Anyone else hyper aware of ummmm... I guess you would call it bad food messages especially as relates to kids?

There was a DaysInn ad on this morning and they are talking about the "complimentary breakfasts" and this girl...9 or 10 maybe "I had 5 donuts, it was so good."

Gut reaction:

Excuse me? FIVE? Who lets their kid eat 5 donuts even on vacation? 1200 calories of pure sugar and fat. Ick. This does not make me want to stay there.

Oh yeah, I always laugh at food commercials for places like Burger King and Little Caesar's. The pictured food always looks SO good, when the actual food looks... well, like it was slapped together in .3 seconds!

Probably the couple in church this morning who's girl, of about 6 or 7, weighed easily all of 200 pounds.

That just makes me sad. I mean, I take responsibility for my own weight now, but to start out at that age, what a way to handicap your child.

At my school, we have a handful of students so obese they cannot walk up one flight of stairs without huffing, puffing and getting red in the face. It is sad.

that breaks my heart....

It is such a fine line when it comes to feeding kids because of the media. I believe in moderation but it is hard when my kids see their friends or cousins eating crappy processed foods and they know I don't allow it. It makes me mad because then I feel like the bad parent or a meanie. My daughter is always asking me for lunchables for her school lunch. There is no way I would ever buy those. I make my own healthier version for her but it is not the same in her eyes. I do allow my kids to have donut holes on Sunday after church and they eat healthy foods but there is always something that they beg me for that makes me cringe because how processed it is. I wish they would have ads of kids eating healthy foods!!!!

Hi

Ennay, I know this is the wrong place, and -totally- off topic, but is that little bubba in your Avatar the same teeny tiny bubba that used to be there?

Kylie

Rose, you are giving her a gift that will last far beyond grade school! My father put a lot of time and effort into making sure I had wholesome, real food in my lunches. And more than being the "fat kid" eating junk food for lunch, I was teased for being the "fat kid" eating the healthy stuff! But more than having the lunch that was different than everyone else's, I am SO grateful that my dad cared enough to instill healthy habits in me (even if I wasn't old enough to appreciate it... I do now!) I didn't have "kid" food growing up, but real food and I only benefit now.

And I would be willing to bet that the kids who teased me for having the "weird" bread and all those vegetables are battling their weight now and I am not....

EDIT: And it must be a Buffalo thing... my dad grew up there...

Totally.

At the school gym where my daughter goes to cheerleading there is a food pyramid poster that talks about healthy grains. On the poster are pictures of Tony the Tiger and the frog cereal cartoon. Gee....

Walk down any cereal aisle and the crap sugar stuff is at the eye level of your average four-year-old. The healthier stuff? On the top shelf.

So funny that we're all like this now..

Before I started on my diet, I always tried to watch what my kids take in.. It's more of a concern for my daughter who has a tendency to over indulge if we don't cut her off..

But now that my wife and I are dieting together, the kids eat the same stuff we do.. Now they're both eating more fruit and veg, fewer junky things.. We haven't had a bag of chips in the house in months...

We still let them have treats, but the eating out is kept to a minimum as well..

We went to a baseball game yesterday and a family sitting down the row from us had several VERY obese members, to the point where I was wondering how they fit into the seats.. The mom and dad were overweight but not overly so.. three of the kids, all in what seemed to be their 20's were knocking back nachos, funnel cakes, hamburgers, beer and sodas...

The youngest child, a girl probably in her late teens was not what I'd call obese, but was somewhat overweight and I could see that she was headed in that direction.. I felt really bad for her..

I guess that sounds hypocritical, but I gotta say that seeing them eat was actually making me somewhat ill... I guess what really hit me was that I used to share some of those tendancies.. I was never as big as these kids, but had I not started a diet last year, it probably wouldn't have been long...

Jen - my Mom was like that, I think that is why it's such a hard line for me because my Mom's idea of a snack was plain yogurt and fruit or trail mix. We never had any processed foods. I remember the first time I had Kraft mac and cheese, I was a sophmore in college - boy, did I get teased. I want my kids to experience childhood but not to the extent of having health problems.

Oh, the cereal - don't get me started My kids will eat good cereal until they see their cousins eating sugar cereals then it's all I hear about. I'm sorry but 10 grams of sugar in the morning is still too much for me.

thanks for letting me rant!

I can certainly appreciate how difficult it can be to fight the time old cereal battle - My poor mother took a lot of heat for her refusal to venture to that "lower shelf", but it pays off- I promise. I mean, I'm not a parent- just a grateful kid. It was just hard for me back then because I reasoned not being able to have the fun food my friends did because I was overweight and that wasn't necessarily the case. My dad does the same exact thing with my 10 year old brother as he did with me and the kid is lanky as can be.

Jen - I'm totally with you. I never had processed stuff but I was most definitely the fat kid. I've always just eaten too much of the "healthy" stuff. My mom would buy me candy sometimes on special occassions but it wasn't very frequent. She never bought anything but diet sodas. I never had any of the standard kids cereals. I had corn flakes and all bran as a child.

I ate healthy as a kid too, my first trip to McD's was highschool

OK, yesterdays hyper awareness is Nabisco's slogan on a display of cookies - something about "a way to show love"

Yes ...sniff sniff...he is getting sooooo big.