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Strollerderby
With some restaurants offering dishes to children that contain more calories than they should be consuming in a day, is it any wonder our kids are getting fatter?
Which is it: (A) Fast food restaurants are making an effort to provide healthier options for children, or (B) Children’s menu selections at fast food restaurants are sending kids to early graves?
It seems as if the answer is both — depending on the week, that is.
This week it appears as if fast food restaurants are fattening up our kids, like, a lot. The 2012 edition of the New York Times bestseller, Eat This, Not That!, is out, and it lists the restaurants with the most fattening options for kids – based on calorie counts, fat, sodium and added sugar. And boy, are there ever some whoppers out there.
Take a look at a list of some of the entrées being dished up to kids, along with the eye-popping calorie counts:
Continue reading »
Your fetus can taste the carrots you eat!
To my pregnant friend who is all about sharing her favorite foods with the occupant of her womb: you are on the right track!
It’s never too early to share your favorite foods with your baby. Even in utero, the taste of strong flavors like garlic or mint is transmitted to the baby via amniotic fluid. After birth, you pass along the tastes of your own diet through your breastmilk.
A new study shows that not only do babies taste what their mothers eat, mom’s food preferences help shape baby’s food choices. Kids who were exposed to a flavor in utero ate more of it as babies, and appeared to like it more.
Most people want it their way, not the healthy way, at fast food restaurants
The other day I took my toddler to McDonald’s for lunch (I know! I’m a bad mother!). She got Chicken McNuggets, apple slices (with no caramel sauce) and chocolate milk. While she ate her apples, I checked the package — zero grams of fiber. It was still a better choice than French fries, but there was actually nothing nutritional in the slices themselves (there was a big fat zero next to every other nutritional data line, too, except for sugar).
But I wasn’t taking her to McDonald’s to be healthy. She eschews French fries because she just doesn’t like them. We don’t go to McDonald’s or any other fast food restaurant often and, frankly, if she wanted fries and a burger, I’d be A-OK with that (in fact, I’d be amused, since except for the occasional chicken nugget, she is a self-imposed vegetarian).
Still, I guess it’s good to hear that 19 restaurant chains plan on adding healthier options to their kids’ meal menus. But if you’re taking your kids out to these chains — like Burger King, Chili’s Friendly’s or IHOP — more than occasionally, wouldn’t you be better off eating at home and using the money you would have spent eating out on buying healthier food to serve your kids at the kitchen table? Why would anyone depend on a fast food chain for seriously nutritional options — since when is it anyone’s job but yours to act responsibly, like parents are supposed to act? Continue reading »
This deserves a Bronx cheer, as far as I'm concerned
I’m hardly a model mom, and to the best of my knowledge the Food Network has never called my agent to offer me a cooking show. However, I feel like given the fact that my daughter will eat only between 3 and 5 different foods, we’re doing pretty well.
I get that the whole “sneaking vegetables into food” thing has been all the rage over the past couple of years, with Jessica Seinfeld and Missy Chase Lapine putting stuff like spinach into brownies to allegedly revolutionize healthy cuisine for the younger set. Now Kraft has gone and put cauliflower in its classic macaroni and cheese. And I think this whole movement has gone too far.
If you’re feeding your kid neon orange macaroni and cheese, are you really so concerned with health that the ½ serving of cauliflower that’s being mixed in with a cup of the processed cheese and white pasta is really making you feel better about what you’re serving for dinner?
Eat 'em if you've got 'em, kids. You know, for your health.
As if life couldn’t get any better for young ones who are out of school for the summer, it turns out that the ante has just been upped: new data suggests candy is good for kids.
OK, maybe it’s not exactly good for them. But a study published in Food & Nutrition Research says that researchers at Louisiana State University found that little kids who ate candy were 22 percent less likely to be overweight or obese, and adolescents with a sweet tooth were 26 percent less likely to be fat than their non-candy-eating counterparts.
Buzzing with excitement over the news, kids everywhere are now pooling their allowance money to commission research in the hope of debunking other notorious myths. The top priorities on their list are as follows:
Dads make a big difference in healthy eating
Who makes the mealtime decisions in your house? According to new research, moms are on average more strict about food, while dads tend to be the more influential wild card. Whether they take food seriously, or throw in for Big Macs and other fun time treats, is what sets the nutritional tone in the house.
A study in The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior tells us that dads play a bigger role than moms when it comes to how often their kids eat at fast food restaurants — which is then linked to more weight gain in those children.
Good time dad, bad time mom? Do we really have that paradigm when it comes to the family table — with mom laying down the nutritional law and dad sneaking off to treat the kids to fries? Continue reading »
It's not exactly a health food, but candy also won't make you obese: study.
No foolin’, a new study shows that candy eaters have, on average, smaller waists and a lower body mass index than people who avoid the stuff. Setting aside the issue of cavities, does this mean chocolate and candy are new weapons in the fight against childhood obesity?
Unwrap a Tootsie Pop and let’s find the sweet spot in the study: Continue reading »
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