Eating Healthier

Recently Michelle Obama, the United States’ First Lady, set new regulations for school lunches that stands beside, “Let’s Move!” and her role as honorary chair of the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA). PHA is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that “is devoted to working with the private sector to ensure the health of our nation's youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis.” (www.ahealthieramerica.org)

To high school students this means one thing only: no dessert! Michelle Obama’s vision is to have lunch trays that consist mostly of fruits and vegetables. In our school system you can take two fruits and two vegetables now, whereas in previous years you could only take one of each. Now the school district is advertising that the featured menus include whole grains and are lower in fat. Also, you have to take at least one fruit or vegetable, or the price of the meal sky-rockets up. A nice lunch lady informed me of this fact the first week of school.

The kids I babysit eat a snack every day after school. Their mom told me whatever they could find to eat in the cupboard was ok with her within reason. She said she preferred they eat carrots, string cheese, crackers, juice or something healthier along those lines. Basically, try to avoid chocolate and Gushers that are there, but not intended for after school snacks. I completely understand and agree with her, and I think healthier foods are more filling anyway.

A couple things I was warned of before I started: one really likes chocolate and the other really likes fruity candy, especially Skittles. Luckily, she doesn’t keep Skittles lying around the house, which really… who does? Chocolate, however, is a harder thing to avoid. Everything has chocolate in it! Chocolate covered pretzels, 100 calorie mini brownies, peanut-butter chocolate crackers, Yo-Crunch (yogurt with miniature M&M’s), chocolate milk, chocolate-dipped granola bars, etc. All could be classified as candy or “junk food.” The hard part about these snacks is that yes, technically yogurt is good for you, but the M&M’s are not. How do you tell a little kid that they should probably choose something else when they know yogurt is a healthy choice?

From my experience, I have learned that you have to compromise and meet them halfway. For example, Yo-Crunch is ok with the parents, the child, and me, so everyone is happy. You get a little healthy in them, and they get their fix of chocolate. A win/win situation. I also noticed that if you offer them healthy foods like carrots and ranch, they will choose it by themselves some other time. Think of healthier foods you liked when you were a child, and go from there. Your ultimate goal is to keep kids happy and healthy.  (463)