It saddens me to see queues of cars waiting for the drivethrough filled with supersized kids and parents too lazy to walk the 10 metres from the carpark to the actual McDonalds (sorry I refuse to call it a a "restaurant"!). I see parents bringing their kids McD's, KFC or fish and chips for lunch at school. Or the kids with no fruit in their lunch box, only processed food, unhappy little packets of fat, salt, sugar and colouring.
I'm almost through reading "Generation Extra Large. Rescuing Our Children From the Epidemic of Obesity". It's very interesting and pretty scary with global examples of obesity issues in children. One part of the book said something like "you wouldnt deliberately give your kids an illness, yet we happily give our kids foods (and too much of them) that CAUSE obesity related disease such as heart, cancer, sroke and of course diabetes." The "Happy Meal" with obligatory toy is really an UN happy meal.
I could go on and on and not change anyones mind about this, but I guess all I can say is what we DO now in our family...(the kids and adults that is, we don't make them be healthy and then sit down and chow into chocolate bars while they have carrot sticks..). It's taken years to slowly get to this point to "evolve" from whole tubs of 2 litre icecram in one sitting, half a plate of mashed potato per person and full fat blue milk and tasty cheese
- Have meals together as a family at the table every night
- Kids eat snacks at the table, never in front of TV or PC
- Try to eat dinner without the distraction of the news on, still working on this one...
- Kids have sandwiches, at least one piece of fruit and usually a yoghurt for lunch each day
- Use trim milk for the whole family
- Family Fun Cardio Day on Sundays (as opposed to a food based activity such as going to a cafe)
- Kids walk to school as many times a week as possible
- Kids encouraged to do outdoor play, climb trees etc as much as possible rather than sit inside on PC/Playstation (this one is still being finetuned and summer means more opportunity to be outside running around)
- Use edam cheese and feta and only occasionally
- Dinner is a lean protein of some type with veges and/or salad. Sausages are rare. Mince is rare and I use low fat premium mince when I do make it. I find 300 grams will make enough for a whole family of 4 once I've added all the tomoatoes and vegetables. on the odd occasion I make homemade hamburgers with wholemeal buns.
- Pudding would be rare, maybe 3x a month. I will make fresh fruit salad, they LOVE icecream, stewed rhubarb or apple crumble.
- Party foods are for parties only. This includes crisps, lollies, fizzy drink, red sausages.
- We have whole fruit rather than fruit juce
- Drinks = water or milk, no sugar drinks
- Allow dried fruits, nuts and seeds but small quantities as high calorie
- Encourage an afterschool sport (10 year old does basketball)
- Chocolate would be a rare treat, 2-3 x a year. Especially when we go camping, a bar of chocolate around the campfire is pretty good!
- No processed food really, we make everything from scratch like pasta sauce, gravy, all meals. We dont buy anything much already made except perhaps tomato sauce, jam/peanutbutter, marmite, milo and multigrain bread.
- Moving to low GI breakfast cereals for all. I have been low GI breakfasts for over a year with whole oats way up there on my "yummy, filling and healthy" scale. I do them as several porridge recipes with nuts, fruit and seeds, or as a muesli. I have eliminated the sugar cereals totally such as pre made muselis (I make my own), nutragrain, coco pops, honey puffs etc. I buy a small bag of rice bubbles (high GI) a week and when they're gone, they're gone...
- Encourage more water drinking. They're improving but still dont get enough water, certainly not 8 glasses a day
- No nutella (icing sugar for bread...)
- No fish fingers or any crumbed processed meats/fish
- No salami or high fat small goods
- Grow veges in the garden
- Have planted fruit trees..waiting...!
- No KFC. No McD's etc
- Takeaways only about 2x a year when we're out and about and stuck (we used to have them once a week..)
- Plan food for all trips, take lunch and water etc with us (chicken, rolls and salad etc) rather than be forced to spend a lot more money on less healthier options
- Kids cook, so they can learn to cook.
- Kids help shop so they can learn about choosing healthier options at the supermarket and read labels etc
- Baking would be about once a month or so and will be healthy wholemeal, low fat versions of muffins, biscuits or the odd cake
We're all happy with this lifestyle and I'd say fairly healthy. As I said it has taken many years of slow gradual change to get to this point. I still feel I'd like to see everyone more active (less TV/PC) and drinking more water, but we're pretty much there.
