Food For Thought

As the school year for my oldest daughter comes fast and furious, I am starting to think more and more about what she will be having for lunch during the week. Although the school lunch could be much worse, it doesn't really offer the best in nutrition. Some of the choices are grilled cheese sandwich, corndog, and chicken nuggets. Not good. If given a choice between that and something healthier, my kid would invariably choose the fattiest food on the menu. But, I choose NOT to ignore this about my daughter. And though she is by no means fat, she struggles with her weight much more than your typical 10 year old girl. You see, most of the women in my family have weight issues. Overweight issues. BUT! They were never taught as children about portion control or healthy eating choices. And I do not want to see my daughter grow up overweight, miserable, and with low self-esteem. I can't handle that!

In an effort to keep this issue under control, the first thing I did was enroll her in Taekwondo. We LOVE it! She has so much fun and has even learned to speak a bit of Korean. She attends Master Walter's class 3 days a week at American TKD Martial Arts in Margate, Fl.

Secondly, we have kept a constant watch on what she eats and how much and have explained what portion control means and that it's okay to eat things you like - in MODERATION. You don't have to deprive yourself, you just have to control yourself. Sometimes she listens, and sometimes she doesn't. Like this morning.

I broke down and bought PopTarts for my daughter's breakfast under the strict rule that she can't eat the whole package, she can only have ONE PopTart from the pack and she has to have a glass of orange juice with it. One PopTart is 200 calories! And though 2 PopTarts come in the pack, a serving size is ONE. Yeah, I think it's tricky, too! Anyway, she had her one PopTart and was getting ready to go to the babysitters and I caught her trying to sneak an entirely new pack of PopTarts into her bag. WTF? I was so mad. I gave her a lecture about how that's not healthy, it's sneaky, etc....but I have to say that I was really disappointed by her attempt.

Anways, back to the whole school lunches thing. I found a few great websites with healthy lunch ideas that you can pack for your child for school, so I wanted to share a few of them with you.

This site has 6 different and unique ideas that are great for kids including salad wraps, and something called 'Mexican Mango Madness'. Nice site!

http://www.laptoplunches.com/ideas.html

This site asks you to "think like a kid" when it comes to packing lunches your kids will love and has a few interesting food ideas that you might not have otherwise thought of:

http://www.peelregion.ca/health/nutrition/nm2004/eatwell/lunches.htm

And here, iVillage does a good job of making every day foods more interesting and has links to a few very relevant articles about healthy lunch ideas, too.

http://parenting.ivillage.com/gs/gsnutrition/0,,9tn2hhvz,00.html

I think I will definitely have to try some of these ideas!