OMG! The Kids are All Fat!
I’m sure you’ve heard by now from one source or another about the study results released yesterday about how SNACKS ARE EVIL and DESTROYING OUR YOUTH.
Can I get a communal groan from the peanut gallery?
I’m sorry, but this is yet another study in which people (read: fat haters, of which there are an alarmingly large amount) get all hysterical and finger-pointy at us poor parents. Who are obviously doing everything wrong.
My son is as skinny as the proverbial rail. When I buy him pants, we have to notch the waistband as tightly as possible, or else he will find himself inadvertently displaying his drawers to the public.
Does he eat some unhealthy snacks?
Hell yes.
You see, I believe that it is important to give kids choices in life, and to not micromanage every single thing that passes their lips. Believe it or not, even though he has unhealthier options available to him, he often chooses healthy ones first.
Even more key? Getting him out of the house and running around.
But you know what? He is lucky because we can afford healthy foods, and we live in an area that provides ample open and park spaces in which to play.
It’s been noted by people more scholarly than myself that socioeconomic levels have a lot to do with children and their exposure to healthy food and lifestyle choices.
Why don’t people get all riled up about that?
I don’t know about that article, but there was a similar one in the NYTimes earlier this week. The gist of the article wasn’t that snacks were destroying civilization. Rather, it suggested that we are conditioning ourselves (and our kids) to eat for the sake of eating and to sate hunger. Snacking itself isn’t bad, but eating non-stop because the chips, cookies, candies, are available is definitely unhealthy. Instead, isn’t it better to teach our kids how to snack in a healthy and responsible manner?
^Sorry, I meant “NOT to sate hunger.”
Enygma, the article was about a study done about kids and snacks and how the prevalence of unhealthy snacks may be tied to the rise in childhood obesity. As in, the snacks have more calories than they should and as such, consuming them could lead to weight gain.
It absolutely is important to teach our kids how to snack “well” but that shouldn’t mean forbidding certain snacks.
I had foods forbidden to me as a child, and I made it an important goal to try to get them whenever I could, behind my mom’s back.
Not exactly healthy.
Sounds like the NYTimes used the same research to write its article. I don’t think that this is an article written by “fat haters”. Instead, it’s just pointing out that a confluence of behaviors is contributing to childhood obesity, which you must admit exists. This article isn’t blaming parents but serving more as a heads up to be more aware of what they’re feeding their kids. It’s true that kids snack more now, partly because there is a larger availability of snack foods. However, we (all of us, not just kids) have gotten used to eating when there is food available even when we’re not really hungry (meetings, trips, etc.). To brush off the study is a disservice and I’m guessing that there are some parents who will have a lightbulb go off in their heads when they realize that they’ve been enabling this behavior.
Again, I don’t believe the study isn’t denouncing snacks, per se, but the overindulging of unhealthy snacks. I agree with you that completely denying all chips and sweets will backfire so parents need to be responsible for teaching their children how to eat well and make healthy decisions and that cookies and candies are treats rather than regular snacks.
Enygma- I don’t think the study was conducted by fat haters, but if you look at the comments section of articles like that one, it is full of people who feel it’s perfectly fine to deride people based on their weight.
Not. Cool.
What do they know? Clearly, they don’t realize that unhealthy comes in lots of shapes and sizes. Those skinny models? Not all of them got that way through exercise and good diet.