Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / How to Get Kids to Eat Their Lunches with Marnie Hanel

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How to Get Kids to Eat Their Lunches with Marnie Hanel · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to parent Data by Emily Oster. This is Emily.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I'm a professor of economics at Brown University and a
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: mom of two. I write a newsletter called parent Data,
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: and on this podcast, i'll read.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: It to you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: If you want to read the newsletter yourself and see
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: more of my writing on parenting and pregnancy, you can
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: sign up for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You'll get reader stories, Q and as and other special
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: features in your inbox that I don't share here.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: And now for today's newsletter.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: So I'm very pleased to have Marni Handel here today
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: to talk to us about Lunch Data. I'm going to
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: title this lunch Data, although it is in fact about
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: her new book on lunch boxes. So before we get started, Marnie,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I would love you to just introduce yourself and tell
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: us a little bit about your background, and then say
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: just a brief thing about the book.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Sure. My name is Marnie Handel and I'm a journalist
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: living in Portland, Oregon. I'm also a mother of three
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: boys under age seven, and I'm a cookbook author. This
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: is my fifth book that I've co authored with Jen Stevenson,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: and it's titled lunchbox, so easy, so delicious, so much
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: fun to eat.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Amazing.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I am gonna start with the elephant in
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the room here, which is that I am a person
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: who is I believe on record as being quite skeptical
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: of the Bento the Bento lunchbox, and the reason for that,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I will say is that I feel like it becomes
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: a competition. I feel like there are many things in
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: parenting and mothering in particular, in which we have a
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: lot of pressure that is put on us about performing
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: in particular ways. And the idea of you know, rice
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: shaped like a bunny, or you know, like layers of
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even know.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: There was an Instagram story I once posted where somebody, like,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: for the first day of school, made their own like
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: wafer cookies and they like dip them in all these
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: different things so they look like pencils.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: But the caption was like this is so easy, and
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: I was like.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Are you out of your mind?
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's my love. We're starting with a ranting.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: But what I want to do today is talk about
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: lunchboxes as an opportunity because your book is actually really
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: cool and it has made me think a tremendous amount
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: about sort of how I think about lunch, and I
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: think there is a lot of opportunity to use lunches
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: to shape how our children interact with food, And in
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: some ways, I think this is a little bit of
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: your pitch to address the things that we worry about
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: with our kids food around exposure or picky eating or.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: What is it?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So let me just first ask you if.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: You have any reactions to my ranting before we get
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: into it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I completely relate to where you're coming from, and it
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: reminds me of there was a tweet last week that
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I read that said the bear but it's just parents
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: making breakfast and packing lunches right before school, And I
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: feel like nothing's more relatable than that. You know, in
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: the morning, you're often making lunch and such a rush
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: that it can feel like the least likely time to
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: be making a rice bunny. At the same time, because
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: I approach this as a journalist and I'm so interested
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: in food exposure, I see the lunch box as something
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: that's helped me address really specific food dynamics with each
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: of my children. And I think that if you get
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: a little bit too caught up in the fact that
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: we have to make these lunches, which is a hard
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: truth if you're missing this opportunity to make your relationship
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: with food better, so or your kids relationship with food better.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: And I think it's a chance to play with food
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: with your children, and I just don't want parents to
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: sleep on that opportunity. And so that's when we made
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: this book.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, So one piece of data that comes out a
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: lot I talk to people a lot about is the
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: idea of kind of flavor profiles being determined in childhood.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And so there is actually a lot of evidence that
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: kids who are exposed even in utero to flavors like
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: the flavors later. But even when you introduce flavors to
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: young kids, introducing them multiple times matters. There's a related
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: piece of data which I also think is relevant here,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: which is around dip in particular, but more generally around
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: you know, how do you get kids to eat vegetables,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: And the idea there is that they're more likely to
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: eat them if they are presented with a dip or
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: in some way that is more appealing. So one of
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the things that you do a lot of in the
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: book is think about presentation in a way that is
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: effectively just one step up from one step up from
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: just throwing the cancelope in the in a bag. So
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I like a big thing I took away was like,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: maybe if I put the cancelope, if I put toothpicks
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: in the cantlope, that would make the canfalobe seem different.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, I wonder if you could talk
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: a little bit about both idea of exposure and presentation
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and also you know how you guys thought about it
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: in producing the book.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, First of all, I have to know if you've
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: seen that study that just came out with the babies
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: in utero making grimacing overcay.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I did see that study. What did you think of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that study? We're going to digress.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I was interested in your perspective on how good
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: that study was, because it was kind of a fascinating
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: idea that kids might grandmace if they eat kale, but
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: be happier, have a happier facial expression for carrot or
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: something sweeter that's sweeter.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I labor, so I've read this.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I did read this study.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And what they're doing is they're kind of doing four
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: D ultrasounds of a small number of babies and they
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: sort of feed their mom and they actually don't have
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the mom eat kale. It's like you eat a pill
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: that tastes like yeah, and the babies make a grimacing face.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, part of what's very hard is that that
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: actually it's very difficult to judge if a baby is grimacing,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: even on a very nice ultrasound, like they have a
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: lot of different ways to code it.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The other thing I worry about there, and this is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: like way in the in the weeds of.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Statistics, is that that study isn't very interesting if there's
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: no effect, right, the study that's like we gave people
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: different different kinds of vegetables and their babies look the
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: same in utero is boring. So I sort of wonder
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: if there's a little bit of a publication bias, not
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that they did anything wrong, just that maybe there are
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: three thousand of those studies and the only the only
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: one that found a significant result gets published. That would
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: be a sort of like publication bias version.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: It was definitely it could be true.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: It was a table headline. I mean, there's a reason
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: that hit the Guardian right away, you.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Know exactly yeah, the Guardian loves a good like babyface study.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah right. But getting back to our kids, I think, yeah,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: presentation is pretty much everything for kids. They're just much
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: more likely to try something if it's cut into a
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: star shape. And this realization came to me honestly through
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: occupational therapy, working with an OT for my youngest son,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: who has a disability. She suggested that I look at
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: food cutters, And before I had that experience, I was
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: also really skeptical of making things look extra cute for kids.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: But once you've had the experience of cutting cheese into
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a word that says fun, and then your child eats
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: it and he's never eaten cheese before, then it takes
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: away all skepticism. But I also think there's opportunities just
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: to help kids be less rigid in life, just to
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: be more easy going and flexible. So if you were
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: a child who will only you don't want to have
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: a kid who only eats carrot sticks, so can you
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: show them that a carrot?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: But I actually love to have a child who ate
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: carrot sticks.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: I think for my kids, like the baby carrot was
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: a myth, Like my kids would.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Not know my kids did not like the baby care.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: It's a tough bite, you know. So once they got
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: into cutting it on an angle, buying carrot chips instead
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: of carrot baby carrots, using food cutters to cut carrots
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: into different shapes, and seeing how that could impact their
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: feel around a vegetable, it just it just opened me
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: up to the idea that there's a lot of room
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: to play here, and when you do play, kids are
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: more likely to try new things.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: That seems that seems plausible to me.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the sort of like exposure presentation piece.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: And I guess one thing I wanted to to sort
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: of dig into.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Is the book.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Of course if people read it, and actually, if you
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: get this book and your kids will love it, like
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: my son is like my son is like obsessed with
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: this book. He has it in his room and he
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: like looks through it and tells me which things he
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: wanted I want, said, I can't produce all of them,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to be to be fair, but but I think there
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: is there is sort of something to these to these
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: smaller changes, to the idea of maybe it's exactly the
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: lunch you packed before, but the cancalope is cut in
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: a star shape, or maybe it's the lunch you could
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: you had before, but you you know, put some toothpicks
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: in the pieces of peanut butter and jelly.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I also think from a parent perspective, when you're reading
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: about food exposure, there's often advice to put the same
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: food in front of your kid fifteen times. If you
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: give it to them fifteen times, they.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: Might eat it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: And that is a tough ask when you're sitting across
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: from your kid and your kids said, I can't believe
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: you gave me broccoli. I don't like broccoli. But if
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: you're giving them a Bento box which has six compartments,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: and you put broccoli in the corner fifteen times, it
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: doesn't feel aggressive. It just feels like eat it or
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: don't there it is, so I feel like it can
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: be the bridge from that evidence based finding to actual life.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: The lunch box can be your sort of your trojan horse.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: How important do you think the bento aspect of this
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: is for me?
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's very important because I think that the
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: aspect that just opening one container and seeing everything together
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: gives kids that visual wow that might can vince them
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to engage. I also think that lunchtimes have gotten shorter,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: and so it decreases the barrier for entry for kids
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: because you can start eating right away. You're not opening
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: bags or containers. It's all happening, and I think it's
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: sort of perfect for children and that there are compartments
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: so you can separate foods, and we all know that
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: that's a classic kid behavior around trying new things is
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: foods that touch, and so you can separate them out.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: You can also have a slight push there by putting
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: two different fruits in one compartment. So can you just
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: stand to see those two things together? That can be
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: an early food exposure technique too. Can you just look
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: at it? You're not going to be able to remove
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: it from your plate. It's right there. And I think
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: when parents think about kids having a wide variety of
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: foods to eat, and this is something I've learned from
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: occupational therapists, that it's a wind doesn't have to mean
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: chewing and swallowing. It can mean looking, it can mean touching,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: it can mean using a food cutter to cut that
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: star with your parent, and all of those wins are
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: just easily. The Bento box is a natural pairing for
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: those kinds of techniques.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting the thing you say about sort of
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: having the wind being engaging with the food at all,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: because I think another thing we get out of out
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: of data is when people worry about picky eating, and
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: we think about what are the strategies you can use
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: when you are engaging with your kid and they are
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: sitting in front of the broccoli and they won't and
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: they won't eat it. We are often drawn I think
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: many of us as parents are drawn to what I
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: guess you would call a drawn to prompts, where it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: if you do this, then this other good thing will happen.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So if you finish your broccoli, then I will give
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you ice cream.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: And it turns out that's almost exactly the opposite of
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: what you want to do, that that kind of food
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: engagement makes them think broccoli is bad and ice cream
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: is good, as opposed to what I think we call
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: it a support of prompt like, you know, why don't
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: you try this date? It's like a big raisin or whatever.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: That's not actually true of dates at all, but anyway
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: one could say that, I guess, but you know, this
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: sort of strikes me again as almost what you want
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: to do is sort of present the food and then
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: be like, here's the food, like experiment.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: With it, like it is.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It is the food that's in front of you, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: you know it's your choice. I guess that's the other
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: piece of this that I wanted to ask about because
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: it has come up as we have been experimenting with
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: this with my son, is it's very clear that he
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: values the control. So I wonder when you engage with
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: this with your kids or you think about how much
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: do you let them pick what they want?
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I've always been fascinated with this idea that we
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: want our kids to have agency and a lot of
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: their decisions, But when it comes to food, suddenly we
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: don't want that. We want to control what they eat.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: And no wonder there's resistance there because we're giving them
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: mixed messages. So for me, there's a huge grocery list
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: in the beginning of the book. There's one hundred one
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: hundred lunch boxes or photograph in the book, so there's
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: endless options, thousands of foods, and there's a huge grocery
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: list at the beginning of the book that you could
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: go through with a pencil in your kid and cross
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: off the things they don't like, just interview them. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I did this this summer with them. My nieces were visiting,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: so we had six kids and we needed to make
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: lunches for everyone from camps. So I just went through
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: the list and found the foods okay. Everyone likes grapes great,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: everyone likes cucumbers cool. And we had a better working
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: list of things to have around. It made it a
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: lot easier. I think working from a common grocery list
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: that's approved by everyone involved is.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: A key part.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: And I don't think it's a bad thing for kids
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: to have agency over their food choices. Like one of
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: my children really doesn't like any meat, and a lot
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: of adults don't. We're all moving towards more plant based eating,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: so that to me seems fine. If you like melted cheese,
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: but you don't like cheese just not melted, that's okay
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: with me. I think we're allowed to have preferences in
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: what we eat, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: I think what's problematic is if it gets to the
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: point where it interferes with your life, where you can't
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: go on a plateate, you can't go to a restaurant,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: and so that's the dynamic that I'm often trying to
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: work with is just pushing for a little bit more
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: of an easy going.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Attitude about food.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: But you just really, yeah, that's fun, you know, that's
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: that's the main thing.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: It's fun.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So I mean think this does relate to this question
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: of picky eating. So what do we mean when we
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: say picky eating? A lot of us say our kids
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: are picky, and in fact, almost all kids get pickier,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: and in a way, I think that's where it comes
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: from that you're eighteen month old is shoveling down every
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: thing you put in their in their face, and your
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: three year old like strawberries yesterday and today, they're just like,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I'm allergic to strawberries.
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: That's my kid, Like, oh, I'm allergic to mushrooms. You're
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: not allergic to mushrooms. He told someone at a restaurant
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: that once.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So so how do we how do we think of
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: the distinction between true picky eating and any kind of
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: just children are somewhat resistant to a variety of foods
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: because they're children.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: I think, well, there is a definition, which is fifty
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: foods are fewer is picky eating, which.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Is quite a small number of foods.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: It really is. When you start listing the foods, you
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: can be quite reassuring to think they like, yeah, fifty foods,
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: that's fine. I also think we have to factor in
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: the idea that we our diet has gotten so much
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: more varied and interesting that we're our ask of what
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: our kids will eat has also become a lot broader
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: than it once was. So I think I think parents
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: can relax a little bit about parent picky eating. But
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I also say that from the perspective of someone who's
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: watched a seven year old go from the hooray he's
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: eating my perade beats too, He's you know, he's everything,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: and I'm look at my little foodie kid to oh
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: my gosh, here I am in the news and butter
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: zone and I'm never going to get out of here.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: To now he'll eat almost anything. So I think it's
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: just I guess I com at it from the perspective
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: of watching a kid expand and feeling less worried about it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: I think there's ways that you can introduce food that
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: take the power dynamic away. One of them is just
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: by enjoying food yourself and creating sort of agency in
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: any of the meals you create.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: Like at dinner.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: Everyone knows this, but just like tacos, every kid likes
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: tacos because they have a lot of agency about what
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: goes into the taco. My taco might not look like
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: my kid's taco, but we're all eating tacos together. And
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: I guess that's also how I see lunch boxes is
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: you don't have to eat every single thing I put
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: in that box, but there's a lot of choices and
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: you can create a lunch you like out of what's
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: in there.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about before we get into the thing I
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: want to end on, which is competitive lunching, Let's talk
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: about lunch timing. So the things that is true about
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the world is your kid does not get enough time
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: for lunch. And you have some I think thoughtful comments
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: about needing the Beno box being helpful for the short
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: lunch timing that many schools provide. But I also think
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: this is something you've thought about on the journalist side,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: is why are we not giving enough time for lunch
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and how can we help with that?
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I think from the advocacy perspective, I think asking your
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: school when your child needs lunch and how long they
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: get is something we should all be doing. The American
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: Academy of Pediatrics says that we should give kids twenty
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: minutes to eat lunch, but they mean time in their seat,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: So that doesn't include finding your table, opening the cheese,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: the string cheese, chatting with your neighbor, getting your drink.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: So really, kids need at least a half an hour,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: and you can. I think we all should be advocating
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: for kids to eat longer because all the studies show
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: that they'll they eat a broader variety of foods, they'll
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: eat more vegetables. It's just it's healthier outcomes, more energy
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: throughout the day. Everything's positive about having a longer lunch.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: But given the realities of where we are, I think
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: you can also help your kid by making sure that
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: all package snacks are open. Like I don't send a
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: granola bar in the package because my five year olds
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: is going to have a hard time opening that. So
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: even if you want it in the package, to start
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: the package. So just that they can get into lunch
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: a lot quicker. And then when your lunch box comes back,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: if there's food in it, ask about why. Sometimes it's
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: they didn't have enough time to eat in which case
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: you can say, Okay, could you go to the bathroom
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: earlier in the day?
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Okay?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Could? I mean, these are things that it's true, it's
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: just very depressing.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's a depressing but I'm hearing you.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: It's depressing. But I think you need to strategize around
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: making sure when your kid sits down they can eat
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: right away. Can you could you try to eat before
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: chatting with the friend that you love to talk to.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Could you pack a smoothie so that they can break
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: a smoothie pretty fast? And could are there elements in
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: that lunch box like pistachios with shells that are just
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: going to take a long time to eat. Some older kids,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: like my older.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Son, loves them.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: He thinks that's such a fun sort of busy work,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: and he has a half an hour lunch, so it's fine.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: But for a lot of kids they won't have time
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: to do that. So just making it easier for them
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: to get into lunch. But yes, this isn't a conversation.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: We should be having to have a agreed good conversation,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: which we had not had. Okay, So I want to
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: end on back on this question of sort of lunch
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: as a competitive as a competitive.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Sport, because it can feel that way, and.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Particularly when these Benjo boxes are so pretty. But as
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: I was thinking more about this, I think this is
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: more just.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: How I am reflecting on it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So as I was thinking more about this, I realize
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: that part of that.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Is the frame. It could be the case that this
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is something you like.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: And there are many things in parenting where it should
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: be okay to say, you know, what I enjoy packing
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: these lunches. Is it's not that I do it because
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: that is what makes me a good mom, or that
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't be a you know, a good parent if
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you didn't do this, but just that it is something
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: that I enjoy doing. And it's almost the case that
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: we've gotten so far in the direction of this being
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: something I have to apologize for. Oh, I'm sorry that
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I packed this bento. I just did it because you know.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: In fact, I was explaining to someone as I was
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: packing up one of these bentos, I was like, well,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I'm doing it because it's.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: For work, and then I was like, why am I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: explaining that?
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Like, actually, this turns out my son and I are
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: kind of having a big, an extremely good time doing this,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: so so It reminded me of many of these things
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: in parenting where I do sometimes feel like it should
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: it should both be okay to say this isn't the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: thing that makes you a good parent, and also to say,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: but it's actually like an effortful thing that I do
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: in parenting, and not that it's usually effortful, but it's
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: something that I put time and thought into because it
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: is something that I enjoy and a part of my
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: parenting that I like, so.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: Beento's like, I know, as like an opportunity for expression.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Well, you're having the experience that I hope for. This
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: is good. This is my dream that you and your
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: son would be having some fun around food and taking
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: some of the struggles away from it and turning it
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: into something you mutually enjoy. I've thought a lot about
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: why this reaction particularly comes to lunch and I think
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: part of it is because it's a new format for
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: American cooks, and we don't really know what's happening in
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: everyone else's lunch bags, and so we have a tendency
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: to imagine that other people are doing a better job
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: than we are. And what I noticed when we were
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: working on this book was that parents just don't feel
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: good about lunch boxes. They find them so stressful. They
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: assume that they're not going that they're either not providing
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: healthful enough foods, or that they're failing in some way.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: And I have not found that to be true. The
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: more I ask what are you putting in your lunch box,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: it all seems fine. And I think, like all cooking
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: for families, it's not like every day has the same
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: amount of effort given. It sort of depends on what's
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: going on right. Sometimes you're ordering takeout, Sometimes you're heating
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: something up from the freezer. Sometimes you're going all out,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: and all of those are okay, And all of those
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: are okay on the lunch front. It's just what I'm
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: hoping is instead of feeling like there's only five foods
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I can put on this lunch box every day, you
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: now think if you can have thousands, and having a
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: lunch that's exploratory leads to easier an easier experience at
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: other meal times. I also find kids eat the most
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the day, so when I take
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: advantage of that hunger, and you can draft off of
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: other people's wins. So most of my lunch a lot
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: of The lunch ideas come from me saying to my kids, Ooh,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: did anyone else have something that looked good in their
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: lunchbox today? And then I'll put that in their lunch box.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: And it can be foods that they didn't like for forever,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: but the cool kid has it and so they're trying
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: something new.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: So there it is.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think there's just an opportunity for community around this,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: and what that requires is taking away the performative aspect
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: of it. So you don't have to post this to Instagram.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: But if it's a fun thing between you and your child,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: then that's such a win.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: It's awesome.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, my last question for you. There are a hundred
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: lunchboxes in here.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Which is your favorite?
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Oh gosh, Well, each of them has a story to it,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: so that's hard because it's like choosing between the minds,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: which is.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Your favorite child? Okay, except there's a hundred of them.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: There's a rainbow of lunches, which is a fun to
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: look at. But it's also because one of my kids
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: went through a phase where they only wanted to eat
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: orange food. So those lunches make me laugh because one
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: day I just gave him all orange foods to see
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: if he would notice. But the one that I think,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: it's like the slam dunk every single time has to
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: be Oh, this is a tough call.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I think, drum roll, drummer, Okay, what do you go?
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: I think anytime you're sticking a skewer in something, yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I mean something, but like it's not that it's not harder,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: but it makes it look a lot more fun. So
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: I really like that spread of all the scuba lunches.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: I love the skewer.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, this thing is with a stick in them, except
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: that then you're there at school with a stick. My
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: husband was like, is it okay to send him to
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: school with the stick? It's like nobody's nobody's complain.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had that thought too, It's okay.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I will tell you.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: My favorite is the parent lunch box, which is all
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: of it, which is like the crust of the bread
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: with the shapes cut out of it, and all the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: gold fish.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: That weren't in the orange color for the orange box.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: And I thought that was just and those was just genius.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those are real examples too. There's like this energy
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: bite that I was so convinced was going to be
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: great for the book and no one would eat it.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I mean everyone's had those experiences, and.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I mostly eat the crust of the bread.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: That's my main right source of nourishment. This is what happens.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: And I think the thing is, it's like, I'm so
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: glad that kids are loving this book and taking into
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: their rooms. But I completely wrote this for the parents.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: I hope this makes parents laugh more than anything else,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: because I think it was weird lane we're in and
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: it's happy.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: It is forever. It is a weird lane.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Eventually they'll be in the doritos from the school lunch.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I really tremendously appreciate this. It
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: was great to get to chat.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Thanks Emily.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Hi, this is Emily again back in my studio or
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: closet as some of you might call it. I loved
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: my conversation with Marnie, but there was something I wish
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: that we talked about, so I sent her a follow
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: up question over email. It was what about kids eating
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: school lunch? Martie sent me her response through a voice memo,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: which I thought was great.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: So here it is okay.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: So the follow up question was, what if my kids
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: eat lunch?
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: At school.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: My gut reaction is congratulations, you have figured out a
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: way to streamline one of your parenting responsibilities. If school
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: lunch is working for your family, awesome. There's lots of
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: reasons to choose it, whether for reasons of time saving
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: or equity or wanting your kid to have a shared
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: experience with their classmates. If your kids are getting school lunch,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: you're just trying to check in to make sure it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: working for them, And I would do that by asking
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: questions like, hey, did you have energy at the end
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: of the day, did you have enough to eat? Did
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: you like what you ate? Because even if you don't
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: want to commit to packing a lunch every day, you
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: can always throw additional snacks in their backpack or even pack.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: They make them like a inature bento box often branded
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: as a snack box, and you can throw shelf stable
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: things like trail mix in there and then refill it
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: throughout the week. So there's just something in there in
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: their backpack that they can grab that's protein forward and
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: might give them more of an energy boost than the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: bag of chips they'll grab if they don't have something
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: on hand. But I would also say even if your
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: kids eat lunch at school. There's a rule for lunch
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: boxes in your life because lunch boxes are amazing at
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: creating predictability in unpredictable situations. So I'm thinking a lot
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: of things like road trips, concerts, visits to the zoo,
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: having a new babysitter, or grandparents visiting if you can
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: use that lunch box as a way to remove friction
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: around food, because when kids see the foods that they
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: like they are any more delicious, they're more likely to
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: eat them, and we all know that kids who are
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: well fed are happier and just a lot easier to
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: deal with.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
• 28:11
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• 28:14
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• 28:17
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• 28:18
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• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Newsletter for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Talk to you soon.