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Performance Eating for Parents with Kids that Hate Health Food

 

I refer to nutrition as the most recognized and least practiced area of sports performance. Every athlete has heard of the benefits of proper eating, yet few actually eat what they should be.

 

The first step in overhauling your diet is to get to know food labels. We’re beat over the head with brilliant marketing campaigns for “light”, “organic”, and “good for your heart” foods. Seeing this on a label does NOT mean it’s good for you! You need to look at the nutrition facts and the ingredients.

 

Analyzing Food Labels

As an example, take a look at Dannon’s Light  & Fit^® yogurt. The wrapper does a great job of making it appear like a healthy option. Take a look at the label. This is one of the most outrageous attempts to fool the general public that I’ve ever seen. First of all, we need to start worrying more about the QUALITY of calories than the QUANTITY of calories. The wrapper boasts there are only 80 calories in a serving. Great. If you read the label, there is 11g of sugar in each serving, meaning roughly 44 of the 80 calories in your yogurt come from sugar. On top of that, the yogurt contains TWO artificial sweeteners: Aspartame and Sucralose (Splenda). The whole reason artificial sweeteners are used is to replace sugar.

 

Don’t get me wrong, having Heidi Klum as the spokesperson made me want to eat more yogurt too. The fact is that foods loaded with sugar and artificial sweeteners are what make us fat and lethargic. Light and fit couldn’t be a bigger lie. This is just one example of a product marketed as “healthy”, but is really just loaded with crap that won’t provide any decent nutrition value.

 

When looking at food labels, you generally want to consider:

 

1)     Maximizing fiber content

2)     Minimizing sugar content

3)     Fat is NOT bad for you; you don’t need to get low fat versions of everything

4)     Don’t buy things with high fructose corn syrup

5)     Don’t buy things with artificial sweeteners (no aspartame or sucralose)

 

Tricking Kids to Eating Healthy Foods

Once you have healthy foods in your house (and after you throw out all the junk-chips, cookies, crackers, and anything else with a shelf life of longer than 2 weeks!), the next step is to get kids to eat the good stuff.  Parents often fight an uphill battle because most kids don’t enjoy the tastes of many healthy foods.

 

I’m a fat kid at heart. I love candy, chocolate, and ice cream. I never liked vegetables. In fact, my parents made me eat a tomato once when I was younger and I “refunded” all over the table. Eating healthy doesn’t need to mean forcing foods that your kids hate down their throats. Here are a couple ideas to sneak in some quality nutrients into their daily eating:

 

1) Smoothies. Every kid can find a smoothie combination that they like. Try mixing these ingredients together:

 

8 oz milk (2%)

2 tablespoon all natural peanut butter

2 tablespoon ground flax seed

1 banana

1 cup frozen mixed berries

1 scoop chocolate protein powder

 

The outcome is a QUICK fix with a mixture of quality protein, fat, and vitamin-rich carbohydrates. You can change the proportions of the ingredients based on your taste preferences.

 

2) Reese’s oatmeal. I never liked oatmeal, but I always loved Reese’s cups. Unfortunately, Reese’s cups aren’t that great for you. Fortunately, there’s a way to make oatmeal taste like Reese’s. First, get steel-cut oats (sometimes referred to as Irish Oats). The instant stuff is quicker to make, because it’s broken down more. This simply means that it’ll be digested and absorbed faster, giving you a huge rush of energy, which quickly fades. In contrast, the steel-cut oats take longer to breakdown, giving you a time-released energy supply effect. Cook the oats in bulk and just reheat them throughout the week. Once you have the oatmeal prepared, simply add  a little extra water, some all natural peanut butter, and a scoop of chocolate protein powder. You can also cut up a banana and mix that in if you like.

 

3) Add some flavor to your vegetables. As I got older and learned to appreciate how much better I felt when eating a lot of vegetables, my resistance to eating them faded. Having said that, if they’re prepared plain, they still don’t appeal to me. Start steaming/cooking your vegetables with some spices. I could eat a pound of steamed carrots and broccoli if it was spiced with Montreal Steak or Montreal Chicken mixtures. Try those on your vegetables. If that doesn’t take, try melting some cheese on top. Everything tastes better with a little cheese, and the cheese will add some quality nutrients (notably protein,and calcium).

 

The important thing is to experiment. Ask your kids what flavors they like and which they don’t and continue to try things until you find a couple things that work. The goal should be to mix in at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables throughout the day (a smoothie will knock out 3 if you add a banana and a bunch of frozen berries!), and to add more QUALITY carbohydrates (less pastas and cereals and more whole grain products and steel-cut oatmeal). Finding a way to eat healthy foods in a way that appeals to your kids’ taste buds will ensure that they develop the proper eating habits that will set the stage for a healthy, high performance life.

 

Kevin Neeld, BSc, MS, CSCS is the Director of Athletic Development at Endeavor Fitness in Sewell, NJ.  Through the application of functional anatomy, biomechanics, and neural control, Kevin specializes in guiding athletes to optimal health and performance.  For more information on how Endeavor Fitness can help you drastically improve your speed, strength, and conditioning, visit EndeavorFit.com or contact Kevin via email by clicking here.