Am I the only person worried by how much schools are pushing 'healthy' eating?
My elder son Joel has just finished his first year at primary school, and during that time he's learnt a lot about all sorts of things. He's loved school, which of course is great. His school have helped him settle in, and generally been brilliant; so I don't want this to sound like a disgruntled parent rant...
Don't misunderstand me - I'm all for children eating healthily. My children have a pretty good diet, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, sensible-ish amounts of protein, carbs etc etc. Not too many sweets. Even the odd bit of oily fish. They aren't over-weight and their teeth aren't falling out. All in all, they're a picture of health and energy - they're certainly active enough to be exhausting me over the summer holidays!
The thing is, Joel now regularly reads packaging on food and tells me how many calories there are in each portion, or how much fat they contain. He asks me if they have too much salt, or too much sugar. And I guess all of that is fair enough; what bothers me is how each food has been given the label of 'heathy' or 'unhealthy', 'good' or 'bad'.
Joel recently told me that chocolate was unhealthy, which personally - I thought was a major disaster! Not to mention a gross over simplification... Chocolate has actually been shown to be good for all sorts of things.
I don't think there are many foods that could truly carry the label 'bad', and I guess they'd be the ones full of artificial additives and things which when given to children, you knew that within 20 minutes you'd be scraping them off the ceiling.
I think talking about how much your body needs of something, rather than whether it is good or bad has got to be the more sensible approach, especially where children are concerned. Children are so impressionable, and at this early stage words from teachers are taken as gospel truth. I think labelling any food as bad is potentially dangerous too, given that so many younger and younger children are considering dieting, and the rates of eating disorders in children and young teenagers are higher than ever.
Food is GOOD
The boys and I have just made a chocolate cake - we just won't eat it all today...
As you know - I thoroughly agree! I have spent much of my adult life trying to help eating disorder sufferers learn that the concept of 'bad' foods is completely unhelpful when trying to recover - I'm not keen on having to re-teach my children when they get home from school that quick release sugars as well as slow release sugars will help them feel more energetic more quickly!
ReplyDeleteI think the thing that worries me is that there seem to be two types of children - the ones who get neurotic about things that they are told are 'bad' for them, and the ones who go all out to do things they are told not to just to test the theory. I was one of the former, who, because I was told to brush my teeth regularly to avoid painful cavities and because that's what 'good' children do, now have sensitive teeth from over brushing my gums. My brother was one of the latter, who used to climb up in the kitchen to steal the sweets just because he knew he wasn't supposed to.
I don't know which I'd want Amelia (and bump) to be.I'd like to think that I could help them be balanced in their view of food, and from what I can see so far, school is more likely to hinder than help that, which worries me considering how many of the extremes of food related behaviour I've come across.
One parting comment - sports candy (vegetables and fruit) is great, but if it's all you eat you end up with no energy and a very runny bottom.....
I'm not a parent, so no idea on the educating children thing. But I imagine what you say is very true for you because you are a sensible parent with a sensible idea of a sensible diet for your children.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately lots of kids don't have such sensible parents, so surely it is important for schools to teach about these issues - at least while the food industry still packages stuff not actually fit for human consumption - trans fats and the like.
Yes, I also find it sad when children seem so concerned with all the information about food rather than just enjoying it. But I agree with Rachel that it may be necessary for children who don't experience healthy eating - however, the way it is done maybe needs some tweaking.
ReplyDeleteWhen I needed to lose some weight a few years ago I tried Slimming World and I really liked the approach overall - nothing is prohibited, so I could eat anything I wanted but had to make choices. I could eat as much fruit and veg as I liked and then either unlimited carbohydrates and limited proteins or unlimited proteins and limited carbohydrates (with exceptions such as cheese and bread), and then a certain amount of treats. It took a bit of getting used to but was very empowering. I'd decide how much I really wanted to eat something such as chocolate - I could have it but if I did then I wouldn't be able to have something else later - some things, I decided, just weren't worth it. It helped me to lose weight and change the way I thought about eating without feeling I was being restricted - I was just making necessary choices. The thing I didn't like was going to group meetings and that treats were called syns, which is part of the whole food is bad mentality.
Sigh. I never expected to become someone who would extol the virtues of a diet plan. But that's what happens when you eat too much and move too little.
Your post reminded me about the whole Bridget Jones mentality - she would record the number of calories and units of alcohol consumed each day, with the aim apparently being to reduce calories to zero. I think there's a tendency to forget that food is actually fuel and calories are necessary.
Food is good...
ReplyDeleteI should probably watch the amount of cholesterol I eat more than I do, but calories are not a problem.
The balance of calories consumed and used is important - I cycle (alot) and so add about 1000-1200 calories a day to my diet to provide fuel. If I use mostly rice as fuel it works out at approximately 500 mpg cost equivalent.
Even expensive chocolate (not good for cycling by the way) is in the triple figures.