When I was a young girl I was always told to "clean my plate." This was something that most parents believed to be the only way to may sure their children received the necessary nutrients to grow into healthy adults. But something back fired for me, and instead of learning to eat to be healthy, I learned to over eat and grew to be an obese young adult. The pattern continued into adulthood and now I am an obese grandmother. Today I read an article in the health section of WWW.MSN.COM and it gives some good advice when it comes to encouraging our children to clean their plate.
Leave Some Food on the Plate
In an attempt to make sure they don’t miss out on any nutrients, many parents ask kids to clean their plates, making them more likely to overeat later in life, says Sarah Krieger, RD, spokesperson for the American Dietetics Association and director of the Fit 4 All Kids program at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL. If your kids say they’re not hungry, wrap up their plates, says Krieger, but make them stay at the table until the rest of the family finishes (to avoid a situation in which they choose playtime over full tummy). And if they’re hungry later, warm up the plate of food instead of offering a snack.
I think this is a great idea. Why didn't someone think of this when I was growing up? It could have possibly been a valuable key to unlock my over eating and unhealthy lifestyle. I hope that everyone reading this blog post will consider making this the new norm. We have to teach our children to wait for true hunger signs before eating everything in sight. This is a valuable lesson in helping to control the obesity in children that is running rampant in America.
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