The rest of the story...

Michael and I are lucky enough to have 3 young children. All of them are WAY too young to diet or be put on a formal exercise program! Even if I didn't have an educational background in health, my common sense would have kicked in and told me that. But, no one is too young to eat healthy and be active… seriously, it can be that simple (some medical conditions aside).

That being said... I'm not a blind mother (seriously, I think some people don’t see their children accurately. I don’t think anyone knowingly endangers their children’s lives and let’s them get overweight, but again, I digress). I could see what was slowly happening in my own household; the cute little tummy pooches and adorable pinchable cheeks. But, a recent family vacation with extended family brought me to tears when I found out some things. Before I get into this story, let me preface by saying that my children are not obese, they don't spend all day on video games, they do get outside to play and they most certainly don't eat all junk food. They actually like vegetables and simply adore playing at the park.

Now, back to the story. As mentioned in the post about me, I am a working mother, which means I am very busy. So, when the annual Bear Lake vacation was coming up, I was so touched that my mom offered to take my oldest girl up to the lake so she could enjoy the whole week and then the rest of my little clan would come up on the weekend to join her.

Apparently during that week some very startling events occurred. First of all, my daughter (who is 6, by the way) started noticing her older, taller and thinner cousins and would say that she wanted to look like them. She took notice of what they were eating and would ask my mom that if she ate salad too, would she be as skinny as “Jane?” She started noticing the Nutri-System commercials and said she wanted to eat the food that made you skinny… yes, advertising works.

On one of the afternoons, my sister-in-law decided to go for a walk with her 3 youngest kids and my daughter went along as well because her cousin that is her exact age was going. My sister-in-law had noticed that while the other kids were running around and back and forth, my daughter kept pace with her and didn’t play with the other kids. You would think she was just being obedient and mild mannered except for the fact that halfway through the walk, my daughter stopped, bent over with hands on her knees, winded and said “I don’t think I’m going to make it, do you think the baby could walk and I could ride in the stroller?” Yep, that’s the moment that got me too…

I can’t control what happens at daycare, but I can certainly implement changes at home to encourage healthy behaviors. This blog won’t be about my children, but as parents become healthy, children naturally follow. We are making changes that are for our whole family. I don’t fix a separate meal for us and then something “kid-friendly” for the kids. We don’t have a yard, so we go to the park around the corner regularly and let the kids run around. We play games, have foot races and chase each other around.

I cook chicken breasts, broccoli and salad for the kids too and guess what? I don’t get a single complaint at dinner. Children want to eat healthy! Admittedly, my children surprisingly have always liked most vegetables. But we ate fast food A LOT more than we should have and they used to prefer eating a Happy Meal over eating at home (they got their way a lot too). Implementing change in your home might be a little more difficult, but then again you might be surprised. One of the most effective changes I have made was that I put a big fruit basket on the kitchen counter and bottles of water in the fridge. Healthy food is readily available, ready to eat and on display. It’s an obvious, conscious reminder that we are focused on fueling our bodies with good, nutritious food!

As a side note, I can’t even recall the last time we drove past McDonald’s and my kids begged to go inside. They do however BEG us to go to the park ALL the time… I’d take that trade any day!