Educating Kids on Nutrition

With the huge problem of childhood obesity which is brought into the spotlight by one of my food heroes Jamie Oliver, in his new TV show, it gets me upset when I hear the excuses that people give for not eating properly, and more importantly, for not educating their kids on proper nutrition. In one of the famous scenes you can pick up on Youtube, Jamie is in a classroom with kids, and has a table full of fresh vegetables and is quizzing the kids on what they are. The answers he gets are astonishing and shocking, even when we accept that they were probably edited for maximum shock appeal. The kids in this classroom did not seem to have much of any idea what any vegetable was, which means they'd probably never seen them not only on their own dinner plates, but on their parents', either. I do not recall whether it was in the video linked just now, or in another interview I saw with Jamie where he mentioned that this particular problem was solved with, if I recall correctly, two 1-hour educational sessions with the kids. Two 1-hour sessions! Shocking! There is no excuse for this.

Just last night in our house was one of those circumstances when we were pressed for time and were unable to cook a proper supper. I'd had a museum sleepover the night before with the boys and Beavers, and my wife has been sick the last few days. We'd just picked up a bunk bed at Ikea and had the boys' room torn apart to make room for it and get it all together before bedtime. It was already clear that the boys would miss their bedtime, we were all very hungry, and so we called in the Chef. Yes, that is right, the Chef, as in Chef-Boy-Ardee®. As full-to-the-brim as our pantry is with natural and whole foods, many of them organic or local, we do keep a very small number of "sin-foods" on hand, and as crappy as a can of Ravioli really is, we did not mind one bit feeding it to our son. Why is that?

First and foremost, neither my wife nor I recall the last time we'd fed one of the boys the Chef (or anything similar), it had been that long ago. It was easily a few months. But more importantly, our son (who is 8), knows full-well himself why he should not have this very often. And just like he does every time he gets to have something like this which he really likes but knows is bad for him, he completely unprompted started to recite why it is that stuff like this is bad for him, and why we therefore cannot eat it very often. He went on to admit how much he likes it and how much he appreciates getting it as a treat every now-and-then. Most of what these boys get is all natural wholes foods. Foods that can be easily recognized as things that came from the Earth. Unpackaged. Healthy. No processed sugars. No hydrogenated fats. So we have no qualms whatsoever in letting them enjoy a can of the Chef a few times a year. Sure, there were any number of quick and healthy things that we could have whipped up, but there is a reason that so many kids are hooked on this stuff - it is scientifically developed to taste great to kids. And we've brought our kids up to know better than to want it every day or even every week (or month).

How did we manage that? Very simply.

Jamie Oliver said it only took a few hours to educate the kids in this classroom on vegetables and proper eating. And they were starting out at the opposite extreme. Our kids have been exposed to this stuff for as long as they've been talking, if not a bit longer. It helps that our oldest son is a total science-head and treats Human Nutrition as just another matter of science, but even our youngest guy (6) who is very much the opposite, gets it all by now, too. And it is not difficult to do. Nor does it require anything even remotely like setting up a classroom at home. We simply talk to our kids and engage them in conversation about the things we eat, and why we select them over other things. We involve them in our cooking, and take the time to explain a few things about the foods, in the process. A few simple minutes of conversation at the supper table go a long way towards their proper nutritional education. Fat, sugar, protein and so forth are all things that kids have no problem understanding if we just talk to them about these things. And we don't need PhDs ourselves to teach them. Even a few government pamphlets on nutrition and a bit of common sense are enough. Our boys know all about whole grains/foods, protein, iron, vitamins, processed sugars, micro-nutrients, good fats, bad fats, and so on. They even know that it is completely A-OK to eat bad fats as long as it is not too much and not too often. And if they are getting lots of exercise it matters even less.

All of this is stuff they've learned over the last few years, in short little segments, a few minutes at a time. That is all it takes. And when the kids hear it over-and-over, day-after-day, it just becomes a part of their normal, every-day routine. Our boys frequently get positive comments on their healthy lunches, from teachers at school. And we're pretty proud of this fact. Even when they sometimes do not eat everything we send them with, the fact that they enjoy eating nutritious food, and know quite a bit about why we feed it to them, more than makes up for that.

It really only requires the tiniest of effort.