As parents we face a daily battle of conscience over our children. We hear from multiple sources about the number of children who are now overweight or more worryingly, obese. We’re aware they require a healthy balance of diet & exercise on a daily basis. The love we feel for our children is unquestionable, we want them to grow up healthy, happy and with the best opportunities for life, so where are we going wrong?
Part of the problem is that in modern society parents face more pressure to provide for their children. We work longer hours, suffer more stress and the demands on us are endless. Part guilt, part convenience and many other factors contribute but none make parents the monsters the media portrays us to be, nor are the solutions as obvious or easy to execute.
Why do we spoil them?
Contrary to the general train of thought our opinion is that the biggest problem is not bad parents but bad routines. Children thrive on routine, easy to establish yet devilishly hard to break. When you consider how powerful a sugary snack can be at bringing a smile to a child’s face, it’s cheap, convenient and easy and as long as we’re giving them fruit and vegetables it’s must be ok.
The crucial word is “regularly”. Rewarding good behavior with a treat once in a while is perfectly ok. Doing it every time you go shopping or when you need them to be well behaved or quiet for a period is introducing bad routines. Take pudding for example, it’s ingrained into us to follow dinner with pudding (the nice bit!), a routine reward for eating their dinner but eating healthily should be a natural thing to do.
Now we’re not saying take away all puddings but some days an ice-cream on the way home can replace it. Introduce the concept of a treat being just that regardless of the time it is consumed.
Naughty snacking.
Snacking is what adults do all the time, just look at the success of the coffee shops! And look around them at just how many children there are in them with their parents or grandparents. Until we re-evaluate our own habits it’s going to be hard to install good ones into our children.
Change your routine and you will give your children a much better chance. Don’t purchase snacks for the home, make yourself go out and get them. Snacks are not suitable to conquer hunger and try to ensure you always have a few quick and easy foods to prepare for when you do get peckish. If your children see you partaking in good routines they will become completely normal and natural for them without any effort on your part.
Bad associations
One of the biggest problems we have with food is associating it with our emotions. A bumped knee is soothed with an ice-cream, a bad day equals a chocolate bar, a good report means a bag of sweets and a party means lots and lots of naughty goodies. By installing a sense that bad foods are rewards, compensation and to make us feel special we are building a bad association that will last a lifetime and is virtually impossible to break.
The tricky bit.
The difficulty we have is not how do we solve our children’s problem but how do we solve ours. The solution as with most tricky issues is slowly and one thing at a time. Learn new routines and recognize when you are making some of these crucial mistakes, by understanding our own bad habits we can help prevent them in our own children.
Great Ormand Street Hospital has some encouraging ideas on how to introduce healthy snacks and treats.
“If your child wants a snack it can be hard to make a good choice for them in a world full of fast food and sweets. So here are some healthy alternatives.
• Try and replace the unhealthy snacks with ones you don’t mind them eating, such as fruit, oatcakes and breadsticks.
• Offer pure fruit juice instead of fizzy drinks. The fruit juice counts towards their five-a-day and will help satisfy their cravings for sweet things. But still only offer them one glass a day as their main drink should be water.
• Swap chocolates and sweets for sweet fruits like bananas or strawberries.
• Speak to other people who spoil your children such as grandparents. Try and suggest that they help you by offering them healthy treats too.
Vanessa Shaw, head of dietetics at Great Ormond Street Hospital offers some of her favourite healthy snacks:
• Wholegrain pita bread filled with hummus and cherry tomatoes
• Cheese spread on unsalted oatcakes with cucumber slices
• Chopped up fruits
• Sticks of carrot, pepper and celery with tomato salsa dip
• Peanut butter and watercress on granary bread
• Banana and berry smoothies”
References
Great Ormond Street Hospital - http://www.childrenfirst.nhs.uk/families/features/healthy_child/spoiling_children.html
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