, despite years of copious government proselytizing against teen sex. But these days, out of wedlock births and abortions numbers are finally going down (somewhat) as “the culture” (not the government) increasingly frowns on it.
Government at all levels should stick to its own tasks, which have nothing to do with how individuals live their own lives.
“Statists” are not primarily interested in you, anyway, but in the “costs to society” of your bad habits.
I also think that we have a lot of kids eating fast foods and lots of junk foods because their parents (if any of them are ever around) are really lousy cooks. If parents ever bothered to make healthier foods for their kids that tasted better, the kids wouldn’t be eating more junk from Burger King or sandwiches with deli meats in them.
For example, many of the Meditarranean diets have a lot more fruits, vegetables, and beans and pastas, but with smaller portions of meats. If you look at much of the foods cooked in Spain, Italy, Southern France, and Portugal, you have much healthier foods that kids are introduced to at a much earlier age. And the parents continue the process of having the family eat this food until the kids are adults. It just takes the time and the effort for the parents to make these foods for the kids and make sure they eat them. That they taste better, too, also helps that the kids eat them.
And the irony is that these foods are NOT that hard to make. You don’t have to be a gourmet chef to prepare them. Much of the Spanish Tapas or the Italian pastas were, if anything, invented by poor people (especially farmers) because they were tasty, easy to make, and healthy for you. So if more Americans picked up more cookbooks and studied how many of the Mediterranean countries ate their meals, I think the kids would not only like it, but they would feel better too.
Attributed to Hippocrates…
“Think of your food as medicine and your medicine as food.”
Teach kids, students, whomever, not “you gotta do this & you gotta do that”, but your whole life will be healthier and happier if you eat good stuff.
In many respects, you really are what you eat.
You don’t need a government for that. And there are way too many researchers for the amount of stuff worthy of researching.
Dumb ads on the radio, e.g., “Get off your ass and out in the forest”…paid for by the American taxpayer, are signs of the infantilization of American culture.
Our generation survived veggie-free lunches and didn’t grow obese. My mother gave us PBJs almost every day, and if not PBJs, bologna & cheese, or even liverwurst & bologna sandwiches (my personal favorite, and from Schaller & Weber, not pre-packaged supermarket “lunch meat”). Breakfast consisted of hot cereal during the winter months and cold cereal during the warmer months, with pancake or bacon & eggs breakfasts (prepared by Dad) on the weekends.
Veggies were for dinner, and we ate the typical Irish dinners of huge lumps of over-cooked tough meat and boiled-to-mush veggies and potatoes. Fruit for was snacking. Dessert was for special occasions.
We were so active, however, that our parents could have fed us buckets of lard and sugar and we wouldn’t have gotten fat. After school was for play first, not homework first. We played tag, climbed trees, built forts, made bike obstacle courses, played stickball in the street, and we didn’t come in until dark. Then it was wash up, do homework while Mom made dinner, and then off to read quietly before bedtime after dinner.
I think the key elements to a healthy childhood were prioritizing outdoor activity and not a lot of snacking. And no soda. I don’t remember there ever being soda in the house. It wasn’t because we were eating lentils and fresh vegetables 24/7.
We didn’t snack much because we had no time. We couldn’t wait to rip those uniforms off, put on playclothes, and tear outside. Too many kids are eating out of boredom, or are eating because their nannies shove a plate of snacks in front of them the second they come home from school instead of shooing them outdoors.
BTW, I grew up in NYC. We were not suburban children. That’s not an excuse.
Nora describes my childhood in Chicago. We never ate vegetables at lunch either–we had sandwiches. My favorite was spiced ham on white bread which had plenty of butter on it and a half-pint carton of milk, along with an apple, pear, or banana. I never saw a fat kid.
Like Nora, we spent all our extra time outside. We were on the streets, running, roller skating, or playing ball. Everybody walked to school. We had gym class–an hour long each time–three times a week and two fifteen-minute long recesses each day, plus an hour for lunch. We would eat our lunches as fast as we could, so that we would have more time to spend on the playground. Nobody supervised us; nobody watched over us. Nobody restricted our activities to “safe” things to do.
Kids are fat today because the schools don’t let them run wild during recesses or lunch times and apparently some don’t even have gym classes any more. Combine that lack of activity during school hours with the time spent by kids playing video games and, of course, you’re going to end up with little fatties.
Read Gary Taubes, Good Calories, Bad Calories. The diet you describe is significantly healthier than the one the contemporary health-food industry is promoting.
social work interference with food choices has long been a history of jackassery and calling poor people “icky.” These fabulous peasant dishes you extol? were panned by the original cooking school and social work literati- too spicy, aggravated ulcers, made people smell “poor.” Italians made eggplant parmigiana, which had not enough meat, according to the powers that be. They made it with meat, and sold it. It is now, of course, a heart attack on a plate.
Later, the right food was served on chafing dishes. the stuff that we extol as “prepared simply”- that was the stuff that got bitter or wilted on a chafing table. There were entire courses on how to make food stand up to banquet situations- not for banquets- but for home. Not grand homes like a Wodehouse set- but regular ranch houses.
There isn’t a golden age. There hasn’t been. The greeks, who invented the food of heaven: it was milk and barley-cakes. they called meat the stuff that gave you stomach- aches after the festival- the only time one gorged on meat. If you ask a real harem member- remember the prints of women lounging around in sheer bits of fabric, dining on dates? Their favorite dish was usually something with eggplant.
Michael Pollan has entire bits on the taste and chemical alterarions that food goes through when processed. Canned food, frozen food, the works. I sincerely doubt that each school intends to keep a market garden on the grounds, enough to feed tehe 500 or so students at each modern elementary.
Also- population has shifted, in the USA, from the temperate and easy mid-atlantics, to the deep south, southwest and far west. most of this is near desert. our state is in a two year drought. for our kids to be outside- they would run around and puffs of dust of dry grass bits would cloud up for nearly two feet high. The air was smokey with particulate matter- the county right over had gone up in flames. TJefferson imagined 160 acres per family, when he was in lush Virginia. Which is a long way of saying- about that garden in the backyard? with the marvellous, fragrant, just picked glistening fruit….there are reasons that ag primary states have famines, while places with a functioning market system-the people live. mr dalrymple is in england. as I understand it- in england, if you spit on the ground- something grows. america has always, famously, been a harsher climate than england.
I think, golly gee, wow, there are some really fat kids. And then I think- you know, I know two kids who ride bikes regularly. One is fine- he roams about with a cell-phone, his family doesn’t know where he is until it’s dark- and, wow, he’s, umm. not headed to college…he could, maybe….he’s bright, but he’s not doing homework, or getting challenged…and the other kid got hit by a hit and run car driver….Drivers aren’t expecting kids on bikes–ergo they aren’t looking for the ones on bikes. Add in- one car accident- you lose a kid. one predator- you lose a kid. I genuinely worry about the one who roams. Two kids got taken by a predator on the street right in front of their elementary. just scooped up, into a car.
I think- the school has to rotate “special areas” art, music, and Phys Ed, b/c they are taking poor, illiterate children and trying to get them to pass competitive exams. So they take PE every third day. They get 15 minutes of recess at a time, b/c the powers that be think that kindergartners should be able to read, to graduate kinder. they’ve banned naps- my first two- the teacher gauged their bodies- they napped until midterm, then they were physically ready for a full day of school. the third- administration said “no naps.” My third would come home screaming with exhaustion. FWIW- intellectually- they all ended at the same place. Kids are kids, not widgets.
This isn’t about the kids. It’s about the grownups that have set up remarkably inhospitable environments for kids. People are trying to keep their kids alive, they are trying to get them a decent future. we don’t live in the fifties, with little row houses dotting what used to be potato farms. And- for that matter- Levittown had problems with young people moving around outside. There isn’t a golden age. there never has been.
Be careful with the just-picked fruit romantic. Fruits are seasonal. Some like apples can be stored over the winter, but don’t imagine fresh strawberries or anything else for that matter, in January. Root vegies went into root cellars. Menues changed with the seasons, and people ate what they had.
Why is this even the business of the schools? Health starts with the home, not with the government. I grew up running around with my older brothers; we weren’t long-distance runners, but we played baseball and built forts in the backyard, went swimming, argued over who got to play with the genuine WW2 gas mask. We weren’t very well off, but we were active. Dad grew fruits and vegetables in the back yard, and we’d be out in the summer picking tomatoes and helping him with the cold frame.
And if this sounds like a days-gone-by rant . . . not exactly. I’m 24, and I grew up in the middle of Chicago. I remember the school lunches we got; they were horrible, overprocessed and tasted like damp insulation. Mom and Dad worked like hell to make a good home for all of us kids (five total), and government regulations never actually helped with any of that. Instituting more draconian rules, and running these goofy experiments with pictures in lunch trays, is like trying to fix an aching foot by recarpeting the entire house.
Need I remind how the US government has done such a stellar job with the Post Office and spending in general why wouldn’t we follow their advice about dietary practices ?
The French are so superior that the USA has had to bail them out several times otherwise they would all be speaking German and goose stepping. Never the less they live with the delusion of superiority and typically are disdainful toward all other cultures. Ask the Muslims and other immigrants living in the shadows.
By the way didn’t psychologist Dr Spock do a great favor for us all by helping produce the children of the 60s ? So much for psychological advice. Now lets be advised by that great psychologist Michele Obama.
…great psychologist Michele Obama.
She referenced Americans as lazy and complacent during her husband’s ’08 campaign and has made similar allusions recently at fundraisers.
She said Barack was gonna take us out of our “comfort zone” (got that right, sweet pea, but not what you were thinking)
“Food injustice” (cf inner city Chicago where, per Michelle, you just can’t find fresh food) is just another plank in the phony “fairness” theme.
** “Food injustice” (cf inner city Chicago where, per Michelle, you just can’t find fresh food) is just another plank in the phony “fairness” theme. **
Guess it depends on what’s defined as ‘inner city’. I live on Capitol Hill (Denver), about 1/2 mile south of downtown. There’s a ring of groc. stores around downtown, but I don’t have a clue where the people living IN downtown shop (altho the prices for that housing are exorbitant, so maybe those folks send the help shopping). But there’s certainly nowhere one could go as a pedestrian to shop for food.
I’ll also say (tho this will no doubt get me in trouble) that if one tried to open a ‘fresh food’ groc., there would have to be some shoppers to make a go of it. If there’s no call for that, it will fold quickly. And small shopkeepers are notoriously loathe to open anything in an area where, keeping cash, they’ll be robbed over & over.
Nora, gotta disagree on your opinion re: sodas. I lived on coke, usually Dr. Pepper (I’m from TX where “coke” is the generic term) until I left for college. There were no chubby kids in my neighborhood. We lived out in the burbs on the edge of rural and like you, me and my friends were free range kids and usually had to be drug inside well after dark. Hell, on weekends, we weren’t allowed IN the house till after dark.
“If you’re thirsty, there’s the hose.”
It’s the lack of physical activity. I can say from experience, that it takes a very concerted effort to counteract 9hrs/day of sitting at a desk. Doesn’t matter how well you eat.
Kevin you are correct, it’s not the veggies it’s the exercise. We rarely ate veggies growing up but were outdoors running morning till night. All this emotional manipulation is a waste of time. Tell them to get off their backsides and go outside and play.
The most overweight Americans are the most religious. Religious parents force their children to finish what’s on their plates. That’s because they believe in Hell, and so they think that punushment is beautiful
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/ObesityAndHell.html
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect….”
-The Dread Pirate Roberts
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
We French eat vegetables and are thin because we are atheists. France has the highest % of atheists of any country and obese America the lowest. And where are the real fatties? In the Bible belt adding another notch to it every day. The fattest American presidential candidate ever was Williams Jennings Bryan, big enough to swallow a whale, daft enough to believe the opposite.
What kind of stupid argument is that? “We are thin because we are atheists?” Really? Do you know the racial makeup of the Bible Belt? They are heavily black. It has nothing to do with religion, it has to do with culture. I get so tired of people equating the Bible with all sorts of things that have nothing to do with nothing.
What a hoot! You’re very misinformed. William Jennings Bryan was from Nebraska, which is NEVER identified as part of the so-called “Bible Belt”, no matter what map one uses. And where did you get your faulty info on him being the fattest pres. cand. ever?
Good for a small laugh. Now let’s ignore this obvious troll …
Not only is the government trying to compel a certain diet, in twenty years they’ll be cussing us out for eating such unhealthy food. When I was a kid we ate bacon and eggs and toast with butter for breakfast, and had a 4-ounce glass of orange juice. The orange juice was either squeezed at home, or reconstituted from something frozen. Supposed to be very healthy. Meat and potatoes and gravy for dinner, with maybe some green beans.
Then for a while we were supposed to stuff ourselves with healthy natural grains, while fat, protein, and salt were the villains.
I’m not completely sure what to eat today, because I’ve stopped paying attention to those controlling, inconstant nutritional fools. They can’t stay on message for more than a decade, but I never see them apologize for leading us wrong on the previous diet.
And these are the people who want to mandate our diet? Pfaugh!
If the majority ingredient of everything you eat isn’t sugar or corn syrup, you’d be surprised at how many things actually taste good. Too much sweet destroys your ‘taste’ for nearly anything else – that’s the reason why kids don’t like asparagus or broccoli. I’m eating a plate of lightly steamed snow peas sans butter and salt right now, and they taste delicious……
It really is very simple to get children to eat vegetables. The answer: Do not give them a choice.
My three children all grew up eating vegetable, and all three like them. My son’s favorite is squash, my older daughter’s is spinach, and my younger daughter prefers broccoli. Just tonight, my younger daughter (the only one left at home) ate a meal of baked chicken, lima beans, mustard greens, steamed cabbage and cantaloupe. She commented specifically how the mixed juices of the lima beans, cabbage and mustard greens were just delicious.
All three were given vegetables from before the time they can remember, and all three were required to eat their vegetables growing up. Now they love vegetables.
As for other people’s children, I remember a friend dropping off their children when we were swapping baby sitting when the kids were young. The two year old ate her green beans, and her mother was astonished. She asked me how I got her to eat her vegetables since she was never able to get her to eat them. I told her it was simple.
What I did was, at dinner time, everyone got vegetables along with the rest of the food. The two year old pitched a fit, and refused to eat the green beans. I moved her high chair next to me, took away all her other food except the green beans, and told her to eat them. She refused, and pitched a fit. I instructed the rest of the kids (my three plus her older brother and sister) to ignore her fit, and continue with dinner as though she wasn’t there. When she saw her fit was not getting her attention, she stopped, but still refused to eat her vegetables.
After dinner, I turned her high chair around facing the corner of the dining room, and instructed her that she could get down and play with the other kids when she finished eating her green beans. 90 minutes later, she decided that I was more stubborn than she was, ate her green beans, and was able to start playing with the other kids. I never begged her to eat them. I never even got mad at her. But she could have sat there for a week and starved before I was going to let her win. That is what is called “parenting.”
Of course, when her mother heard what I did, she thought I was cruel. But the girl ate her vegetables from that day forward, and even now, at age 15, she still remembers being put in a corner until she finished.
My own children knew that they did not have to finish their vegetables at dinner, but whatever they did not eat that night, they would get cold, un-reheated, for breakfast the next morning. That was rarely a problem, as most of the time, they fought over who got the last asparagus spear, or brocolli flowerette.
Another friend brought her 5-yr old over who insisted that brocolli made him throw up. His mother insisted he would never eat his brocolli, and she didn’t believe I could get him to eat it. As he gagged on each piece, I calmly informed him that I did not mind if he threw up, as long as he didn’t mind re-eating the thrown up brocolli. He looked at me like I was crazy, and came to the conclusion that he was right. I WAS just crazy enough to make him eat his own barf, and AMAZINGLY, he was able to eat all his brocolli without throwing up. Once again, the key was that he believed I meant what I said. And I did.
He also still vividly remembers the occasion – but now he eats his brocolli without complaint, and without all the dramatic choking/gagging routine.
The other reason my kids enjoy vegetables is that I really enjoy them. Kids do what parents do, not what they say. And when they see their parents going back for seconds of vegetables instead of seconds of starches or meats, or sweets, then they learn that vegetables ARE delicious.
This ain’t rocket science. Give your kids healthy food, and insist they eat it. Does that mean you never give them junk? Of course not. Since I worked from home for a good portion of my career, many times I was available to pick up the kids from school. One of the “treats” the kids would sometimes get after school, was some salty McDonald’s fries and an ice cream cone. I was the one who taught them how delicious salty fries are when dipped into soft-serve. But they learned that vegetables were also a treat.
Finally, I NEVER bribed my children to eat what was in front of them. And if they were legitimately full, I never forced them to eat anything. (I just kept it for later.) Vegetables were never a punishment. They were just part of the diet. And all of them knew that they would never be as stubborn as me. I could outlast them all.
The problem is that actual discipline costs the parents time and effort. It is a hassle to have to actually discipline the kids. One time, my older daughter was being disrespectful to her mother. I wasn’t in the car. This was right after her mother had an affair, and was not living with us anymore. Her mother threatened to kick her out of the car, and make her walk five miles home.
When I found out about it, I told my daughter that it didn’t matter what her mother had done. She was still required to treat her mother with respect, and that she deserved to have to walk the five miles home. I called up her mother, and had her drop my daughter off at the point where she had been being disrespectful, and insisted she walk home. But I also got dropped off with her, and walked the entire five miles with her while she complained about her mother the entire way home. By the time we got home, she realized that I was NEVER going to allow her to be disrespectful toward her mother, even if it meant walking 100 miles together.
I didn’t enjoy walking those 5 miles. And it was a big hassle to do it. And, truth be told, I thought it was her mother who should have walked them with her, not me. But to this day, all of my children still know that the fastest way to get me angry is to treat their mother with disrespect. I say this even though she is no longer with me, and is not setting a good example (in my opinion) for them in how she now lives.
And lest anyone think I am just a harsh idiot, I have been told many times how kind and caring my children are towards others. That is because, while I was firm, I was also considerate. I called my children “sir” and “ma’am” from the time they were toddlers. It is amazing how much easier it is to get your children to respect you if you first give them respect. And I respected them enough to be a parent – even when it was not fun.
I think the biggest reason kids don’t eat right is that their parents don’t eat right. And the second biggest reason is that is takes time and patience teaching your kids the right habits. It is easier to give up, let them eat what they think they want, and crash in front of the TV than it is to sit with them for two hours until they decide that it is better to eat the vegetable than sit there for three hours. I know. It was a hassle to sit for two hours with a two year old of a friend, not even my own child, so that she would eat her green beans. The other kids wanted me to come play with them. But it was more important that a two year old learn that she could not win her way by pitching a fit. That takes patience, and actually costs you something you’ll never get back. But if you actually respect your child, then you are willing to pay the price, no matter the personal inconvenience. And they will not only reward you with the right behavior. They will also return that respect to you, because they can see that they are not paying the price alone – you are paying it with them.
Well, it must be nice to be a perfect parent. However, the majority of us are not control freaks like you who relentlessly micromanage every facet of their children’s early years, to the point of actually threatening to make them eat their own vomit if they throw up any unwanted food they’ve been forced to eat. My own parents, thanks be to God, fell somewhat short of perfection. I was a notoriously picky eater as a child, while my three sisters ate just about anything. By the time I was 5 my mother no longer even bothered to put any kind of cooked vegetables on my plate, other than potatoes. Somehow I still managed to grow up healthy and strong. BTW today I am not overweight and love vegetables, as well as nearly all the other food I refused to touch as a child. Wise parents choose their battles wisely.
Kathleen,
You are missing the point on the 5 yr. old. He was the one trying to be in control. His threat of vomiting, and actual self-induced vomiting was his way of exercising control. My threat merely took away his weapon. He could no longer use the threat of vomiting to avoid eating the vegetable.
How could I tell it was a threat? Because he would start gagging and wretching before the food ever touched his lips. It was purely a psychological bluff on his part, and I called his bluff.
If there was an actual health reason such as an allergy, then of course that changes things. My niece is allergic to peanuts, and she has been trained by her parents to ask every single time she goes to restaurant or another home whether or not peanut products are in the food. She will absolutely refuse to eat something if she is unsure. But her mother doesn’t allow her to use that as an excuse to avoid other healthy food.
What astonishes me is that many people seem to believe that children are too innocent to play control games, and manipulate parents. This particular young man was all about making his mother dance like a puppet on a string. I simply showed her that she didn’t have to dance. His throwing up was just a power play. I showed him that I had more power. More importantly, I showed his mother that she didn’t have to buckle under to his demands. The important distinction is that I was using my power for his benefit, not for my own amusement.
Children desperately need parents to be parents. I don’t claim to be a perfect parent. But I realize that being a parent means you cannot be their friend in every case. Sometimes you have to be the “bad guy.” It is part of the job description of being a Parent.
Scott,
You are making yourself and your children miserable. You say you don’t force them to eat, but you describe in detail just how you are doing so.
Children who are cajoled into eating what they don’t want learn to finish what’s on their plates. This is a curse that follows them the rest of their lives. Ir logically leads to obesity.
Eating food you neither need nor want is wasting it.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/EatMisc.html
George,
My youngest is a senior in high school, and the other two are away in college. And they were not miserable growing up. And neither was I.
The big issue is letting small children choose for themselves when it is the job of the parent to choose for them. The Goal of good parenting is to get them to the point where they make their own good choices. But small children are not capable of making good choices for themselves. And it is the job of a parent to do that for them. The two stories I told were about a two year old, and a five year old.
I suppose if you are still having this issue when the kids are 10 or older, then you can make a case that making them eat vegetables is a problem. But by that time, my kids were not fighting to keep from eating vegetables. Instead, they argued over who got the second portion. It wasn’t an issue anymore.
If you handle things properly, then the issue becomes settled. It is not a source of continual conflict. The “complaint” my children now have is that at college, they don’t serve enough good vegetables. And when they come home, I have to cook extra vegetables because they crave them so much.
Last night, when my youngest daughter had her meal, I didn’t make her plate. She chose, of her own free will, to load her plate up with cabbage, mustard greens, lima beans and cantaloupe. I didn’t even get off the couch.
There were also available for her choice: chips & salsa, Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee Ravioli, cookies, Popcorn, Left over Pizza, Cheese and Pork Tamales, and other assorted things. She is the one who chose the healthy food.
And that is my point. If you train a child when he or she is very young, they will grow up to make the right choices. That concept doesn’t just apply to food.
The dinner table at was a place of laughter and joy in our house while the kids were growing up. We had dinner every single night, and it was common for us to spend 60-90 minutes there. The kids would linger, telling each other and their parents about their day, and just enjoy each other’s company. They still do that when they are all back in town.
As for obesity, my youngest daughter gets told she looks like a model, and weighs about 120. My older daughter wears the same size clothes as her little sister, and has been a lifeguard for the city I live in for the past 4 years. She swam competitively in high school. And my son graduates from college this year, and will be commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and enter pilot training. You cannot be fat and qualify for that.
So your assumptions are just plain wrong.
One more thought:
My children were never forced to eat when they were full. They didn’t have to clean their plate. They just were not allowed to leave the vegetables till last, and claim “fullness” as an excuse. Every parent knows when the kid is trying to deceive you.
The portions they got served were suitable to their appetites. And if I saw them avoiding the vegetables on their plate, I would stop them from eating the meat and starch until they ate at least some of the vegetables. If they got served a portion of vegetables that was too big, I would let them put some back. They had the right and privilege to protest if they thought it was too much.
If they said upfront that they were not very hungry, then they got smaller portions of everything so they would still have a balanced meal. And if I noticed them picking at their food, I would ask them if they were full. Honestly, it isn’t hard to tell if your child is just not hungry, or if they are just trying to avoid a certain food.
“They just were not allowed to leave vegetables till last and claim ‘fulness’ as an excuse.”
Persecution! Pointless persecution.
I’m glad your children are not overweight. They are exceptions to the rule. I hope they remain that way. I hope they haven’t internalized the habit of finishing what’s on their plates.
George, you just aren’t getting it. It certainly is not “pointless persecution”. It’s not about making kids clean their plates, b/c yes that can set up a lifetime of problems with/around food. It IS about setting healthy eating habits in the young. (same timeline, see?) I tried to make sure we had delicious veggies of all kinds, from cooked to raw to throwing ‘em all in salad. Yes, the kids had to eat *some* of it. And they also couldn’t claim being too full if lvg. vegs for last.
Responsible parenting means helping kids set up good eating habits when they’re little. You can’t ask, “Do you want this or that?” They simply don’t know. Serve them healthy, tasty stuff. If the food’s there & available, no kidlet has starved yet!
“They simply don’t know”???
Of course they know. They show it by choosing what they like.
I always loved spinach as a child. On the other hand, I hated peas. My parents (to the distress of my aunts and uncles) let me have as much spinach as I liked and said not a word about peas.
When I was 20, I was studying in Paris and discovered petits pois. I loved them. I still do–as long as they are as delicious as they were in Paris.
The French, are, of course, superhuman.
They do, of course, have this slight problem with no-go zones in their cities, run by “Youths”, who like to burn cars and riot. And they have so few children that they need to keep importing said “youths” to keep their welfare state going.
But their society is superior to ours. . .
Tyrannical governments always want to control what you eat.
It’s how they grab, and keep, power.
Look at the Ukraine, under Stalin. Famines are a great way of taking out the opposition.
Just like you won’t find cat skeletons in trees because you don’t help them, you won’t find the skeletons of children at school lunch tables.
Let them figure out on their own that not eating leads to hunger. They’ll quickly change their habits, if not, well then that’s one less obstinate child in the world.
I wouldn’t have dared not eating my vegetablesw and even the liver I detested so much. I have never had liver in my own home although I learned to cover it with mashed potatoes and swallow it whole.
Vegetables in school cafeterias are often canned, yucky, and cooked to death. probably wouldn’t eat them either.
Those preaching better school menues should stand next to the garbage cans and see what is thrown out.
Why do Americans like to use the word “student” so much? Here in the UK, children are usually referred to as “pupils” until the age of either 16 or 18. A student normally means someone at university or college. A child at kindergarten certainly cannot be a student.