The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutritional watchdog organization, reported recently that the special “children’s meals’” offered in fast-food restaurants are extremely high in calories, saturated fats, sugar and salt. This news should not be surprising; meals consisting of chicken nuggets, French fries, cookies, and chocolate milk or pizza and soda are certainly going to be nutritionally deficient and excessive in all the unhealthy substances all of us should be avoiding. The article went on to point out the rising number of obese children and blamed this in large part on the enormous number of calories these kids’ meals contain.

What the article did not say was that this would not be much of a problem if kids ate fast food very rarely, say once or twice a year. If, the rest of the time, their meals were well balanced and nutritionally complete, how much harm could these meals do?

I suspect that way back when the product managers of fast-food restaurants tried to figure some way of enticing families to eat in their franchises on a regular basis, they came up with the idea of special foods for kids. It makes sense: Chicken nuggets and French fries are more fun to eat than a grilled chicken salad, and chocolate milk or soda is tastier than low-fat milk.

However, I doubt that 25 or more years ago or whenever Happy Meals entered the American food vocabulary, one could have predicted that these food combos would become standard weekly fare for kids, not only in the restaurants but at school and also at home.

Obviously these extremely high-calorie, nutrient-poor meals are affecting the health and even the longevity of our children. But fast-food franchises are only the most obvious culprits in the deterioration of our children’s diets. There are many reasons why our children may not be getting fewer nutrients, and more calories, than they need; the causes are just not as obvious as the nearest McDonalds.

Do you know what your kids are actually eating? Think about the places where children are getting their food from a very young age: daycare centers, preschool and nursery schools, day and overnight camps, public or private schools, shopping malls, baby sitters, grandparents, school and team trips, and sleepovers. The list goes on and on. It might be interesting to figure out how many times during the week children eat a meal at home.

How do you make sure that your children are eating foods that nourish them, that are acceptable calorically for their size and activity level, and do not contain excessive amounts of substances like saturated fats that may affect their health later on?

It is not as easy or simple as it was years ago when most meals were eaten at home, at least until kids went to first grade. Even then only lunch, if that, was eaten away from the kitchen.

There are two solutions to this problem. One is to supply, for as long as possible, foods that you want your children to eat away from home. The second is to teach your children which foods are, and are not, acceptable to eat. So sending lunch and snack foods to the day care center or preschool, along with the beverages you want your child to be drinking, removes the problem of a graham crackers, mac and cheese and apple juice diet that many day care centers seem to promote.

However, getting your children to make the right food choices takes more effort than that and has to begin very early in a child’s life, preferably when the word “no” creeps into the vocabulary of the toddler.

Children can be taught at a very young age about what foods are acceptable and which are not. I have seen this in the household of neighbors whose kids obey the Jewish laws of keeping kosher. Even before they can read, they know how to look for the small symbol that signifies whether a food is kosher or not. They also know how to look for an additional letter that tells them if the food contains dairy products like milk powder solids.  (Since they cannot mix foods containing meat and milk, this is also very important.) The effect of this very early training allows them to say “no, thank you” to foods that they know they are not supposed to eat. Children brought up brought up in vegetarian households, like those of Seven Day Adventists, do the same.

When our children were young, I had just started writing about nutrition and wanted to make sure that I was practicing what I was writing in my own house. Junk foods, including soda, were banished and our kids were served only nutritious foods, even if there was a fight about their eating it. But it paid off. When our younger child went on a class trip at the beginning of middle school, he always asked for water, low-fat milk or orange juice in restaurants. He told me that his classmates teased him for doing so. But his attitude was that his class mates could fill their bodies with junk but he wasn’t going to. 

Nonetheless, raising children in a nutritionally-healthy environment has its costs. Some nutritionally healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, chicken, fish, whole grain cereals , yogurt and cottage cheese may appear more expensive than a meal of chicken nuggets and French fries.  But it turns out that preparing foods at home and making meals that stretch like soups, stews, meat loaf, pasta or rice and chicken and vegetables is less expensive for a family than individual servings of happy meals or cheeseburger combos.   After all what you pay for in any restaurant is more than the food: you are paying for labor, electricity, rent, and the cost of those cardboard boxes and packets of ketchup. 

But for some the bigger cost is that older members of the family also have to follow the rules for making healthy food choices. You can’t tell your kids to eat their broccoli while you are munching on a pepperoni pizza. It also takes time to pack lunches and snacks, shop for food and prepare meals. Picking up take-out or dropping in at the local fast-food franchise may seem tempting after a long week of juggling work, family, and household obligations. 

Is it worth doing? Is there any choice? We know that more and more children are suffering from obesity and that their childhood diets may cause adult problems like diabetes, heart disease, and even decreased longevity. So save the Happy Meals or pizzas for very special occasions. If your children get used to eating well, they may want to go out for sushi instead.

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