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In honor of National Nutrition Month, let me say, Nutrition, it's time you started riding in the backseat because you're a terrible driver. I know you mean well, but every time you show up, we end up going off the road.
Forgive me for one more moment of anthropomorphizing.
Nutrition, I know you're trying to steer us towards healthier eating, but in reality, you just make the "bad" stuff more appealing. And then we feel guilty. It's not your fault. It's just that you've made us think that eating is kind of like medicine. You don't do this directly, but everyone who loves you keeps reminding us to eat the right amount of vitamins and such. Nutrition, you drive our love of sweets underground. And then we feel guilty.
Ok, enough of that. Raise your hand if you have a guilty pleasure. Good, I see that's everyone!
Now ask yourself, Where did that guilty pleasure come from? How'd you get it? I mean, you didn't always have a guilty pleasure. Back in the beginning, you just had pleasure. So, where'd the guilt come from? If you don't want to pass the same food guilt onto your kids, it's worth taking the time to pick this thing apart.
In the American culture, the guilt comes from the combination of our obsession with nutrition and our love/hate relationship with sweets. And we pass this duality on to our children.
This should resonate. Everywhere you look there's talk of health and healthy food. At the same time, we're obsessed with ooey-gooey treats. Just go online. People are practically drooling over cakes, cookies...
Hmmm. On one hand we have a sterile, medical, health-based discussion about healthy eating. On the other hand, there's the emotional, passionate, excitement of sweets.
But then, because we love sweets so much, and because we know we ought not to, we feel guilty when we indulge. Even the word indulge is telling. The result is guilty pleasure.
We teach kids food guilt when we overly control the crap. It's gotta be good, kids reason, if they can't be trusted around it, and if they have to do penance (veggie-eating) before they can have some.
Think about how we glorify Halloween. Get as much candy as you can! And then we demonize it. Ugh, we're going to have to throw the excess out! We do the same thing at birthday parties, Christmas, and regular-old Tuesday afternoons.
I'm not arguing that we should let kids have a free-for-all around sweets and treats. I am saying that it's time to think about what we're teaching children about food and eating. It's time to give habits a turn in the driver's seat.
The Harvard School of Public Health estimates that if current trends in child obesity continue, more than 57% of today's children will have obesity at age 35.
One thing driving obesity is the belief that healthy foods taste bad and junky foods taste good.
- Junk-food eating is driven underground.
- People eat the healthy food and the junk food, consuming too many calories.
- Meals become the nutrition zone and snacks are a free-for-all, dominated by sweets and treats.
So here's a solution. Give healthy food a fighting chance by making it pleasurable. To do this, we'll have to start preparing healthy food in a tasty way. Forget the steaming. Seasoned vegetables taste better to kids, research (not surprisingly) shows.
When healthy food is seen as pleasurable it will be able to compete more effectively with junk food. Then, let's teach our kids that pleasure is, well, pleasurable. There is no reason to feel guilty.
This strategy not only eliminates much of our parent/child control struggle, but it also protects kids from the guilt while preserving their pleasure. Don't you wish you felt less guilt and simply enjoyed the pleasure? I know I do.
~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~
A version of this post appeared earlier on my website, Itsnotaboutnutrition.com.
