In the last two posts we talked about the alarming rise in type 2 diabetes among young people and childhood overweight and obesity. This one, Part III, is all about practical suggestions on how to equip the kids with the right tools so they do not have to resort to ultra processed/junk food for their "survival" once they leave the nest. So they do not become part of those statistics.

If you are a parent with school age kids you know what it's like. Junk food is inescapable, despite your best efforts.

When my kids started kindergarten, I was introduced to the fact that sweets and such was a "currency" - kids would literally "trade" in it.

Then it's the birthdays (at school and after school), then it's the special occasions, then it's the teachers who give sweets out as "reward" for good behaviour / performance, then it's the visits to the grandparents who haven't seen them in a while, then it's the after-the-football-match celebration, then (as they get older) it's the fast food hang-outs with friends … It. Never. Ends.

Even if you are a conscientious parent trying to do your best to feed your kids "healthy", you are up against "The Outside World".

Do you feel me?

Figuring this out is not a piece of cake 🍰 (no pun intended!).

I do not pretend to have found the holy grail on this one, I am not a parenting expert (and far from an ideal parent). I still learn and experiment daily with my three (who are now 11, 14 and 16), but I can share some tips and tricks based on what I have tried and tested over the years and what I find works. I hope it will inspire you and give you ideas on what to try with your own little people.

1. Get them in the kitchen.

Whether they like it or not.

If you are a patient, inventive parent you can make it part of a game for the little ones, some quality time you spend together with the older ones. If you are a busy, no nonsense parent who has to get stuff done, feel free to make it part of "You live in this house, you want to eat, you help". (I won't judge, I'm that parent myself 😉).

It does not matter how old they are. The younger they start the better, but it is never too late!

The benefits of getting them in the kitchen:

• They are more likely to try foods they would normally fuss about if they are involved in making them;
• They understand the value of what you do and what work goes into preparing food;
• They learn useful skills they will not learn at school (it's the whole "teach a man to fish ... " thing)

(I see this as one of my top priorities as a parent. Especially with boys (who often need bullet point instruction lists on how to do anything outside their comfort zone) I think "kitchen literacy" is the best gift you can give them before releasing them "into the wild". I would like my boys to enter the "outside world" as young adults who actually know where the kitchen is and what usually happens there so that they do not always have to resort to fast/processed food for their survival.)

•  After they are a certain age, you can reap the benefits of your hard labour, as they can actually meaningfully help you, even cook for the family sometimes.

"Easier said than done" you may say. I know. 

Here is what we did in our house, in case it could provide some inspiration.

A table chart. Each day has a breakfast, a lunch and a dinner. There are three kids. Each of them chooses one meal a day for the three weeks represented in the table chart and the weeks keep rotating. (Why three weeks on the chart? Because everything has to "be fair" and everyone has to be able to have an equal amount of "breakfasts", "lunches" and "dinners". One week and two weeks cannot be divided equally by 3 it had to be three weeks, don't ask).

We instituted this system quite a few years ago now. It works to this day.

Is it a perfect system? No.

Does it always happen? No.

Do they still moan and try to get out of it sometimes? Yes.

But it is much much better than what was there before. Which was something like this: Mum says "come help in the kitchen", everybody ignores, mum gets frustrated and yells. Maybe someone comes under duress, maybe mum just gives up and does it herself, depending on the mood of the day.

The big advantage of this system is that they sign up for it themselves. They take ownership of it. It removes all elements of debate as to whose turn it is. It makes it their responsibility. It's clear. They always know what to expect - there is no element of having an extra chore dumped on them. I can only recommend it. (All credit for this system goes to my partner in crime, Mike, who is the spreadsheet king of our house).

2. Take them to the supermarket

The upsides:

• It is good for them to know that food does not just magically appear in the fridge.
• They can learn how to compare prices and how to read labels.
• After a certain age, they can actually meaningfully help you with finding things, carrying, loading etc.
• They can get ideas about other things they may want to try that you haven't thought of.
• They get to feel important in that they are also making decisions on what the family will be eating.

The downside of this is that you will inevitably get pestered to buy all kinds of junk. 

But you have options here. Remember that no-nonsense parent from above? Feel free to be that parent. "NO" is an acceptable answer. They have to learn that not everything in life is instant gratification.

Alternatively, if you have time, you can take the opportunity to educate a little.

I have a free app on my phone called "E numbers". You know, those E numbers you often see in the ingredients lists of processed foods. You type in any number and it tells you if it's safe (green), not optimal (orange), to avoid (red) and it also tells you why.

The other day, my 11 year old was with me and asked for turkey ham. We turned over the package. We took out the app. We went through the E numbers. They were mostly green. Then we landed on E250. (It is in ALL processed meats, even the organic ones).

We bought the turkey ham because Damian wanted to make his own pizza but he knows now why we do not buy it very often. 

3. Force them to improvise and be creative - provide the tools

I stopped buying industrial desserts (cookies, cakes etc) many years ago. I also stopped buying ice cream in the supermarket.

What I started buying is tons of frozen fruit (strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries, mango, pineapple ….) and milk from the local farm.

In the kitchen we have a blender, a food processor, a sorbet maker, an ice cream machine … We usually also have a bag of dark chocolate chips (the ones used for cooking purposes), various types of non-white flour, nuts, seeds, nut powders, nut butters, vanilla and other spices.

You will be amazed by how quickly kids can put 2 + 2 together and come up with their own, homemade, versions of ice cream, sorbet, cakes, granola etc, when they have No Other Choice!

4. Make the healthy stuff visible and easily accessible

If the fruit is in the fridge it is more likely to stay there. If it is in a fruit bowl on the table or the kitchen counter it is more likely to disappear fast.

If it is hot and fruit will spoil fast, put it in the fridge but in "prime location" - on the shelf that is at their eye level, in a clear container or an open bag.

Same goes for veggies.

The opposite goes for the not-so-healthy stuff. The further out of sight it is and the more difficult to get to, the better.

5. Show them how to make their favourite store bought snacks themselves.

This is my response for when they ask for processed food at the supermarket.

The general idea is to read the ingredients and think how you can reproduce it in your own kitchen with minimal effort. It won't work for everything, but it will for a lot of things.

One day, my middle one asked for this posh looking granola. We bought it once, twice. The third time I suggested we just make it ourselves. The exact same, minus the unnecessary additives. All it took was some rolled oats, cocoa powder, some hazelnuts and sunflower seeds, a little coconut flour sugar, some coconut butter for the stickiness factor and an oven on low heat for 15'. We skipped the rapeseed oil (an omega 6 - fragile and toxic when heated) and the soy lecithin. It looked the same, tasted as good if not better, was much cheaper and did not require much effort at all!

Ice cream and sorbet are also super easy - see the post on ice cream for how to do it.

Popcorn is another easy one. It was by the check-out at the supermarket the other day and, of course, my 11 year old saw it and wanted it. We read the ingredients. We bought a packet of corn instead. We came home. We got out our biggest pot. We poured some olive oil to cover the bottom. We added one cup of corn and some salt. We turned on the heat and waited for it to stop popping. It took <5'. He learned that making his own popcorn is not rocket science (and he can make much more than what was in the packet!) .

Pizza is another one which is not rocket science. When they ask for it, my usual response is, "you want it you make it". Yes, it is still a starch bomb, but at least, it will have olive oil instead of the proinflammatory industrial seed oils and it will have flour that is more nutrient dense than the bleached white flour of any store or restaurant bought pizza.

This approach also builds upon the idea of making the "not so healthy" things harder to obtain and more effort to achieve, as well as teaching them that there is no real need to buy processed food when they make as good and even better themselves.

6. If you buy it, go for quality rather than quantity - teach them that "less is more"

Processed food is never optimal, but it is a spectrum. Ranging from "not optimal" all the way to "outright toxic". 

Try to steer away from the toxic end of the spectrum and go for the less bad version, i.e. the one with the shortest ingredients list where you actually recognise and understand what the ingredients mean.

Often it will mean spending more money. Do that, but buy less.

I still buy chocolate for the kids (we live in Belgium after all!). But I go for better quality brands, with simple ingredients and I do not buy a lot. The kids learned that one or two pieces is dessert and that one bar is what they each get that week. (I had a proud mum moment one day when my youngest came home from school one day telling the story of how he gave his friends the "Mr Beast" chocolate he brought them from America and said "Mum, they ate it all at once!" - it was a strange concept to him that an entire chocolate bar could be consumed in one go).

Kids' taste buds (and ours for that matter) are very adaptable. They will learn to like what you give them. If the "sugar norm" in your house is low, you stand a better chance that when the kids are "out in the wild" their taste buds will sense the ridiculous quantities of sugar in processed food and find it as excessively sweet, thereby limiting how much they consume.

If your kids' palate is used to good quality, clean, home made food, they are more likely to taste the stinky grease in the fast food burger and fries.

I say "more likely" because it is not a given, nor a guarantee. Chances are (- about 99.9% chances) that they will try things, they will eat junk, it is inevitable in the world we live in. Your goal as a parent is not to forbid it. Nor to be so restrictive that you drive them to seek the "forbidden fruit" at the earliest opportunity.

Your goal is to show them that there is another way. And that that way is the norm and that the ultra processed stuff is the exception.

If you are reading this thinking "my kids are the ones who will eat the whole chocolate in one go" - fret not my friend. It happens to the best of us, we have all been there. The key is to gradually reduce and replace what you normally have in the house with less sweet, less processed options. Gradually, they will adjust.

7. Teach them to learn to ration it.

If you buy dessert - give them control over it. "Here is Your chocolate/ice cream etc and this is your share for the week". 

They can eat it all today, or they can make it last. They are in control and that is important. Nobody is taking anything away.

8. Explain the science

You do not have to be a nutrition scientist to do so.

The idea is to pass on the notion that "you literally are what you eat". 

You are not a fixed thing. You are a work in progress. 

Your body breaks down and rebuilds itself every single day. Most of your cells renew themselves completely (every few days in your gut, every few weeks in your skin, every few months in your blood and liver, every decade or so in your muscles).

What is the body going to use to renew and rebuild you? Whatever you give it.

If you give it junk, that is all it will have. I liked the analogy that Dr Casey Means used in the recent podcast episode with Andrew Huberman. "Think of food as the filament for your 3D printer". It is literally that, it is the material your body will use to keep printing you.

With boys I like to use the "race car analogy". If you had a Ferrari that needed the best quality petrol, what would happen if you put diesel in it? And added some dirt? It may work for a little while, but before long it would get clogged up and break down. Your body is much more clever and amazing than the best lamborghini or bugatti out there. 

When you eat junk food, it's like pouring dirt in your formula one race car.

The only difference is that if your car breaks, you could change a part or eventually buy another car. But you only have one body. Forever.

Your body does amazing things for you, things that the cleverest machine could not even come close to achieving. Treat it with the respect that it deserves.

"But no matter what I say, they won't listen to me."

We have all been there. When they are small you are the be all and end all and the ultimate authority. But before long, you fall off that pedestal. It is not your fault. After a certain age they feel like they need to explore the world for themselves and they "know everything". 

If you think your kids are at a phase when they would not listen to you and would rather listen to a third party - you can direct them to third parties that explain these things better and a picture (or rather a video) can be worth a 1000 words. 

I recommend "That sugar film" (you can rent it on YouTube) and "Sugar Coated" (free). "Fed up" is another good documentary (with more of a US focus).

A final note ....

I hope you found this post useful. It took me quite a while to put it together, but it came from heart - because I know that as parents we are in this together- trying our best to give the kids the best start in life and I know that it is not exactly a walk in the park. I hope you can get some inspiration from the above and that it will make your life easier and your kids healthier. 

As a parent, you have a good amount of years where you largely have control over the things your kids eat.

Take that chance and use it wisely. 

xo