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raising healthy kids

Still Buying Your Kids Chicken Nuggets? You Won’t After This

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Any self-respecting parent who cares about his or her child should restrict fast food.  As in less than once per quarter.

Some of you may think this is a little harsh (and it’s likely going to be the ones who hit the drive thru at little more often than monthly), but I stand by that statement.  The quality of fast food is abhorrent and is in no way, shape or form part of a healthy diet and is a contributor to the childhood obesity statistics we see in this country.

There are some acceptable “fast food” restaurants you can choose instead, Chipotle has some good options for kids.  There are some sandwich shops that aren’t too toxic (Subway or Quizno’s are possible, but you’re going to have to put some veggies on the sandwich to bring it up to par).  Maybe Taco Bell.

Ok..so maybe not Taco Bell…

But you always get your child chicken nuggets, and they’re chicken, so they can’t be that bad, right?

Wow, are you wrong.  This particular study looked at what actually made up “chicken” nuggets from 2 national fast food chains (while the study did not identify the chains, you can make some guesses).  Here’s what they found:

  1. Striated muscle (chicken meat) was not the predominate component in the nuggets.
  2. Fat was present in equal or greater quantities.
  3. Also present were cells from the epithelium (skin), bone, nerve, and connective tissue.

While this may not come as a shocker, I guess we’d expect “chicken” nuggets to be made up of mostly chicken.  According to this study, that’s not even close to true.  Worse, you can bet the chicken meat is not of the organic, free range variety.

If you still choose  to buy your children chicken nuggets after knowing this little tidbit, I don’t really know what to say.  (As a side note, I had Keegan, 7 1/2, read this article and his response was that it was just “wrong…”)

Alternatively, Costco (Kirkland brand) sells a natural chicken nugget with whole grain breading in Mickey Mouse head shapes that taste fantastic…

 

Does Your Kid Have Behavior Problems? Common Habit May Be to Blame

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We’ve all seen the crazy 5-year-old in the store that seems completely out of the control of the parent.  Aggression, withdrawal, inattention.  But it must be a brain condition that needs meds.

Or maybe it’s a common behavior you’re allowing your child to partake in.

I’m pretty sure that no parent thinks that soda is good for a child.  But there’s no harm in a soda a day, is there?  Besides, my kid’s active and will just burn off the calories.  This last one always seems to be the rationale we use to justify toxic calories that we allow our children to have.

ANY empty calorie is bad for the human physiology, regardless of your age, gender, ethnicity or favorite subject in elementary school.  I could easily take this further and note that drinking our calories, period, is a bad idea.  You will NEVER get the nutritive value in a liquid that you can get from a solid.  Pomegranate juice?  Nothing compared to pomegranate seeds.  Apple juice?  No comparison to the whole apple.  Milk?  Nothing compared to, well…pretty much anything.

This particular article looks at just how toxic soda is for your child’s mental health and behavior and the results will hopefully make you reconsider condoning ANY soda for your child except on a rare occasion.  Researchers looked at almost 3,000 5 year olds to determine how much soda drinking affected certain behaviors.  Here’s the details:

  1. 43% of the children drank at least 1 serving of soda per day, with 4% drinking 4 or more servings per day.
  2. Aggression went up more with each soda per day.
  3. 4 or more also had more attention problems and withdrawn behavior.
  4. The highest consumers were 254% more likely to destroy others’ belongings, 228% more likely to physically attack people or 212% more likely to get into fights.

Unless you’re training a little mini cage fighter, these are some pretty bad statistics.  The bottom line is that soda is clearly toxic to a developing, young brain.  It is not merely the increased calories that you have to worry about.  It is either some combination of ingredients in soda that aggravate the brain or possibly the lack of other nutrients that were displaced by the soda dementing the brain.

Instead of soda, try tea or water (NOT in a disposable plastic water bottle!!).  Anything with calories should be avoided (milk, soda, sports drinks, lemonade, etc…) otherwise you’ll be battling a weight problem instead of a behavioral one.

 

Yes, your kid is overweight: Weighing the cons

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Odds are, you are not correct in estimating your toddler’s weight.  Maybe it’s denial.  Maybe it’s because your child’s peers are likely a similar weight.  Whatever the reason, it’s still highly likely you’re not correct in estimating whether your toddler is of optimal weight.

The fact that obesity rates are rising should come as no shocker.  But it’s hard to look in your own backyard and see this occurring.  Much easier to look at the mother of 5 overweight kids in line at Wal-Mart buying 6 2-liters of Coke and the bonus size of Oreos.

Weight aside, how many of our ideal-weight children are actually healthy?  There was much dismay several years ago here in AZ when the state budget constraints were going to necessitate cutbacks (or freezes to growth, depending on which political party had the microphone).  But really–how much medical care should kids need??  The answer, with the exception of a small percentage of child with health challenges not easily remedied with lifestyle changes, is very little.

But with poorer lifestyle choices comes poorer health and increased utilization of medical care.  The link between obesity and chronic medical conditions like asthma and respiratory illnesses is strong.  Worse, chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer clearly begin in the pre-adolescent and teen years.

So, let’s make this clear.  If your child is overweight (not even obese) they are being set up for a lifetime of sickness and disease.  It can’t be any more clear.  It is not merely an esthetic issue; rather, it is the beginning of the breakdown in health that will extend for decades to come.

So why would a parent NOT make the right choices for their child if the child is overweight?  According to this particular study, the reason is that 86% of mothers of overweight toddlers underestimated their child’s weight.

Other interesting observations:

  • Mom’s of underweight toddlers were 913% more likely to be accurate
  • 81.7% of mothers of overweight toddlers were satisfied with their toddler’s body size
  • On the other hand, only 30% of mothers of underweight toddlers were likely to be satisfied

Overall, there is a clear perception problem.  Almost all of the mothers of overweight toddlers in this study think their child’s weight is ok, and almost all of them were satisfied with their child’s weight.  Maybe the idea of a cute, plump baby and subsequent toddler used to be ok, but when this represents the beginning of health risks, it’s time for society to rethink this cultural norm.

So, if parents of overweight children do not think their child is overweight, there is no impetus for lifestyle changes.  If you have a toddler, preschooler or school aged child at home, take a hard look at them and try to be objective and ask yourself if your child is as healthy as he or she could be.