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Emotional Hunger: Prevent and Stop Emotional Eating

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Emotional Hunger: Prevent and Stop Emotional Eating

Earlier this week, I posted about emotional hunger. Emotional hunger is when we feel hungry because of our emotions, not because we physically need to eat.  This behavior shows up even in very young toddlers. What can we as parents do to prevent it from developing, intervene when it strikes, and prevent it from happening once it has developed?  Below are some of my top ways to deal with emotional hunger in kids.

How Parents Can Stop Emotional Eating from Developing

As parents, we cannot control our kids.  They are independent human beings with their own minds, wills, and desires.  However, we do have an enormous amount of influence on them, much of which they (and us) are not even aware of.   Kids’ relationships with food are often strongly influenced by our behaviors as parents.

One thing that has been observed repeatedly in many studies is that parents who use food to soothe their young children when they are experiencing negative emotions will raise children who experience significantly more emotional eating.*  Let me put this another way: If you use food to soothe your unhappy child, you are teaching your child to eat when they are unhappy.

As a parent, I know how distressing it is to see your child unhappy.  Not only do you not like seeing your precious baby upset, but it can also be embarrassing, frustrating, or annoying to you as a parent.  Trust me, even my little angels have thrown tantrums in the grocery store or dissolved into tears because they want something (usually a trip on an airplane, helicopter, boat, or train) that I just cannot possibly provide them with.

I have seen on so many occasions that parents will break down under such circumstances and distract their child with food.  Heck, even I have done it on occasion (but with dried fruit, not chocolate, as the proffered treat).  I think all parents do this every once in a while.  But when this method of dealing with unhappy children becomes the norm rather than a once off rarity, you are teaching your child to soothe with food.  You are educating your child that if they are unhappy, eating will make them feel better.  And as a result, they are more likely to become obese.

How to Deal With Emotional Hunger

Helping your child recognize emotional hunger is only half of the battle.  Once they understand that their hunger is emotionally motivated rather than physically driven, what should they do?  The first thing you must make clear to kids is that the food is not going to solve their problems.  Ultimately, it is not going to improve their emotional situation.

Tell them to wait

That said, do not forbid kids to eat when their emotions are in turmoil.  Children, like adults, always want what they cannot have.  You certainly cannot expect a child to have more self-control than an adult, and few adults can withstand emotional cravings.  Instead, suggest to your child that if they are in an unhappy mood and that is making them want to eat, that they defer it for five minutes.  Children are often mercurial and in five minutes their emotional state could change completely.  Alternatively, they may find another, more constructive, way of self-soothing, or they might simply forget that they wanted to eat.  Because emotional hunger is not physical, it is not enduring in the same way physical hunger is.

Give kids a toolkit

Another way to break the emotional eating habit is to give kids a set of tools to work with.  Kids have to learn how to self-soothe and need to be taught how to appropriately handle emotions.  Some emotions are uncomfortable and we do not like them.  Sadness, anxiety, or loneliness are not good feelings, but they are instructive.  They help teach us what we need and also help us learn to avoid potentially dangerous or counterproductive situations.  Explaining to kids the positive side of bad emotions can be a good way to start.  Then they can view uncomfortable emotions as their friends rather than enemies to be avoided or ignored at all costs.

Sadness: Help children come up with a list of activities that make them happy.  This could be anything from kicking a ball to finger painting to reading a book.  Certain activities like physical activity or singing actually release endorphins that make kids physically feel happy – and they’re healthy, too.

Loneliness: Most children experience loneliness at some point.  Maybe they’re alone in their room while mom takes a nap, or perhaps they just don’t have any friends who can come over to play.  Kids can also feel lonely in a crowd, especially if they are in a group of which they are not a part (such as a new school), or if they are missing a specific person (like a special friend or grandparent).  Suggest that kids who are lonely call a good friend or trusted adult, play with a pet, or connect with someone they care about by looking at photos or writing a letter/drawing a picture to send that person.

Anxiety: Even kids have things they worry about.  Whether it is schoolwork they don’t feel good at or a friend they’ve bickered with, kids have their own “kid-sized” set of concerns.  Never ever downplay your child’s cares!!! Each of us has our own set of problems that are important to us, regardless of anything else that may be going on in the world.  Do not invalidate your child’s worries.  It is amazing how soothing it can be for a worried child when a parent validates their concerns.  Ask what is bothering your child, listen to your their answer, and repeat it back, along with words of understanding.  (E.g., “I hear that you are nervous because you have a big math test tomorrow.  I know how that feels – it can be pretty scary.”) Sometimes kids are anxious without knowing why or you are not around to talk it through with them.  In those cases, encourage your kids to burn off nervous energy by doing something physical, such as dancing to a favorite song or running a few laps around the playground or schoolyard.

Tiredness: Feeling tired, exhausted, or run down can be the result of too little sleep, broken sleep, or too much activity or stimulation.  Like adults, when kids get tired they can also become cranky and might be tempted to reach for their favorite junk foods.  Tired kids should be encouraged to rest as much as the situation allows.  If they are home and it’s not too early they can simply go to bed a bit earlier than usual.  If it is too early for them to go to sleep, they can lie in the bed or on the couch and “veg out” by reading a book or watching a show (reading a book is better, though, as screens stimulate the brain and can make it harder to get a good night’s sleep).  To calm cravings for food, give kids a warm drink, such as a warm cup of milk (we prefer homemade rice milk). If you want to avoid extra calories, offer kids a warm cup of herbal infusion (some herbs and flowers can even be calming and aid in peaceful sleep – I use linden flower, which has a soft and neutral flavor).  Don’t want to give kids drinks before bed?  Use water in a different way: Give your kids a soothing bubble bath.

Boredom: Kids can get bored no matter how many toys you buy them.  To avoid boredom, try rotating toys.  We keep each set of similar toys in a box and no more than one or two boxes are out at any time.  If our kids get bored, they don’t turn to food – instead, they trade in an existing box for a new box full of toys they haven’t recently played with.  Try also making a list with your kids of projects, games, or activities they’d like to try some time when they are bored.  There are an endless amount of kids activity and craft idea books out there to help you come up with ideas.  Photocopy or scrapbook pages with activity or craft ideas into a “boredom book” your child can pull out when they get bored, rather than reaching for snacks.

Hopefully with a toolkit like this in hand, you will find it easier to determine both what your child’s emotional hunger triggers are and what you can do to fix them – without food.

Preventing and Countering Emotional Hunger

One of the best ways to deal with emotional hunger is to prevent it from arising.  As discussed above, as parents we can do certain things that discourage emotional eating habits from developing, but what do we do if our kids already show signs of emotional eating?  And what do we do if they develop the habit regardless of the way we raised them?  Everyone knows that no matter how good a parent you are, you can do everything right and still your child might do something different! So how can we help our kids to counter emotional hunger in the first place?

The key to stopping emotional hunger from arising in our kids is to set them up for success.  There are four aspects of your child’s daily routine that can go a long way to preventing emotional hunger from developing:

  1. Sleep.  Ensure your child gets enough sleep every night.  Tiredness and lack of sufficient sleep make it difficult for kids to process their emotions.  I know what it is like to have bedtime struggles, so the only advice I have is to set up a bedtime routine that gets your kids to sleep with enough hours left before school for them to get the rest they need.
  2. Exercise.  Too many kids today spend a lot of their day either cooped up at school desks or in front of screens – or both.  Physical activity and movement are scientifically proven to boost mood, so making physical activities and sports a regular part of your child’s routine will also help improve their overall mood.
  3. Connection.  Kids need to connect with others.  Social interaction not only teaches good social skills but it also improves kids’ “emotional quotient” by teaching them how to handle their own (and others’) moods. Close bonds and positive relationships also give a boost to kids’ sense of wellbeing and self esteem.
  4. Relaxation.  These days there is an enormous amount of pressure to fill kids’ every waking moment with activities and stimulation.  I know some kids who are on the go from 7 AM to 10 PM, every day.  This is an overwhelming schedule even for an adult!  Parents do this thinking they are doing the right thing for their kids, by entertaining them without pause.  But all that stimulation can produce stress and kids need a time out sometimes to cool down and relax.  Institute some sort of quiet time in your child’s day.  It may be a nap or it could simply be a peaceful half hour in their day.  Older children can read a book or listen to a book on tape.  If you have the time, reading a book to the family is a great quiet-time bonding opportunity all can enjoy.

Conclusion

Emotional hunger can plague anyone, from very young toddlers through to the elderly.  Eating just because we want to assuage our emotions can lead to overeating, unhealthy eating, and weight gain.  Unfortunately, kids can establish these habits and patterns very young.  Using the tips and advice in this post can help you learn what to do: A) as a parent, in order to prevent habits from developing; B) to help your child avoid eating for emotional reasons; and C) to prevent emotional hunger from arising by changing your child’s daily routines.  With these tips in hand, we can start to say goodbye to emotional hunger!

*Farrow C, Haycraft E, Blissett J. Teaching our children when to eat: how parental feeding practices inform the development of emotional eating—a longitudinal experimental design Am J Clin Nutr May 2015 vol. 101 no. 5 908-913

Emotional Hunger: What Is It?

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Emotional Hunger: What Is It?

Earlier this week, I posted about using mindfulness as a tool to teach kids how to take control of their eating habits.  One of the most critical things kids (and all of us) can learn from being more mindful when we eat is to be aware of our hunger.  Some hunger comes because our bodies need fuel, but not all of it.  Some hunger is instead emotional hunger.

What is Emotional Hunger?

Emotional hunger is the hunger we feel when we are experiencing a certain mood or situation.  The emotional triggers are different for each person.  I know a lot of people who eat nonstop when they are stressed.  I, on the other hand, cannot even think about food when I’m stressed.  But stress and anxiety are not the only triggers that make people suddenly want to eat.  Some people eat when they’re happy or when they’re sad.  Some people eat when they’re in a relaxed mood, others when they are under pressure.

Often we eat simply because we are reminded of a food.  No matter what our mood is, we start to salivate when we walk past a chocolate or pizza shop.  Just smelling food can make our bodies respond as if we are about to eat.  Not only smells, but memories or reminders can also spur us to eat.  Thinking fondly of a family member who has just called can bring to mind memories about shared meals.  Remembering with pride a certain achievement can also recall the foods we used to celebrate it.

Being in a situation similar to one we’ve experienced many times can also trigger us to want certain foods.  I know a lot of people who insist on having chicken soup the moment they come down with a cold, whether they are hungry or not.  When my stomach is upset, I reach for dry crackers and ginger ale, even if I really don’t want to consume anything.

All of these moods and memories that spark our interest in eating are forms of emotional hunger.  We are hungry not because we need to eat but because something else internal to our mind has made us think we need to eat.  Emotional hunger is hunger driven by our emotions and our psychological needs rather than our physical needs.

Kids Also Experience Emotional Hunger

As adults, we may be tempted to think of emotional hunger as an adult experience.  Kids, who surely have less emotional baggage to carry around, should not be so susceptible, right? Right? Wrong.  In fact, there is an entire emotional eating scale adapted specifically for children and adolescents!*

Emotional Hunger Begins Young

It makes perfect sense that even very young children should associate food with soothing emotions.  Beginning at birth, babies are offered food as a soothing mechanism and feeding times are often an opportunity for intense parent-baby bonding.  Food is immediately associated with being a way to improve mood and overall feeling.  Having had two babies of my own, I can freely admit to many times having offered the breast to my babies to stop them from crying and to soothe their distress – even when I knew they weren’t hungry.

Actively eating as a result of emotional hunger can be observed in children as young as 2 years old.**  It has also been extensively tested in preschool children*** as well as in adolescents.****  There is no doubt that children use food to stimulate or still their emotional states just as adults do.

The Dangers of Emotional Eating and Emotional Hunger

The main danger of emotional eating and emotional hunger in children is that it is clearly associated with obesity.  Emotional eating leads to a greater body mass index (BMI) and a less healthy diet, which results in less healthy kids.***  If we want to inspire healthy kids, we need to deal with emotional hunger in a constructive way.

How to Identify Emotional Hunger

If your child(ren) is/are already displaying emotional eating habits, it is time to teach them how to identify emotional hunger and to separate it from physical hunger.  Mindfulness techniques can really help.  Mindfulness encourages children to assess their emotional state prior to eating.  However, there are some key identifiers that make it easier for a child to answer whether they are experiencing emotional or physical hunger. Use these lists as your guide, from Doris Wild Helmering and Dianne Hales Think Thin, Be Thin (New York: Broadway Books, 2004): 77 and Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Australia: Hay House, 2010): 153.

Physical Hunger

  • Builds gradually
  • Strikes below the neck (e.g., growling stomach)
  • Occurs several hours after a meal
  • Goes away when full
  • Eating leads to feeling of satisfaction

Emotional Hunger

  • Develops suddenly
  • Above the neck (e.g., a “taste” for ice cream)
  • Unrelated to time
  • Persists despite fullness
  • Eating leads to guilt and shame

Conclusion

Emotional hunger can plague anyone, from very young toddlers through to the elderly.  Eating just because we want to assuage our emotions can lead to overeating, unhealthy eating, and weight gain.  Unfortunately, kids can establish these habits and patterns very young.  Stay tuned for my next post: I will tell you all about how to prevent and counter emotional hunger.

*Tanofsky-Kraff, M., Theim, K. R., Yanovski, S. Z., Bassett, A. M., Burns, N. P., Ranzenhofer, L. M., Glasofer, D. R. and Yanovski, J. A. (2007), Validation of the emotional eating scale adapted for use in children and adolescents (EES-C). Int. J. Eat. Disord., 40: 232–240. doi: 10.1002/eat.20362

**Farrow C, Blissett J, Stability and continuity of parentally reported feeding practices and child eating behaviours from 2-5 years of age. Appetite 2012;58:151–6.

***Blissett J, Haycraft E, Farrow C. Inducing preschool children’s emotional eating: relations with parental feeding practices. Am J Clin Nutr 2010;92:359–65.

****Braet C, Van Strien T. Assessment of emotional, externally induced and restrained eating behaviour in nine to twelve-year-old obese and non-obese children. Behav Res Ther 1997;35:863–73.

Mindfulness: Using Awareness to Eat Healthy

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Mindfulness: Using Awareness to Eat Healthy

It seems like buzzwords like mindfulness, meditation, and awareness are becoming more commonly accepted.  When I was younger, these concepts raised images of gurus, hippies, and quacks.  Today, the health benefits of meditation are undisputed, and mindfulness and living in the present are becoming lifestyles in their own right.  This made me wonder: Could mindfulness be used to teach our kids to eat more healthfully?

Mindless Eating

A lot of the food we eat, we eat mindlessly.  I am guilty party numero uno in this regard: I see mealtimes as my “time out” from the stress of being a full-time wife and mother, so whenever I can snatch a moment to sit at the table and eat, I grab a good book and read.  Of course there are many manifestations of this: some people eat while they watch television, some while they read, and even some while they’re driving.  Our kids are no exception.  If they’re not eating in front of the boob tube, they’re likely to be eating on the go or while horsing around with their friends.  Even in the hour-long child minding my kids attend while I go to the gym, the carers put the TV on while the kids eat their snacks.

The problem with eating mindlessly is that we don’t tend to think about what we are eating, or how much.  On the one hand this is a really bad thing because it often leads us to eat too much of the wrong foods.  We end up eating an extra dozen handfuls of popcorn, an extra bread roll, or an extra helping of pasta.  On the other hand, we can turn this to our advantage.  If our kids are eating mindlessly, they will end up eating more healthy stuff, like salad, veggies, and fresh fruit.  It is up to us as their parents to replace the cookie jar with a bowl of fresh fruit and to relegate the serving bowl of pasta to the sideboard while a big bowl of salad takes pride of place on the table.

Using mindless eating as a trick to get kids to eat more healthfully only works when our children are eating at home.  But as kids grow up, head off to school, and take on more and more activities, the number of opportunities we have to trick them into eating healthfully decreases.  This is when we need to educate our kids in the skills they need to make good eating decisions.

Applying Mindfulness to Eating

Mindfulness goes beyond simply living in the moment.  When it comes to eating, it is actually all-encompassing.  Often, we taste the first and last few bites of a meal, but the intervening majority of flavor is lost on us.  We frequently eat and cannot remember how much we consumed.  We habitually underestimate how much and how many we have eaten.  We don’t even know if we are hungry or full.  We don’t pay attention.  And the majority of us overeat as a result.  And that includes our kids.

By applying a mindfulness approach, we bring our focus back fully onto our food.  We pay attention to all those details, including:

  • How fast or slow am I eating?
  • How long does it take me to eat this meal/snack?
  • What is the texture of the food?
  • How does the food taste?
  • How does eating this food make me feel?
  • What memories, feelings, or emotions do I associate with this food?
  • Am I hungry, not hungry, or full?
  • Do I want to take each bite?
  • What will be the consequences of eating this food?

Teaching Your Kids Mindful Eating

Getting kids to slow down and savor their food may seem a daunting task, but it is a skill that can be taught.  Try this simple exercise with your kids and repeat it as frequently as possible until the act of being mindful and aware becomes familiar and a matter of course.

Have your child take a few raisins, some sunflower seeds, a cracker, a stick of celery, or another small snack the first time you try this, but you can also try this at the dinner table as a family.  Begin by asking your child to describe how they are feeling.  Are they hungry or full? Heavy or light? Relaxed or anxious?  What is their mood, and does it affect their desire to eat?  What do they think will be the consequences of their eating this snack?  (Will it give them energy, make them gain weight, or make them feel more or less hungry?)  Have your child pick up the food in his/her hand.  Ask them to describe it in intimate detail.  Is it heavy or light?  Is it wrinkled or smooth?  How does it feel sitting on their skin? Comfortable or uncomfortable?  What color is it?  What texture?  Have your child bring the food up to their nose and inhale.  What does it smell like?  Is the smell strong or weak?  Does this smell remind them of any thing, person, or experience?  Have them place the snack in their mouth or take a bite of it.  Before they chew have them assess how it feels in their mouth.  Is it dry or wet? Warm or cold? Does the texture feel different on their tongue than it did in their hand?  Does the food have a taste even before they begin to chew?  Does it feel heavy on their tongue or light?  Is it melting or solid?  Ask them to chew but not yet swallow.  What does the food taste like?  Is it sweet, sour, salty, bitter, or umami?  Does it remind them of anything?  Does it affect their emotions at all?  What is the texture of the food?  Is it chewy or crunchy? Hard or soft?  How does the texture change the longer they chew it?  How does the flavor change?  Tell your child to swallow.  As they do so, have them focus on the feeling of the food sliding down their throat.  Have them imagine it sliding down into their stomach.  Now ask them how they feel.  Do they feel more or less hungry?  How is their emotional state?  Do they feel satisfied? Guilty?  Repeat with the remaining snack.

The Results of Mindfulness

Mindfulness and awareness may or may not motivate your child to make more healthy food choices away from home.  They still might not choose to order salad when all their friends order greasy pizza.  But mindfulness can help them be more aware of their bodies and their emotions as they eat.  By nurturing mindfulness related to eating, you will make it impossible for them to continue to eat mindlessly.  Whether they want to or not, they will suddenly find themselves “zoning in” when eating instead of “zoning out.”  Unwittingly, they will begin to be aware of how much they are eating, how fast they are eating, and how they feel about the food they are eating.  It will make them stop and think twice before heading to the snack machines – asking themselves if they are really hungry right now.

Mindful eating can really help kids to make better food choices.  It can also help them to lose weight or to stay at a healthy weight.  It will also help them confront their emotions surrounding food.  If eating certain foods makes them feel sluggish or guilty, their awareness of this can help them choose to avoid those foods in the future.

Another benefit of mindful eating is that it gives kids a sense of consequences.  The judgment center of kids’ brains doesn’t fully develop until their early 20’s.  But by making consequences very clear and by teaching kids to consider the consequences of their eating habits, we introduce them to a useful skill that can be applied across the board in their lives.

Good for Relationships

Teaching kids the skills of mindfulness when eating can also be good for your relationship with them.  In effect, teaching mindfulness is a form of granting stewardship.  Instead of micromanaging and trying to control all of your child’s eating habits, you are teaching them the skills they need to make good food choices.  Handing over the control to your kids, at least when they are out of the house, gives them a sense of power and control.

Power and control are essential for any human being.  None of us likes the feeling of being powerless, and that includes even very young children.  Anyone who has had a baby spit their food or formula out at them or refuse a particular type of food has run into this head on.  If we want to inspire healthy kids, we cannot just focus on the last two words.  Of course we want healthy kids, but we also want inspired kids!

Mindfulness is one tool of many that we as parents can deploy to teach our kids to make good food choices.  By teaching them this skill, we can also give them the gift of being able to say to them that we trust them to make good decisions on their own.  Being granted power, control, and stewardship over their own eating habits can be hugely empowering for kids of all ages.  This does not mean they are without guidance!  This means we provide them the guidance, the help, and the aid they need to learn how to make good decisions without wresting the control away from them.

Happy Mindful Eating!

I hope this tutorial on teaching mindful eating proves helpful.  In fact, it is the kind of timeless wisdom we can all benefit from, no matter what our age.  Mindfulness can stop us from reaching into the office candy dish when we don’t really want another chocolate, and it can stop us from going back for seconds when we are no longer hungry.  But unlike conventional diets, mindfulness does not deprive anyone of the foods they want.  It simply makes us more alert to our behaviors and empowers us to make good decisions.  For an adult, this can be hugely liberating and for a child it is even more inspirational and empowering.

For anyone interested in using mindfulness and emotional awareness as the keys to resolving weight or food issues, I strongly encourage you to contact my good friend and personal inspiration, Kylie Ryan.  And no, she didn’t pay me to say that.  I just think she’s awesome and good at what she does, and I know you will, too.

Beyond Carnism by Melanie Joy

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Beyond Carnism by Melanie Joy

Carnism TEDx Talk by Melanie Joy

On this blog, I generally focus on health and the science around health and diet for kids.  I believe we can change the world by changing the foods we feed our kids.  Not only can we ensure that the next generation faces lifelong good health, but in doing so we can also help them grow up to face the world with joy.  Part of the joy that comes from eating a healthy diet comes from the attendant good values that come with it.  So it is that I wanted to share with you all this TEDx talk by Melanie Joy.

Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M. is a Harvard-educated psychologist, professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a celebrated speaker, and the author of the award-winning book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Melanie is the eighth recipient of the Institute of Jainology’s Ahimsa Award, which was previously awarded to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Her work has been featured by numerous national and international media outlets, including the BBC, Germany’s ARD, ABC Australia, the New York Times, and Spiegel Online. Melanie has given her acclaimed carnism presentation on five continents, and she is also the founder and president of the project Karnismus erkennen and of Carnism Awareness & Action Network.

 

What is Carnism?

Carnism is the name Melanie Joy has given to the belief system that justifies human consumption of animal flesh.  This is the belief system most of us have grown up in, which conditions us to think of it as okay, as “normal, natural, and necessary” behavior.  And yet, most of us think it is perfectly acceptable to eat a pig or a cow but not our pet dog or cat.  So we do not think it is normal to eat any and every animal, just certain ones.  Why?

Carnism and Health

The consumption of animals is incontrovertibly detrimental to our health and wellbeing.  For children, whose bodies are growing at a rapid rate, it is even more important to eat a healthy diet as the foundation for their futures.  Feeding our children meat hurts them.  In the words of Melanie Joy:

We pay for our carnism with our health, as eating an animal based diet can lead to serious disease, while eating a plant-based or vegan diet can optimize health.

It is for this reason that I think you will all benefit from watching this video.  Older children and teenagers can also benefit.  Watch it and then have a discussion about what you have seen – your children may have some very interesting insights!  (Please be advised that there are some graphic images in this video that may be unsuitable for younger viewers.)

Beyond carnism and toward rational, authentic food choices by Melanie Joy at TEDxMünchen

Visit Melanie Joy’s Beyond Carnism website to learn more

The Banting Diet: Dangerous for Kids

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The Banting Diet: Dangerous for Kids

In my last post, we looked at if the Banting Diet is safe for children.  It most certainly is not a safe diet for kids.  Youths, who are still growing and developing, are especially sensitive to changes in diet.  A healthy diet can do them an enormous amount of good and an unhealthy diet can do a tremendous amount of damage.  The Banting Diet is downright dangerous for children and teens.

Dangerous for Children and Teens

Actually, low carb diets can be dangerous for anyone.  Cutting out an entire nutrient group is not ideal to the human condition.  But children are especially sensitive, as they are growing and developing.  In fact, it could actually be downright dangerous.  Dr. Fuhrman, a well-known medical doctor, points out on his blog just how dangerous low-carb diets can be for kids:

Most recently, a sixteen-year-old girl who had no history of medical problems died after two weeks on the Atkins diet. When the paramedics arrived, she was pulse-less, and the electrocardiogram revealed ventricular fibrillation (a usually fatal loss of normal heart rhythm). Her emergency room evaluation showed electrolyte imbalances that occurred as a result of eating a diet of meat, cheese, and salads for two weeks. She was doing the diet together with her mother.

Of course most cases won’t be this extreme!  But the fact is that low carb diets of any kind can be dangerous and a high animal fat diet like the Banting Diet poses even greater risks.  The “low fat” diet that was touted as healthy for so many years has now been shown not to be the fastest way to lose weight, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly switching to the opposite extreme is the best reaction.

Animal fats are saturated fats, which themselves carry lots of disease-causing potential.  Saturated fats “have no double bonds between carbon molecules because they are saturated with hydrogen molecules.”  Their chemical structure means that we digest them differently than unsaturated fats.  This can lead to the development of high cholesterol, which is showing up in younger and younger populations. It is also a major risk factor for heart disease.  Indeed, reducing saturated fats specifically (as opposed to fats overall) is the most effective way to prevent coronary heart disease in women.  The American Heart Association recommends limiting intake of saturated fats to no more than 7% of your diet – well below what the Banting Diet insists on!  It is no coincidence that kids placed on a balanced vegan diet showed drastic improvement and major reductions in their heart disease risk factors.  Those kids were eating basically the exact opposite of the Banting Diet!

Bear in mind that the Banting Diet is doing more than just restricting carbohydrates and promoting animal fat consumption, the dangers of which we have already discussed.  The Banting Diet is also restricting the intake of other foods, too.  The whole long list can be found here.  We’re not just looking at a diet that cuts out wheat, like in a gluten-free diet.  This is a diet where corn, peas, agave, and any kind of fruit juice is absolutely forbidden.  Fruits are also on a highly restricted list, so you can have them, but only in small amounts.  For example, three small figs or one small banana is all the fruit you’re allowed each day.  Notice I said ‘or’ – not ‘and.’  This is not much fruit for a child, who needs that nutrition to thrive.

Children need a balanced diet in order to get all of the vitamins and minerals they need for their bodies to develop.  Lacking enough of certain nutrients can have long term effects even beyond what science can currently fathom.

What Do You Want For Your Children?

After reading all of this, what do you want for your children?  Hopefully you want to provide them with a balanced, healthy diet.  Hopefully your goal is to reduce their disease risks and give them the foundation they need to grow and develop optimally.  Doing so will help them live a healthier life, regardless of what choices they make later in life.

The Banting Diet is dangerous for adults and doubly so for children.  Tamzyn Campbell may be a nutritionist, but just having a piece of paper with your name on it does not mean you are always right.  Similarly, not having a piece of paper with your name on it does not mean you are wrong.  I hope I have made a strong case here for why Tamzyn Campbell, nutritionist though she may be, is wrong, dreadfully wrong, and therefore dangerous.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Here are the words of Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. (whose father is one of my top nutrition idols):

One of the best examples of the low carb misconception is the Atkins program and Paleo both of which emphasize  meat which is so deleterious  to health.  And certainly not for children.

You are right to be alarmed about the Banting Diet……for anyone, especially children.

Do what is right for your children and choose a healthy plant-based diet.

The Banting Diet: Is It Safe For Kids?

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The Banting Diet: Is It Safe For Kids?

This week an article came out touting the Banting Diet for children, starting from the age of 6 months.  The Banting Diet is yet another trendy Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) diet, emphasizing eating lots and lots of animal fat.  The nutritionist in the article claims this is a healthy diet for kids – but is she right? Is the Banting Diet really safe for kids?

What is the Banting Diet?

The Banting Diet is a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet.  It is similar to other carbohydrate-restricting diets in that most carbs are forbidden but it is different from diets like Atkins because instead of emphasizing eating lots of protein, the Banting Diet emphasizes eating lots of fat, particularly animal fats.

In fact, the number one rule of the Banting Diet is to eat a lot of animal fat.  Eating lots of animal fat is the number one solution on the Banting Diet.  Hungry? Eat more animal fat!  Getting the urge to snack (snacking is strictly forbidden)?  Eat more animal fat!  If you’re on the Banting Diet you might as well make eating more animal fat your mantra.

The other half of the Banting Diet focuses on reducing your carbohydrate intake and replacing calories with fat.  Skip the milk and go for the cream; double cream is even better.  Even too much dairy is disallowed because it contains too many carbohydrates.  Instead, go straight for the butter, as much as you want.  Avoid carbs if at all possible, including disguised carbs like quinoa, peanuts, legumes, and beans. Starchy vegetables are also a no-no. Also avoid having too much fruit and too many nuts because they also have carbs and sugars.

Finally, the Banting Diet tries hard to distinguish itself from Low Carb High Protein diets like the Atkins diet by emphasizing that you are not to have too much protein.  In fact, you should choose the smaller protein portion if you eat out.  Choose the fattiest cut of meat you can.  And eat ALL the fat.

Is the Banting Diet Safe for Kids?

In a recent article, nutritionist Tamzyn Campbell claims the Banting Diet can benefit children by reducing obesity.  She claims it can even be started as young as six months, with severe carb restrictions waiting until six years.  But is she right?  Is it really healthy to feed a baby or even a child a diet overwhelmingly high in animal fats, with little to no grains and very little fruit, nuts, and protein?

Let’s consider first what experts say about the nutritional needs of children.  Children are growing and developing at a very rapid pace, in ways that adults are not.  Not only are children physically developing and growing quickly, but their brains are also growing and developing, with new brain cells growing and new synaptic connections being forged every day.  The way that children develop now, in their youth, will dramatically impact their health in the future, for the rest of their lives, including their mental and emotional health in addition to their physical health.

In order to achieve this rapid level of growth, children need to take in very high levels of vitamins and minerals, nutrients they need to grow and develop.  Their nutritional needs are different from that of adults and diets that severely restrict one major food group (carbohydrates), no matter what the source, are creating a danger for kids’ health.  A vegan diet, for instance, might omit animal sources of protein, but vegetable sources of protein are still permitted and encouraged.  The Banting Diet, on the other hand, emphasizes a very specific source of one food group (fats, from animals only – the Banting Diet goes so far as to claim that seed oils are toxic) with the exclusion of another entire food group (carbohydrates).  This will necessarily have an effect on growth and development.  Jim Bell, president of the International Fitness Professionals Association notes that:

[I]n children going through a development process, there can be permanent inhibition in their reaching full genetic potential when an entire group of macronutrients is eliminated from the diet. It doesn’t matter if it is fat, protein, or carbohydrates, it’s just not healthy.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Joan Carter, a Registered Dietician at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine emphasizes the differing dietary needs of kids:

Low-carb diets are not a good choice for kids because children are nutritionally different than adults, and these diets are restrictive in many of the nutrients they need.  Growing children need more calcium than adults, and their tissues need vitamins and minerals that come from fruits, vegetables, and grains. With diets that restrict these and other important nutrients, it shortchanges kids in a way that can affect their growth and development.

Children also have much higher energy needs than adults.  Not only are kids using energy to run amok with their friends and tear your house apart like whirling dervishes, they’re using that energy to grow and to learn.  Over 20% of our calories are used to fuel the brain.  Restricting carbohydrates, the body’s most ideal source of energy, certainly will not help your child to learn.

Carbohydrates are fuel for the body and they encourage ideal performance.  Jim Bell, president of the International Fitness Professionals Association, points out that “carbohydrate loading is used by endurance athletes for a good reason — it gives their bodies an extra storage of fuel so their performance increases dramatically.  In full-grown adults, we know that restricting carbohydrates cuts down on athletic performance and endurance.”  So, too, with children.  Kids need carbohydrates in order to run around and get exercise, something we as parents should be encouraging them to do.  (If your child isn’t getting enough exercise, just putting them on a low-carb diet won’t solve all their problems.  Get them away from the screens and outside with their friends!)

While fat is an essential nutrient like salt, your kids don’t need very much of it.  Fat adds calories, but it’s not the optimum fuel for your tank.  It’s kind of like putting ethanol in a car designed to run on petrol – the car will probably still run, but it won’t be very efficient and it will damage the engine.  A small amount of ethanol mixed into the petrol can be a good thing, but only ethanol?  Not ideal.  So too with fat in kids’ bodies.

Carbohydrates are the ideal fuel for a child’s growing body and they come together with lots of nutrients kids need. Is fruit high in sugar? Sure! But fresh fruit also has enzymes, minerals, and vitamins kids need.  So too with healthy whole grains and vegetarian sources of protein like beans, legumes, nuts, and pseudo-grains like quinoa.

So what happens when the body isn’t getting carbohydrates as fuel?  Essentially the body begins to think it’s starving and in starvation mode it doesn’t work optimally.  The body breaks down fat for fuel, but in the process it creates what are called ketones, which are not good for kids and can actually impair their ability to learn.

Dr. Bruce Rengers, an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University, explains why this is.  He points out that “ketones have a dulling effect on the brain.”  This is because ketones reduce glucose uptake by brain cells – in effect ketones keep the brain functioning, but at a reduced level from what it should be.  Joan Carter, RD notes, “Essentially, this quasi-starvation mode is not good for alertness, and it’s certainly not good for children.”  She’s right – how could a diet like this possibly be good for children?!

Baby Paleo Diet Cookbook Unhealthy and On Hold

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Baby Paleo Diet Cookbook Unhealthy and On Hold

Publication of a paleo diet cookbook for babies has been put on hold after experts expressed concern over the health of babies put on the diet.  I have expressed concern over the paleo diet before.  Yes, some aspects of the paleo diet are healthy for kids, but there are lots of reasons why the paleo diet is unhealthy for kids (lots and lots).  Now scientists are warning that the new paleo diet cookbook includes dietary advice that could lead to the death of a baby.

Some of the central tenets of the paleo diet are the avoidance of processed foods, dairy, pulses, and legumes.  However, preventing babies from consuming these could be very dangerous for their health.  The new cookbook, slated to be published by Pan Macmillan and endorsed by celebrity chef Pete Evans, is called “Bubba Yum Yum: The Paleo Way” and includes dangerous dietary restrictions for babies and toddlers.

One of the recipes in the book in particular has garnered significant concern.  The “DIY baby milk formula” is based on chicken liver.  The book claims it “mimics the nutrient profile of breast milk,” is “the next best thing” to breast milk and is a “wonderful alternative” to breast milk.  Of course chicken liver in no way compares to breast milk, as it is full of proteins and fats foreign to human breast milk.  Experts have expressed concerns over the nutrient profile, which does not mimic breast milk at all – in fact, it contains dangerously high levels of vitamin A and insufficient amounts of other essential nutrients.

Exclusive breastfeeding is the ideal for healthy babies, but not all mothers can manage it.  Some women are unable to breastfeed and some babies have trouble with it, too.  Whatever the reason, if a baby is unable to breastfeed, World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines make it pretty clear that expressed breast milk is “the next best thing” to breast milk.  Infant formulas, although not the perfect food for babies, have been tried and tested for a long time, so we know that you can raise a happy, healthy baby by feeding them exclusively on infant formula.  They are scientifically created to have as close as possible to the right balance of nutrients a baby needs.  The paleo “baby bone broth” formula, on the other hand, will leave babies consuming dangerously high levels of vitamin A, while not consuming enough of many other vitamins and minerals.

The dangers to a baby who consumes this kind of diet exclusively are very real.  In an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine, the president of the Public Health Association of Australia warned:

There’s a very real possibility that a baby may die if this book goes ahead. … Especially if [the DIY formula] was the only food a parent was feeding their infant, it’s a very real risk. And the baby’s growth and development could be impaired.

The cookbook also advocates other diet dangers for babies, including feeding babies undercooked eggs and adding extra salt to their diet, which babies do not need.  The Australian federal Health Ministry has been taking a very close look at the cookbook, as the “department is concerned about the inadequate nutritional values of some of the foods, in particular for infants, and is investigating further.”

Of course, scientists have been expressing concerns about the health values of the paleo diet overall.  This diet is, theoretically, based on an ancient hunter-gatherer diet, but there are lots of issues with it, scientifically.  Ancient hunter-gatherers lived a very different lifestyle from the one we live today.  We drive cars, have sedentary jobs, and buy our food in a grocery store, none of which would have been even remote options for our ancient ancestors.  Ancient hunter-gatherers would also have binge eaten due to scarcity of food and lack of refrigeration.  Some meat may have been dehydrated or smoked, but in a typical hunter-gatherer society, any animal caught would have been eaten in its entirety by the group, right away.  Hunter-gatherers may have gorged themselves but then not found any more food for another few days.  Yet this is clearly not a healthy way to live.

Humans have changed physically, too, since the paleolithic days.  We eat a much wider variety of foods today.  The majority of hunter-gatherer societies subsisted on just a few different foods, as that was all that was locally available.  However, since the invention of agriculture, humans have been able to cultivate dozens of different food crops at one time, in addition to the production of animals for meat and milk, and have adapted accordingly.   Even domesticated dogs have physically adapted to a diet including grains, and so have humans. Avoiding giving a child any dairy can also place them at higher risk of developing an allergy to it in the future. Pulses are a much healthier protein alternative to animal fats and proteins, which humans do not digest well and which are linked to a lot of diseases ranging from heart disease to osteoporosis.

Speaking of animal fats and proteins, the paleo diet places a heavy emphasis on fish and meat.  However, the meats we purchase today are typically much higher in fat content than wild meats – wild meat fat content is about 2%, while grain-fed commercially produced meat contains about 20% fat.  The paleo diet does recommend wild or grass-fed meat, but these meats are very expensive, so I would be surprised if no adherents cut corners on that little detail.  But I digress – the problem is that the majority of hunter-gatherer societies consumed very little meat at all, which is why humans are poorly adapted to meat consumption. “Meat was a celebration [because] you had to expend a lot of energy on the hunt,” says Professor Hayes of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and not every hunt was successful, making meat very scarce.  Any meat caught would have been shared with the entire tribe, as well, so individuals may not even have gotten a very large quantity of meat per person.

Certainly, hunter-gatherers would not have been feeding babies a formula made of chicken liver.  That would never have entered their minds.  All babies were fed breast milk – if not, they would die.  There simply was no formula.  If a mother could not breastfeed her baby, another mother in the group would suckle it along with her own baby.  Breast milk was the only option and there was no alternative. I suppose that if parents on the paleo diet want to force their kids to be on this diet as well, the most accurate way to do so would be to find a wet nurse if you are unable to breastfeed.

The reality is that if parents want to raise healthy kids, the paleo diet is not the way to do it.  It is simply not a nutritionally ideal diet for babies and children.  In fact, it could even be making them unhealthy or, in the case of the chicken liver infant formula, actually risking their lives.  By all means, take the good things from the paleo diet – avoid processed foods, cut out sugar – but keep the good things that are not paleo, too, like grains and pulses.  This is the way to inspire healthy kids.

It’s Time to Say No to Pink Slime

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It’s Time to Say No to Pink Slime

Do you know what is in the meat you’re feeding your kids?  Do you feed your kids burgers, hot dogs, sausages, or other processed meats?  Did you know that even if your patties are “100% beef” there can still be nasty additives in it that do not have to be revealed on the label?  Do you want to know what those additives are?  No? Well, for the sake of your kids’ health, knowledge really is power.  Knowledge is important to save your kids from unhealthy chemicals and their effects.  If we want to inspire healthy kids, we have to face the facts about what we are feeding them head-on.

In early 2012, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to buy 7 million pounds of beef (that’s 3,500 tons) that contained “pink slime,” with the intention of serving it to your children in their cafeteria lunches. What is this “pink slime?” Quite simply put, it is garbage. It is the parts of animals that cannot be used for anything else; things like connective tissues or cartilage. Because these meat byproducts have such a high risk of carrying pathogens (like e. coli) that would be dangerous if consumed, they must be treated with ammonium hydroxide.[i] The US government is feeding your children meat byproducts doused in chemicals for their school lunch. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit. No wonder our children are becoming so sick.

And it’s not just showing up in your children’s lunch meat – it’s showing up everywhere. “Pink slime” is technically called “lean beef trimmings” (“LBT”), which is literally what it is – everything but the beef itself. When companies “trim” off everything surrounding the beef to make it “lean,” LBT is what is left over. That means it’s full of delicious things like ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. Companies are loathe to waste anything that might somehow be turned into profit, so they douse the LBT with ammonia hydroxide and turn it into “pink slime.” Then they use this garbage as filler for meat they’ll sell you – and which you will then feed to your family.

And while eating meat byproducts treated with ammonia hydroxide will give you an unhealthy dose of chemicals, it will not protect you from diseases, as the industry claims it will. LBT is treated to reduce the incidence of pathogens such as e. coli, but in testing done from 2005 to 2009, the slime tested positive for salmonella at four times the rate traditional ground beef did.[ii] Ammonia hydroxide can also cause all sorts of health problems, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, abdominal pain, or low blood pressure, although it has not been tested to see if it causes cancer or infertility.  Companies are putting this in the meat they are selling without even evaluating it to see if it is safe to eat – and they are encouraging you to eat it regularly, and to feed it to your kids!  Pink slime is poison – and it’s in the ground beef and burgers you’re feeding your children.[iii]

Good luck trying to avoid this pink slime. An executive from Beef Products International (“BPI”) said that in 2008 it was in 70% of burgers.[iv] After the media reported on it in 2012, some major fast food corporations and public schools refused to serve the stuff. In spite of the backlash, two years later, at the end of 2014, demand was back up and sales of LBT are increasing.[v] There is really no way you would be able to tell if the beef you’re buying has been “beefed up” with the stuff – just as with genetically modified organisms, there are no labeling regulations, so it does not have to be declared on packaging[vi]– and it’s indistinguishable from normal ground beef.[vii] Pink slime makes up as much as 10% of commercially available ground beef and there is no way you would know.[viii]  In fact, studies show that ground beef made up of 75% LBT shows no color change at all when cooked, so there is no easy way to test how much LBT is in the meat you’re buying.[ix]

To make matters worse, adding more LBT to food often necessitates adding other things to maintain consistency of flavor and texture. And the other things being added are only making this meat unhealthier than it already is. For instance, to keep hot dogs the right consistency when they are made of 50% LBT, the amount of salt has to increase from 1.5% to 2.5%.[x]   Maybe that is scary enough to make you give up hot dogs forever!

Now that you know what is being added to burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and other processed meats, I hope you will think twice about feeding them to your children.  Next time you look at ground beef or hot dogs in the supermarket, or think about buying something for your kids at that sausage sizzle, remember the pink slime they contain, and all the ammonia hydroxide that comes with it!

[i] “Pink Slime. What’s in Your Meat?” Healthy Food In Schools, March 13, 2012, available at http://healthyfoodinschools.org/pink-slime-whats-in-your-meat/

[ii] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31meat.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[iii] In 2012, several major fast food chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, have pledged to stop using meat bulked up with pink slime (Michelle Castillo, “Report: USDA School Lunch Meat Contains “Pink Slime.”” CBS News, March 8, 2012), but don’t be fooled – they have not committed to a specific time frame for its removal. And even without pink slime in their burgers, they still won’t be healthy!

[iv] http://www.takepart.com/foodinc

[v] Josh Sanburn, “The Surprising Reason ‘Pink Slime’ Meat Is Back.” Time, August 26, 2014, available at http://time.com/3176714/pink-slime-meat-prices-bpi-beef/

[vi] See, for example, U.S. Patent No. 5725897 A (issued Mar. 10, 1998).

[vii] Michelle Castillo, “Report: USDA School Lunch Meat Contains “Pink Slime.”” CBS News, March 8, 2012.

[viii] Josh Sanburn, “The Surprising Reason ‘Pink Slime’ Meat Is Back.” Time, August 26, 2014, available at http://time.com/3176714/pink-slime-meat-prices-bpi-beef/

[ix] VAN LAACK, R. L.J.M., BERRY, B.W. and SOLOMON, M.B. (1997), COOKED COLOR OF PATTIES PROCESSED FROM VARIOUS COMBINATIONS OF NORMAL OR HIGH pH BEEF AND LEAN FINELY TEXTURED BEEF. Journal of Muscle Foods, 8: 287–299. doi: 10.1111/j.1745-4573.1997.tb00633.x

[x] HE, Y. and SEBRANEK, J. G. (1996), Frankfurters with Lean Finely Textured Tissue as Affected by Ingredients. Journal of Food Science, 61: 1275–1280. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2621.1996.tb10978.x

Combating Childhood Obesity: Part 1

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Combating Childhood Obesity: Part 1

Over the part three days, we’ve been looking at the reasons for the obesity epidemic our children are facing.  For the next three days we will consider the best way to confront and conquer these reasons.

The first reason I propose for the childhood obesity epidemic is that we as humans have a genetic predisposition toward consuming high calorie, high carbohydrate, high fat foods, while simultaneously avoiding activity in an attempt to conserve energy.

How could it be possible to change something that is a result of our own human biology? It is possible to overcome this urge in ourselves and our children.  This is why simply saying “it’s genetics” is, for the vast majority of people, not a good excuse.  There is a way to overcome it.

The first, most important step, is to take charge.  As the adult doing the shopping in your household, you decide what to let in and what not to let in.  The less unhealthy food you bring in, and the more healthy food you bring in, the more healthfully your family, and in particular your kids, will eat.

This doesn’t have to be any more time consuming or expensive than your current shopping, either.  Replace chips with baby carrots and mini cucumbers.  Replace cookies and sweets with fresh fruit.   Choose healthier options to replace your current purchases. If right now you buy white bread, switch to whole wheat. If you buy white rice, switch to brown.  Replace butter with olive oil.  Replace fatty meats with fresh vegetables and replace sugary, salty canned vegetables with frozen veggies.

As the primary provider for your household, you have to take charge of what is available in your home.  This is the first step to overcoming our natural inclinations for unhealthy food: A child cannot eat unhealthy food that is not readily available.

The second step to overcoming this natural biology is to encourage kids to use up as much energy as possible.  Keep your kids active!  Turn off the TV, the computer, the phone, the iPad.  Send them outside to run around in the park or the yard. Sign them up for after-school sports.  The more time kids spend actively running around, the less likely they are to become obese.

Of course, as kids get older, they have more autonomy.  As kids get older, the best weapon you have is to keep the lines of communication open.  Explain to them how their bodies work and why they want to eat certain foods.  Allow them to ask questions (if you don’t know the answers, don’t make them up – just admit you don’t know but tell them you’ll find out – and then do it! You’re welcome to post them here and I’ll get back to you).  Ask them how this information makes them feel and listen to their answers.

Kids are more open to listening to their parents when they feel listened to themselves.  Having an open discussion about how these kinds of preferences, cravings, and desires are not really their own can help them feel more empowered when they decide what to eat by using their heads rather than their stomachs.

Hopefully these tips will help you deal with the threat or existence of weight concerns in your own child(ren).

Why Are so many Kids today Obese? (Part 3)

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Why Are so many Kids today Obese? (Part 3)

Genetic predisposition provides a significant challenge to those of us who are trying to raise healthy kids and to feed our kids a healthy diet.  Some of it is our kids’ natural human predisposition to prefer high carbohydrate and high fat foods.  Some of it is our kids’ habituation to excess sugars, fats, and salts in all our processed foods today.  And some of it comes down to societal pressure.

At the core, we are social animals.  Children are fully aware of social pecking orders from a young age.  When a child sees their friends eating unhealthy foods, they want them as well.  At least 90% of teenagers admit to being strongly influenced by peer pressure and the vast majority of kids say that doing something their friends do improves their social standing.

Peer pressure has a huge influence on children, particularly from the time they start school.  If your child consistently has healthy food and knows unhealthy food is discouraged by you, the parents, your efforts to educate your child on good nutrition habits could be drastically undermined if their friends disapprove.  Whether it’s through showing off their own unhealthy choices and your child’s desire to fit in with them, or if friends are making fun of your child, peer pressure can significantly influence your child’s food choices.  This is why obesity has reached epidemic proportions in youthful populations.

Peer pressure is not the only social influence on our kids’ diets.  Children also face obesity problems because of the world they are born into.  Unfortunately, our socio-economic backgrounds influence the likelihood of obesity. There is a reason why obesity is higher in poorer areas and lower in wealthier ones. In the US especially, it is hard to find fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables in poor or rural areas, and those that are found are rarely available as cheaply as unhealthy pre-made processed foods are.* Additionally, poorer people are unlikely to have the leisure time and money to pay for expensive gym memberships, or even to have the social supports or education to exercise on their own.

Furthermore, the relationship between diet and disease may not be as well-known to those in lower income areas, or to people with less access to education on health and diet. People living in poorer socioeconomic areas generally just do not realize that spending a little more on healthy food today will save them a lot of money on health care tomorrow.

Family circumstances also have a significant impact in lower income families where both parents work, or where the single mom is working.  A lot of mothers shopping for food for their children also say that even when they know the food they are buying is unhealthy, they just don’t have the time to prepare healthy meals from scratch.  Even if they have the availability of healthy prepared foods, many of them report they do not have the money to purchase them.**

These, then, are the three significant issues we face when confronting the epidemic of childhood obesity: natural biological inclination, habituation to unhealthy habits, and social pressures.  Now that we know what we are facing we can formulate a plan to deal with them.

* Sarah Treuhaft & Allison Karpyn, “The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters.” PolicyLink. Available at http://www.policylink.org/atf/cf/%7B97C6D565-BB43-406D-A6D5-ECA3BBF35AF0%7D/FINALGroceryGap.pdf

** Shelley L. Koch, A Theory of Grocery Shopping: Food, Choice and Conflict Berg Publishers, London 2012.