There Are Bad Foods and Bad Kids Too

This "wonderful child" isn't anyone I know

I know there are some people who think all children are wonderful. After nine-plus years of parenting and plenty of play dates I know this is not true. There was one child who expressed his disappointment at having to leave our house by biting my babysitter when she tried to comfort him. There were others who not only played “army” but concocted battle scenarios with such detail I know I will be reading about them one day and not in a good way. All children “have their moments” but some are just not good.

There’s a food equivalent of all “all children are wonderful” and this is a belief system that holds there are no bad foods. I’ve questioned this one for a while but felt validated to read a recent Jane Brody article. The article focuses on the habits of 120,877 health professionals followed for 12 to 20 years. Periodically the subjects answered in depth questions about their eating, exercise, sleep, alcohol and television habits. Participants weren’t obese at the study’s start but steadily gained an average of 16.8 pounds in 20 years. One of the lead researchers, Dr Mozaffarian a cardiologist and epidemiologist had this to say about the results:

“There are good foods and bad foods, and the advice should be to eat the good foods more and the bad foods less. The notion that it’s O.K. to eat everything in moderation is just an excuse to eat whatever you want.”             

In this study foods that contributed to greatest weight gain were French Fries, potato chips, sugar-sweetened drinks, red meat, processed meat, other forms of potatoes, sweets and desserts and refined grains.  My bad food list, not solely concerned with weight, would include artificial sweeteners and anything artificially sweetened (diet soda topping this list), bagels, bottled salad dressings, foods using dyes, TVP and products using processed soy and factory farmed meat.

Many people have items on my list and the items from the study’s findings they eat. Lest people accuse me of advocating dietary perfection, I will confess that I adore a crispy French fry and really enjoy chocolate (and not only the dark kind). Having said this, when I consume these foods I am aware they are a deviation from my healthy diet and know they are bad (if the criteria has to do with health) foods. We need to move away from the Pollyannaish food thinking.

The retort to any acknowledgement that all foods don’t fit is that deprivation leads to disordered eating and eating disorders. With all due respect to eating disorders and the struggle ED individuals endure, we are not a deprived nation.  Telling people they can have fries and chips and hot dogs and soda “in moderation” is akin to telling the “wonderful” boy above he can bite every so often.

As important as it is to acknowledge that certain foods lead to weight gain thereby affecting our health, that isn’t the only message. When I meet with a new client I first focus on what needs to be added to their diets. “Eat more fruits and vegetables” suffers from vagueness.  Dietary advice needs to encourage people to snack on sliced watermelon in the summer, roast Brussels sprouts in the winter and bake some French fries. It’s not dietary doom and deprivation but honesty and inspiration that’s needed.  We cannot wait for people to be ill or obese to embrace significant behavioral changes, the writing is on the wall we just have to read it.

Do you agree or disagree there are bad foods? If you agree, what foods would you add to the unhealthy list? What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to children’s behavior? Or do you think all children are wonderful?
The winner of our Travel Snack Bundle is Erin from The Healthy Apron, thank you to everyone for entering and for spreading the word about our new store.

Onion Ring Excuses

For some reason, the posts where I detail my dietary digressions or explain the embarrassing seem to stimulate the most feedback. Fast Food Slaytons and Potty Talk are 2 of these posts. In fact, after reading Potty Talk, a friend at a cocktail party said to me “I think of you every day you know” wink wink. And so something happened Monday night that I could easily overlook but after writing about Maca and green juices I feel I have to paint a full picture and get off my “healthy horse”.
I don’t write much about my family here and definitely not too much about my mother. When I talk about what I do for a living , my mother is still confused that people pay to talk about their food and weight loss. So while she doesn’t come up, you’ll need a little background information to set the scene here. My mother and I have always been close. She’s always been solid and straddled that line between being relaxed (no bedtimes or curfews growing up) and still parental (nobody gives better advice). Last June, my mother became a widow as my dad passed away after a long illness. We worried about my mother tremendously. We were of course grieving too but had our families to turn to. My mother was alone…but not for long.

In the fall my mother met someone at a photography class she enrolled in. Watching a parent date was new territory but we welcomed it and joked about it, that is, until it got serious. Suddenly my mother was cancelling plans with grandchildren, constantly checking her phone and texting her new beau. Roles radically reversed as I held my ears from TMI and declarations of love. As my sister Diana put it “nobody wants to hear about 71 year old sex!” While I joke, this has been difficult and my mom and I have drifted. We communicate via email and through my nanny most of the time. Monday night, at work, I got a call from my nanny that my mother was over. She was taking my boys out to dinner and sleeping over (cocktail please). After doing as much paperwork as I could justify, I left the office at 8pm.

I walked in to the apartment. My mother sat in the living room. My 6 year old was playing piano for her and she had a huge grin on her face. She told me they had been at Five Napkin Burger, that the boys were so easy, they ate so well and are so smart and handsome and loving and…anything else she could in an effort to butter me up. I was more in the mood to be bitter than buttered and excused myself to cook dinner in the kitchen. “Oh and Weston didn’t finish his onion rings so I brought them home, they’re on the counter.”

I feel we all have our food weaknesses. You can dangle a doughnut in front of my lips and I’m not tempted. I don’t have the urge to taste the cake at birthdays and if I never have a gummy anything for the rest of my life, I’ll survive. I like fried foods. I said it. My name is Lauren, I’m a nutritionist and I like, OK LOVE, fried foods. I like fried calamari and French fries, fried artichokes and fried clams. My son Myles covers his French Fries because though I may order the salad, I tend to sneak a few fries. I even have a no fries for July rule in place because fries, even 3, and bathing suits don’t go well together.

Back to Monday, I headed into the kitchen to make my shrimp stir fry and the cardboard box of onion rings said “hello Lauren.” I looked at the box and opened it. Two gargantuan onion rings sat overlapping, like Olympic rings. I didn’t think I should close the box and make my dinner, I didn’t think to cut off a small piece or any of the other mindful, nutritionisty things I normally would have. I didn’t think at all. I picked up ring #1 and ate it. I wasn’t thinking but if I was I would have noted that it was cold, semi-hard and not that tasty. After all, the woman who taught me “if it’s not delicious don’t eat it” was sitting on my couch probably sexting her boyfriend. I ate all of ring #1 while carefully measuring a tablespoon of expeller pressed canola oil for the stir fry. And as my shrimp sizzled, I returned to the kitchen island and the box. It occurred to me that I didn’t really want the other ring, I somehow remembered the first one not being all that great and with that picked up ring #2 and ate it anyway. So they were gone and not worth it and consumed in semi-violation of my no fry in July rule.

I could say my onion ring eating was because I was hungry and it was 8:30pm, I could say it was because they were sitting on my counter talking to me, I could do what I’ve never had reason to do and blame my mother but I will not make any onion ring excuses. I ate them and still had my mother in my living room. And so I did, what I tell clients to do (after having done exactly the opposite) and made the next meal on track. I enjoyed the shrimp stir fry and tucked my mother into the bottom bunk bed and went to sleep.
Do you like fried foods, what’s your food vice? Have you ever emotionally eaten and been completely aware of it? Do the 2 rings violate my no fry in July rule? Are your parents dating?