Earlier this year I was approached by a concerned mother whose daughter is ten years old and is overweight. This mother is blessed with a big family of five boys and five girls, and this daughter is the only one who is chubby.
This ten year old girl reminded me of myself when I was ten. In my family we were three children, I have a sister and a brother. My sister and I were a bit chubby and my brother was thin. This meant that my brother could eat whatever he wanted and my sister and I were I always told to watch what we ate.
One of my fondest memories about what family food dynamics were like in my house happened to be during Pesach when I was about ten. My Bubbie and Zadie would come to our house for the entire week of Pesach. My Zadie’s favorite activity was to sit at the kitchen table and recite Psalms. One day during chol ha’moed I remembered that my mom had bought a big bag of potato chips in honor of Pesach. While my Zadie was sitting at the kitchen table, I reached into the food pantry, opened the bag of chips, and took a handful. Little to dismay my Zadie saw what I was doing and with a kind grin of disapproval rebuked my action.
I know my Zadie only wanted the best for me and wanted to help me make healthy food choices. Although knowing how to make healthy boundaries for children is tricky. This incident and others like it caused me to feel insecure to act on my food cravings. Was I really doing something wrong by wanting a few potato chips? How could this incident have been used for education and encouragement versus rebuke? How can we teach children to make balanced snack and meal choices? How can we help them listen to their bodies and enjoy foods in a balanced way?
The answer might be surprising to you but research supports it. Do not try to avoid high calorie “treat” foods such as cookies, candy, chips, and French fries with your children. Studies show that children who are deprived of these foods at home are prone to overeating and weight gain.[1] One such study took place at Pennsylvania State University which followed girls, ages 5 to 9 years, with BMI’s at the 85th percentile or above. When compared with “normal-weight” girls the “relatively large” girls ate significantly more when given free access to high-calorie “treat” foods.[2] On the other side of the spectrum, do not give you child unlimited access to these foods so as not to spoil the nutritional quality of their diet.
The balanced approach to “treat” foods would be to have them regularly and make them apart of your family meals and snacks. The key for “treat” foods is structure and schedule. There should be no guilt in eating them because guilt leads to restraint and overeating. Some suggestions would be to include chips as a side dish for meals, for example a sandwich with potato chips or a salad with tortilla chips. Or maybe a snack could be cookies with milk. In my house we love to make cookies with all different nutritious additions like oats, dried fruit, nuts, and of course chocolate. Candy and other junk food children receive at school or on Purim can be regulated to snack times as well and can be served with cut up vegetables or fruit.
With this approach you can begin to educate school-aged children to choose their own balanced snacks and meals. During the school aged years family meals are still crucial, but you will have to shift with your child as they gradually begin to take over some of the roles of feeding for themselves. Discuss with your child what would be a balanced school lunch or afternoon snack.[3]
The Rambam discusses a similar idea in reference to a person’s middos, character traits. In the Rambam’s introduction to Pirkei Avot he discusses that good actions are when they balanced between two extremes which are both bad. An example the Rambam brings is when he discusses the character trait of vigilance. He explains, “Vigilance is the middah that is a balance between great physical desire on one hand and lacking of physical enjoyment on the other.[4]” Great physical desire is the extreme when someone is completely enslaved to their cravings and enjoyment of this world and therefore is not acting in the image of G-d. The other extreme of lacking of physical enjoyment is when a person finds no satisfaction from their actions in this world and is left feeling lifeless. For this the Torah recommends certain physical acquisitions that could give someone expanded consciousness like a nice apartment or for our discussion appetizing food in order to greater serve Hashem. [5]
The Rambam continues and prescribes that if we enjoy our food in a balanced way; enjoy our drinks in a balanced way and eat what is allowed to us in a balanced way, this actually has the ability to heal our soul.[6] In our day and age this is not easy an easy task, especially with the over abundance of food choices on one hand and the societal pressure to diet on the other. Hopefully with these tips we will be able to stir clear of these extremes. Ultimately the goal is to enjoy meals and snacks with our families that are nutritionally balanced and to teach our children how to choose meals and snacks that are as well.
[1] Satter, E. 2005: Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming. United States: Keley Press, p. 124
[2] Satter, E. 2005: Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming. United States: Keley Press, p. 204
[3] Satter, E. 2005: Your Child’s Weight: Helping Without Harming. United States: Keley Press, p. 172
[4] Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, Eight Chapters of the Rambam: An Introduction to Pirkei Avot, Chapter 4, Paragraph 1
[5] Rabbi Shlomo Aviner: Lectures on the Eight Chapters of the Rambam. Israel: Chava Library, p. 120
[6] Moshe Ben Maimon, Eight Chapters of the Rambam: An Introduction to Pirkei Avot, Chapter 4, Paragraph 6
Gentle Family Nutrition 
Leave a comment