Latest / Just For Today / 155. Food Education
Transcript
- Cindy Marler: Good morning everyone. My name is Cindy Marlar and you're listening to the Just For Today podcast. I am a reader. I have always been a reader since I was a little girl. I love reading. I love getting lost in books. I love reading textbooks. I love reading biographies, autobiographies. I love reading children's picture books still to this day. The book Frindle, still a tearjerker for me. One of the books that I read when my children were young, and I was wondering, how am I gonna feed these little guys? was and I came across and was referred to a book called French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Bayon, like Le Billion without the eye. Highly recommend this read, but I learned so much more about this than what to feed my children. And it was about a woman who moved her family from Canada to France and discusses the differences in how children are taught to eat. And some of the premises is that healthy eating is a learned behavior. Healthy eating is a learned behavior. So in France, she discovered that adults decide what, when, and where children eat. And then the children can decide how much, if at all, and they can be con control of their own body. But the parent is the one investing in the child's food education. They also never used food as a reward, punishment, or bribe. And these are just the two things I want to focus on from the book is that parents, are you in charge of your children's food education? Are you taking it seriously? Because we have a major problem. in the United States of America, don't weigh with food education. So don't let a menu dictate your child's food education. Don't let peers dictate your child's food education. Don't let the social norm dictate your child's food education. Just because it's normal, it's obviously not working if you zoom out. We have a very, very unhealthy generation of children. But also we're unhealthy. That's why we're doing this because it's hard to teach what you're not practicing yourself. How often do you use food as reward or punishment for your own self? Do you punish yourself or reward yourself with food or bribe yourself? If I do this, then I can eat that. If I accomplish this, then I'll go get that donut. Or if I make it five days, then I'm going to treat myself to that coffee. Rewards and bribes, you know, they can be a part of our motivational system. It's when we're attaching it to food that it can get distorted. Right, because food was something to enjoy and fellowship and be together. So when we're attaching that to it, it causes other problems. So just for today, I want us to think about food as an education. Are we educating our children about food? Are we in charge of their food education or are we allowing other voices to influence them more about the education of food? Are we educating ourselves about food? Are we at constant, there's always something to learn. There's no perfect person eating the perfect healthy diet. There's no perfect diet. There's no this area, that area and with this, without that. There's no perfect. There's you, your body, and then the facts and what works for you. But you do have to inform yourself and educate yourself and then get to know yourself too. Food is an education. How well educated are you?