One of the biggest pitfalls with kids and healthy eating right now is that they’re keeping their blood sugar levels slightly elevated all day long with regular doses of poor quality, refined foods and drinks (high calorie/low nutrient density) such as sweetened sodas, juice (often from a fruit, but too high in sugar), and “snack foods” such as refined chips, pretzels, crackers, cookies, etc.

This practice has 3 main consequences: Giving your kids regular “doses” of these foods and drinks between meals throughout the day can keep their true hunger signal turned off, so they are more reluctant to eat the healthier mealtime foods.

Eating “sugar foods” like these all day long can alter their palates and cause them to lose their tastes for other flavors on the spectrum, especially bitter, so things like veggies are no longer palatable.

These foods have too many calories without enough nutrition, so kids who eat a lot of them tend to gain weight. In addition, because they cause a rapid glucose rise, which triggers a correspondingly rapid insulin increase, eating a lot of them can make that cycle unstable and in many kids the more of those foods they eat, the more they want. These children are overweight, but their bodies are often lacking in certain micronutrients because the quality of what they’re eating is so poor. They are overfed, but undernourished.

Try these tips to help counter this problematic habit:

• Serve water instead of soda or juice to “turn on” their natural appetites.
• Think of snacks as mini-meals and balance the macronutrients better. Most snack foods are highly refined carbohydrates or other sweet foods that turn rapidly into blood sugar and spike the glucose levels in the body. Fiber, protein, and fat act like time-release for sugary foods, including all the whites, so including some foods or ingredients that contain those with the typical crackers, pretzels, cereal bars, etc will help to satisfy your child and balance out the sugar cravings. So serve those crackers or pretzels with cheese or a smear of nut butter or bean spread like hummus; serve dried fruits (high in sugars) with Greek yogurt (higher in protein than regular yogurt); serve dry cereal with slices of boiled egg, etc.
• Eat fewer foods with artificial or chemical ingredients (none is best!!). Become a label detective: If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it! If the ingredients list is long, find another product with a shorter list. It only takes 4 or 5 ingredients to make a wholesome cookie or cracker, not 13!
• Upgrade the quality of their foods: get real. Start swapping out heavily refined and processed junk foods for recognizable real foods, especially the “whites”: white sugar, flour, rice and potatoes – mostly French fries –Swap them out for the “browns” or less refined, whole grain products. This one change will automatically reduce the total amount of sugar, salt and poor quality fat, while increasing fiber (lacking in most children’s diets), in your family’s by a significant percentage.

Parents should eat more fruits and veggies too! Try preparing them in new and fun ways. Involve your children in every stage, from growing (if possible), to selecting, to preparing and serving. Make dessert about discovering new fruits: stewed vanilla pears, whole grain tropical fruit pudding, fruit fondue with dark chocolate or skewers with yogurt “dippers”, etc. Have a homemade pizza night every week and let everyone “decorate” their own mini-pizzas with different veggies. Make homemade dressings and dips and serve them as snacks with seasonal veggie crudités.

Try these practical strategies for getting your kids to eat more veggies:

1. Positive peer pressure If kids see their friends eating something, they’re much more likely to eat it, too! Seeing even one friend eating his salad can help your child give hers a try.
2. Bridge with the familiar Try offering a new veggie served in exactly the same way you offer one they already like, such as homemade sweet potato fries cut like fast food fries.
3. Serve water instead of sweet drinks   Giving your kids soda, juice, or even too much milk between meals throughout the day can keep their hunger signal turned off and their “sweet tooth” powered up. Switch to water to “turn on” their natural appetite and make them hungry for more variety. Hunger makes the best sauce!
4. Finger food, dips and sprinkles Offer veggies “kid-size”, like individual mini broccoli “trees” or baby carrots. Dressing up plain veggies with dips and shakers (try parmesan cheese or ground sesame seeds) turns something simple into something special.
5. Shred and bake Grated soft vegetables can be easily tucked into almost any baked goods. Try things like zucchini, carrots, and sweet potatoes in muffins, cakes, and even cookies.
6. Roast ‘em (especially roots and greens) Roasted root veggies (carrots, beets, winter squash, etc) taste like nature’s candy. Try roasting greens, too (such as asparagus, kale, Brussels sprouts) for a crispy/soft texture.
7. Invisible veggies: purees If your child won’t touch a veggie with a ten foot pole, start by making them “invisible”. Puree and mix them into meatloaf, sauce, or even Mac & Cheese. Be sure to match the colors!
8. Kids in the kitchen Encourage your kids to help out in the kitchen. Ask them to wash and sort the veggies, or arrange them in a pretty way on the platter.
9. Make your own (pizza, salad, etc) Set up “bars” and let kids decorate their own pizzas, salads, or even soup with a veggie assortment. If they make it, they’ll eat it.
10. Grow your own Don’t live on a farm? No problem! Everyone can grow a batch of sprouts (see www.sproutpeople.com for great how-to tips and supplies). For kids, helping veggies grow makes them taste best!

Next tip for raising healthy eaters: Be very patient when you are trying to introduce new foods. It can take up to 15 offerings before a child will taste a new food!  And then it may take several tastes before it becomes familiar and accepted.  Don’t give up too quickly! Spread the offerings out over time, though – don’t peddle the broccoli breakfast, lunch and dinner for 5 days a row or you will likely have a mutiny on your hands!

Remember: you are in charge of what you offer your child, but they are in charge of what they choose to eat – that will help them cultivate a healthy relationship with food.

Offer a variety of flavors from a young age so they get used to tastes other than sweet and salty such as sour, pungent, astringent and bitter. Offer veggies early and frequently, and use small amounts of gentle herbs and spices (not salt or peppers with babies). For first tastes, offer the food plain, but once they are eating it, adding some herbs will help them develop a broader palate for their whole life.

One thing we know for sure is that our kids aren’t eating enough veggies in this country. According to a large scale study on infant and toddler feeding, the most consumed vegetable by kids is French fries! Yikes! Not only that, but 1 in 10 babies eat French fries and drink either sweetened fruit drinks or soda before their first birthdays. 25% of children under 2 don’t eat a single fruit on many days and 33% don’t eat a single veggie!  That means 1 in 3 toddlers aren’t eating a single veggie on any given day.

As fruits and vegetables are the primary source of many of the most important vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients for health and development, that’s simply got to change. Vegetables are a key component in a healthy diet for all growing kids. Veggies are nutrient powerhouses: they pack a big dose of nutrition in a small number of calories. In addition to being the primary source of many micronutrients crucial for healthy growth, development and energy, they also provide a great source of both soluble and insoluble fiber, with a lot less sugar than most fruit (another excellent, real food source of micronutrients and fiber).

Part of the problem is our poor modeling. Our children do as we do, not as we say. A 2009 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 73.7 percent of U.S. adults ate vegetables fewer than three times per day, the minimum recommended number.

We need to work harder as families to increase our overall consumption of vegetables. The nutrients and fiber from a broad range of vegetables can help both children and adults to feel full, and may stave off cravings for sweeter, lower-quality carbohydrate sources like crackers, cookies, soda and candy –two key strategies for reducing or preventing weight gain.

See tomorrow’s blog for getting your kids to nosh the rainbow!

What we’ve learned from ongoing nationwide efforts to reduce childhood obesity (and all the other health issues that come along for the ride), is that early prevention is easier than intervention once the unhealthy habits are in place. Parents can begin cultivating healthy eating habits in their children right from the cradle. Establishing a few key practices right from the cradle can help set your child up for a lifetime of healthy eating.

The first tip starts with the first food: babymilk. Breastfeeding exclusively for at least 3-4 months, though 6 is better, has multiple heath and development benefits, but also turns out to be protective against obesity. Experts at the national Centers for Disease Control tell us that exclusive breastfeeding for at least 3 months could prevent up to 20% of all obesity!

The second powerful tip is a little counterintuitive, but very effective. When you start introducing solid foods, and from then on, maintain a neutral attitude at the table. When you offer foods, don’t label them as bad, good, or even “healthy”. Just present it in a relaxed way, without any special attention on it, even if it’s something brand new and unfamiliar. What we’ve learned from the research is that, whatever you say about the food, your child is likely to do the opposite!  “This is good for me? I don’t like it!”

A natural extension of this practice of neutrality is that we don’t want to force or bribe our kids to clean their plate if they aren’t hungry.  Forcing might actually cause your child to eat less. Also, don’t use food as a reward or a punishment, especially the super-sweet or super salty junky stuff.

You’re in charge of the foods you offer your child, so give them only healthy, high quality choices, and keep the unhealthy competitive foods (all the junk) out of your pantry. And minimize sweet drinks – there’s no nutritional reason to offer them ever – and soda has actually been cited as one of the major contributors to childhood obesity. If you want to offer a little juice, water it way down: 1 part juice to 4 parts water. Drinking or snacking on sweets all day long keeps children from ever getting a true hunger signal.

You can offer healthy sweet foods occasionally, but don’t make sweets a “reward” for eating other types of foods. A good idea is to let go of the idea of “treats” altogether and just integrate healthy, balanced sweets into the meal itself – put it right on the plate with the chicken and veggies.

As nearly everyone has heard by now, America is in the midst of an epidemic of childhood obesity that has created a growing health crisis for our kids. According to the Nestle Nutrition Institute’s benchmark Feeding Infant and Toddler Study (FITS), many of our children are eating a poor quality diet too high in calories and too low in nutrition. About 1 in 3 older babies and toddlers are not eating a single vegetable on a given day! And things don’t get better as children get older: According to a study in the October 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, U.S. kids are getting nearly half of their daily energy intake from empty calories, i.e., “junk food.” Our current eating and lifestyle habits are taking a serious toll on the younger generations: Upwards of 23 million U.S. children and adolescents are overweight or obese and currently at risk for other health problems associated with obesity.

But the situation is far from hopeless. In fact, there is a powerful movement underway guiding us into healthier, more natural, sustainable eating practices in this country. The Real Food Moms believe that for families to thrive, the bulk of their diet needs to be made up of fresh, whole, “real” foods from sustainable sources. We believe that people are built to be “natural eaters” like all the other animals in the kingdom –eating real foods in reasonable amounts, according to individual internal cues for hunger and satiety that change as we grow and develop, with the seasons of the year, and with the fickle, evolving demands of our lives.

With our poor eating habits and increasingly processed and factory-farmed food supply over the past 50 years, we have sabotaged our metabolisms and short circuited this innate ability to eat naturally. The Real Food Moms believe it’s possible to reboot those “factory settings” with some strategic changes to our daily diet and lifestyle. We are dedicated to making it easier for parents to prepare tasty, healthy, real food for their families in the small amounts of time we have available to us each day.

In the blogs that follow this week, we will share some of our most powerful tips for raising healthy eaters from the cradle, for getting finicky family members to eat more veggies, and for quickly and easily correcting some of our most problematic eating habits.