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Your Child: The Newest Expert on Nutrition
Teaching Healthy Food Choices (Without Really Trying)
By T. Susan Chang
When Noah was a little younger, he insisted he didn't like vegetables. In fact, for a while the only vegetable he ate with any gusto was frozen peas until he got sick of them. Having only recently learned to recognize the letters "f" and "b," he hasn't read the USDA guidelines. And he is no fonder of okra than he should be. So it isn't that Noah is an exceptionally right-minded kid when it comes to fresh produce. But when his growing body demands something, it seems it is finally learning to "listen."
Maybe that's the point: Kids' bodies really know what they need. Maybe our job as parents is just to make good, nutritious food available – and to keep making it available until someday something clicks and suddenly broccoli is something they want for a snack when they wake up from a nap.
Industry pundits will tell you we have to be free to choose what we eat in the supermarket. Kids will choose sugary cereals and fatty snacks, and why should we deny them? But that argument strikes me as misleading. Kids choose what's familiar and available, and that's why U.S. food processors spend $15 billion a year on advertising and direct merchandising, making sure their products become just that: familiar and available.
"It takes just one 30-second commercial to influence a child's preference for the advertised item," says Hemmelgarn. "So limit TV viewing and you'll automatically limit the whning and begging for advertised products."