Column #42

If you’re on board with good nutrition, how can you get your children to follow? Or is that mission impossible? The difficulty lies in helping children acquire good habits in today’s social environment where anything goes.

Teaching toddlers to eat most foods is relatively easy because they readily adapt to a consistent environment. But as they age and socialize with peers, keeping them from eating unhealthy foods poses a challenge because most parents, teachers, and youth organizations use sugary drinks, candy, ice cream, and pastry to appease and award children. They consider pizza, hamburgers, peanut butter sandwiches, and cereal as good food. Unfortunately, these popular foods are nutritional disasters.

How do you get children on board? Here are eight ways:
1.    Start by stocking only healthy foods at home. It’s best if both parents are on board and set good examples.
2.    Pack healthy food and water for school and other activities as often as possible.
3.    Engage children in the shopping and food preparation process.
4.    Teach children how to read ingredient labels.
5.    Discuss the medical history of friends or family members who have chronic diseases and explain which foods most likely contributed to their ailments.
6.    Explain how weight gain, diabetes, asthma, fungal issues, cancer, arthritis, acne, cavities, and mood swings are associated with the Omega-3 deficiency and eating sugar.
7.    Expose older children to peer-reviewed research.
8.    Appeal to their vanity by explaining how healthy foods can improve their looks, grades, and athletic ability.

As soon as practical, help children grasp the fundamentals of nutrition and why health depends on the green leaf at the bottom of the food chain. Here’s an overview:

•    Sustainable life began in the sea as single-celled organisms with chlorophyll.
•    Chlorophyll is required for green leafy plants to create energy from sunlight (like a solar cell).
•    One-celled animal organisms followed. They got their nutrients and energy by eating plant organisms and other animals in the plankton soup.
•    When green plants moved on land, animals followed.
•    The nutrient tie between animals and green plants is a constant.
•    Bodies require plant-based nutrients for energy and the elements needed to synthesize components.
•    Some components (like essential fats and amino acids) cannot be synthesized by the body and must be provided directly from food.
•    The 1:1 balance of essential Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids occurs naturally in green leaves and animals that have the green leaf at the bottom of their food chain. The 1:1 balance of these fats is critical for immune and nervous systems and brain function.
•    Nutritionally deficient foods with imbalanced essential fatty acids cause body failures (chronic diseases).

The healthiest foods are meat from wild-caught seafood, grass-fed, and omega-3 animals and green leafy vegetables. These foods provide energy and all nutrients including the appropriate balance of essential nutrients needed to build strong healthy bodies and minds.

Grain, nuts, seeds, sugars, vegetable oils, and even many fruits are deficient in nutrients. These foods weaken the immune system, harm never and brain function (think ADHD), contribute to obesity and chronic diseases such as acne–the dreaded teenage affliction.

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

For additional reading:

Vital Role of Essential Fatty Acids For Pregnant and Nursing Women

Food Analysis: GI, GL, Fat Ratio, Nutrient Load

Landmark Nutrition Studies

Food Addictions

Busting the Healthy Food Myths

Am I Too Obsessed About Food?

Autism and Omega-3 Fatty Acids