Not about nutrition
Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 4:19 pm
I just read a fantastic article by a food sociologist who talks about why it's more important for parents to help their children build good eating habits than worry about minute nutrition details. She seems very much in tune with many of the ideals behind NoS.
http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2010/10/0 ... nutrition/
http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2010/10/0 ... nutrition/
When it comes to teaching children about eating, the details sometimes get in the way. Kids don’t eat nutrients, they eat food that has flavor, texture, appearance, aroma, temperature… these are the things that matter to them. Parents who ignore this (or who are swayed to look at nutrients instead) are hampered in their efforts to teach their children to eat. Chocolate milk teaches kids an appreciation for chocolate, not for milk. And milk doesn’t taste anything like broccoli. The biggest challenge Americans have is to teach their children to eat more fruits and vegetables. Parents don’t need a nutritionist to tell them that, or to tell them that donuts are not apples.
Parents know what to feed their kids. What they frequently don’t know is how to get their kids to eat the foods that they serve. Nutrition has nothing to offer parents with regard to that.
If you want to teach your kids to eat right you have to move beyond nutrition to focus on behavior, to focus on habits.
Once the basics are in place—once kids are eating more fruits and vegetables than processed foods and more than junk—then you can call the Dietitian and refine their eating. Until then, focusing on nutrition is like focusing on the quality of your car stereo when don’t even own a car.