Family Dinner Survey
So far, hundreds of respondents have told us what they think about family dinner. Already, some very interesting trends have emerged (see post here). I would like to get many hundreds more responses as well as a wide range of opinions about family dinner. Results would be boring if we all agreed, right? Really, if you hate the concept of family dinner, tell me what you think. (But please answer truthfully!)
I have added a link to the Survey as a permanent feature on the top navigation bar. Please share the survey with your online friends and contacts. Send me an email me if you work directly with families on promoting healthy eating and lifestyles. For qualifying organizations, I'm happy to provide a FREE paper copy of the survey for you to use in your work.
Thank you!
Link to Family Dinner Survey
About Us
At eatdinner.org, we believe in the health and social benefits of family dinner and provide research, education and resources for families, policymakers and educators. The Family Dinner Survey is designed to provide information about real families and their dinner habits, so that we can learn more about the challenges as well as personal benefits of family dinner.
All the survey information is confidential and aggregated so that no one person's responses can be identified. Please take the survey only once. Paper surveys are available to qualifying organizations upon request.
Showing posts with label healthy eating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy eating. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Family Dinner Survey: Some Early Results
Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed thus far to our Family Dinner Survey. The response has been great. (You can still take the survey if you missed it!)
One of my goals with the survey is to gain more insight into the challenges that people face in trying to accomplish family dinner on a nightly basis. I also hope to better understand why people value family dinner and what they see as its most important benefits. I hope to get a wide range of experience from respondents: families that find family dinner impossible and those who are more successful at it. We can learn from all kinds of experiences about the best strategies to help families.
Usually research surveys unfold over months, and this effort is barely a week old, so these are preliminary results. Still, some interesting ideas are emerging from the survey responses.
1. Family dinner time is the time to connect, and eat healthy foods.
Overwhelmingly, the most often stated reason that family dinner is important is "family dinners give us a time to connect and be together." The next most popular response, thus far, is that "family dinner makes it easier to make sure my children are eating healthy food." Somewhat surprisingly, parents were less likely to report that "keeping kids off drugs" or "doing well in school" were their most important reasons for family dinner. This is interesting because much of the academic research community pushes these benefits as the most salient to parents.
The message here is that, for many people, family dinner is about creating connections with partners and children TODAY. Family dinner is about getting kids to eat healthy foods NOW. Forward projections of how it might benefit kids many years down the road may not be foremost on the minds of busy parents. Family dinner can build a great foundation for kids as they grow up, and thus can keep them focused on school and off drugs, but the results and benefits of family dinner can be seen immediately among these respondents.
2. The Best Strategy for Having Family Dinner: Make the Commitment.
The vast majority of respondents said the most helpful strategy for accomplishing family dinner was making a conscious decision to commit to it. This beat out every other reason, although knowing how to cook quick meals at home was another very popular choice. This mirrors my personal experience. There have been times when family dinner just seemed too hard, especially when the kids were little and demanding work schedules pulled at all of us. As a family, though, we decided that family dinner was too important to let slip by; we compromised and found a way to make it work. We eat late; we share the cooking and the clean up; we found a way. Merely taking the step and deciding that family dinner has value for you and your kids turns out to be critical.
3. Family Dinner is "Extremely Important" even for those who manage it 2 or less nights a week.
This is a "family dinner" survey, so most of the people who are motivated to take the survey had high opinions of family dinner. Not a surprise, really. What surprised me, though, was that the respondents who rarely had family dinner (that is 1 or 2 nights a week, or never) still felt like it was "extremely important." Honestly I was expecting a little backlash! To me, this indicates that families want HELP making dinner, and family time, happen. This is something that parents want to do. Families could use more support and less blame as we promote healthy eating and healthy habits for kids. This is an important message for educators, policymakers and researchers.
More to come....
I am just scratching the surface of the data here. There is a lot more in the survey to learn from and to share, and I hope to keep collecting data. So many people were interested in learning about the results, though, I wanted to give a hint at some preliminary findings. Keep checking back for more analysis.
A Note on the Survey Sample:
For the record, this survey is not scientific because the sample selection was not randomized. In fact, outreach was biased due to the nature of the data collection. Surveys were administered in person at school health fairs and workshops dedicated to healthy eating. The survey was also administrated online, with promotion through agents who are expressly interested in food, parenting or healthy behavior. The results were analyzed qualitatively to assess individual opinions about family dinner, and any cited statistics are not representative of the population at large. To date, the survey has been administered in Brooklyn, NY, in South Dakota, and online.
So why even do this survey, if it's not scientific or randomized? Well, I think that we have to get information about family dinner and its challenges from real parents who are on the "frontlines" of making healthy choices for their kids. Even in a biased sample, we can learn lessons about people's experiences that are valid and important; we just have to be careful not to generalize.
We will keep the survey open and available on the Eatdinner.org website and here. Please feel free to add your own experience and share the link with others!
One of my goals with the survey is to gain more insight into the challenges that people face in trying to accomplish family dinner on a nightly basis. I also hope to better understand why people value family dinner and what they see as its most important benefits. I hope to get a wide range of experience from respondents: families that find family dinner impossible and those who are more successful at it. We can learn from all kinds of experiences about the best strategies to help families.
Usually research surveys unfold over months, and this effort is barely a week old, so these are preliminary results. Still, some interesting ideas are emerging from the survey responses.
1. Family dinner time is the time to connect, and eat healthy foods.
Overwhelmingly, the most often stated reason that family dinner is important is "family dinners give us a time to connect and be together." The next most popular response, thus far, is that "family dinner makes it easier to make sure my children are eating healthy food." Somewhat surprisingly, parents were less likely to report that "keeping kids off drugs" or "doing well in school" were their most important reasons for family dinner. This is interesting because much of the academic research community pushes these benefits as the most salient to parents.
The message here is that, for many people, family dinner is about creating connections with partners and children TODAY. Family dinner is about getting kids to eat healthy foods NOW. Forward projections of how it might benefit kids many years down the road may not be foremost on the minds of busy parents. Family dinner can build a great foundation for kids as they grow up, and thus can keep them focused on school and off drugs, but the results and benefits of family dinner can be seen immediately among these respondents.
2. The Best Strategy for Having Family Dinner: Make the Commitment.
The vast majority of respondents said the most helpful strategy for accomplishing family dinner was making a conscious decision to commit to it. This beat out every other reason, although knowing how to cook quick meals at home was another very popular choice. This mirrors my personal experience. There have been times when family dinner just seemed too hard, especially when the kids were little and demanding work schedules pulled at all of us. As a family, though, we decided that family dinner was too important to let slip by; we compromised and found a way to make it work. We eat late; we share the cooking and the clean up; we found a way. Merely taking the step and deciding that family dinner has value for you and your kids turns out to be critical.
3. Family Dinner is "Extremely Important" even for those who manage it 2 or less nights a week.
This is a "family dinner" survey, so most of the people who are motivated to take the survey had high opinions of family dinner. Not a surprise, really. What surprised me, though, was that the respondents who rarely had family dinner (that is 1 or 2 nights a week, or never) still felt like it was "extremely important." Honestly I was expecting a little backlash! To me, this indicates that families want HELP making dinner, and family time, happen. This is something that parents want to do. Families could use more support and less blame as we promote healthy eating and healthy habits for kids. This is an important message for educators, policymakers and researchers.
More to come....
I am just scratching the surface of the data here. There is a lot more in the survey to learn from and to share, and I hope to keep collecting data. So many people were interested in learning about the results, though, I wanted to give a hint at some preliminary findings. Keep checking back for more analysis.
A Note on the Survey Sample:
For the record, this survey is not scientific because the sample selection was not randomized. In fact, outreach was biased due to the nature of the data collection. Surveys were administered in person at school health fairs and workshops dedicated to healthy eating. The survey was also administrated online, with promotion through agents who are expressly interested in food, parenting or healthy behavior. The results were analyzed qualitatively to assess individual opinions about family dinner, and any cited statistics are not representative of the population at large. To date, the survey has been administered in Brooklyn, NY, in South Dakota, and online.
So why even do this survey, if it's not scientific or randomized? Well, I think that we have to get information about family dinner and its challenges from real parents who are on the "frontlines" of making healthy choices for their kids. Even in a biased sample, we can learn lessons about people's experiences that are valid and important; we just have to be careful not to generalize.
We will keep the survey open and available on the Eatdinner.org website and here. Please feel free to add your own experience and share the link with others!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Survey Says: What do you Think About Family Dinner?
One of the goals of eatdinner.org is to understand the challenges of families coming together at the table and to provide resources to help and support them. Our Family Dinner Survey has just been launched and is designed to collect information from parents, and anyone else who takes the time to sit down at the table for dinner, about the biggest challenges they face to making dinner happen. The survey also collects information on why family dinner is important and the best strategies that people use to accomplish it night after night. We know, family dinner is an accomplishment!
The survey is available online and I'm also collecting data at several family workshops held in New York City. Thanks to friends like Time at the Table, we are able to gather information from workshops being held throughout the country. Please let me know if you'd like a copy of the Family Dinner survey to share at your own workshop or meetings. Since the survey brings up topics of healthy eating, daily family challenges and positive strategies like menu planning and cooking, it's a great starting off point to get people thinking about issues that might be relevant to your workshop.
Please feel free to share this survey widely (share this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GBR78C5) or contact me offline to discuss using a paper survey in your work (Email me: grace [at] eatdinner [dot] org). Thank you!
The survey is completely confidential and the data will be aggregated to show trends in opinions, not any one person's opinion or experience.
Monday, March 21, 2011
What I Learned on the Way to the Health Fair
Last week, I talked to parents at the first of a series of spring health workshops that eatdinner.org is involved in. Parents were eager to learn more about healthy choices for their kids, despite where they fell along the spectrum of healthy eating behavior. One mom talked to me about her fight to get her child to even try a whole grain bagel, with a tone that suggested she was losing the battle. Another said she offered healthy foods every day and her kids happily ate everything, but she was always in need of fresh ideas. One grandma said that her grandkids wouldn't touch anything but mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, and that she was going to pick up all my handouts to give to her daughter anyway. All typical challenges that parents face.
Every single person I talked to was relieved to just chat about ideas and solutions, rather than having me lecture them about strict "right" and "wrongs." I began many sentences with "I'm a parent, I know how hard it can be...." or "My youngest is the pickiest, but here is what worked for us..." Happily other parents also joined in the discussion, sharing tricks and tips, including some ideas that were new to me.
Understanding the real challenges of parents and meeting them where they cannot be underrated. If we are going to engage parents to improve their children's eating habits, it boils down to this:
What parents need to be empowered:
One of the messages of this blog is that parents are powerful. True, parents are harried, busy and sometimes confused over the various health choices they face for their kids. Nonetheless, parents have more influence than they think in setting good examples and making the right choices for their kids. Let's work with parents as allies, giving them what they need to make the best choices for their kids. That's one way to make in-roads in the huge problem of childhood obesity and poor nutrition among kids.
Resources and Handouts:
In addition to promoting the benefits of family dinner, I talked about healthy snacks for kids and healthy portion sizes. Here are links to some of the material I used.
25 Healthy Snacks for Kids From eatright.org, American Dietetic Association
Help Your Child Stay at a Healthy Weight From healthfinder.gov
Family Friendly Blogs with Recipes From eatdinner.org
Rainbow Stew from Aviva Goldfarb, PBS Kitchen Explorers
Today I Ate a Rainbow Kit (15% off with discount code: eatdinner until April 15, 2011)
Fruits and Veggies More Matters website
12 Smart Ways to Right-Size Your Portions From EatSmartMoveMoreNC.org, found on www.wellnessproposals.com
Every single person I talked to was relieved to just chat about ideas and solutions, rather than having me lecture them about strict "right" and "wrongs." I began many sentences with "I'm a parent, I know how hard it can be...." or "My youngest is the pickiest, but here is what worked for us..." Happily other parents also joined in the discussion, sharing tricks and tips, including some ideas that were new to me.
Understanding the real challenges of parents and meeting them where they cannot be underrated. If we are going to engage parents to improve their children's eating habits, it boils down to this:
What parents need to be empowered:
- Validation of their efforts.
- Support, not guilt (Believe me, moms have enough guilt already!)
- Positive activities, like family dinner, to encourage healthy eating with their kids
- Good, unbiased information on health choices
- New ideas for snacks and family-friendly dinner recipes
One of the messages of this blog is that parents are powerful. True, parents are harried, busy and sometimes confused over the various health choices they face for their kids. Nonetheless, parents have more influence than they think in setting good examples and making the right choices for their kids. Let's work with parents as allies, giving them what they need to make the best choices for their kids. That's one way to make in-roads in the huge problem of childhood obesity and poor nutrition among kids.
Resources and Handouts:
In addition to promoting the benefits of family dinner, I talked about healthy snacks for kids and healthy portion sizes. Here are links to some of the material I used.
25 Healthy Snacks for Kids From eatright.org, American Dietetic Association
Help Your Child Stay at a Healthy Weight From healthfinder.gov
Family Friendly Blogs with Recipes From eatdinner.org
Rainbow Stew from Aviva Goldfarb, PBS Kitchen Explorers
Today I Ate a Rainbow Kit (15% off with discount code: eatdinner until April 15, 2011)
Fruits and Veggies More Matters website
12 Smart Ways to Right-Size Your Portions From EatSmartMoveMoreNC.org, found on www.wellnessproposals.com
Friday, February 18, 2011
I Heart Fruit, Straight Up from Kindergarten
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| Fruit Heart from my little Kindergartner |
I would like to take all the credit for my kid loving fruit, but remember she's the "picky one." So I dare not or I might jinx myself and we'll be back to mac and cheese requests every night. Really, though, I think kids naturally love fruit and simple exposure to good, fresh, in-season fruit will convince most kids to eat it with joy. We as parents (and educators at school) have to decide that fresh fruit is a worthwhile snack than can be available all the time, despite its slightly higher cost and perishable nature.
We have a rule in our house The fruit bowl is always open. I try to have 2 or 3 big bowls of fruit out on the counter in easy access all the time. Honestly it disappears. Standards are bananas, apples, and, now, clementines; I keep washed grapes in a big bowl in the fridge. For dessert, we'll sometimes have harder to prepare fruit like mango, pineapple, or last night, we had starfruit, which tastes a bit like kiwi, but in a really cool shape. My kids also love berries and whipped cream, which is still a healthy dessert option. The fruit balances out the whipped cream by far!
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| Starfruit, cool shape. |
The biggest complaint I hear about fruit is the cost. Fresh fruit can be expensive. But really, if you compared fruit to most cookies or pre-packaged snacks, they are very comparable in price. Most cookies are at least 3 or 4 dollars a box; if you cost out the packaged snacks, most are 50 cents or $1 a piece. Somehow it's OK for a cookie pack to cost this much, but an apple at 75 cents is too expensive? Really, we have to change our mind set. Reducing packaged foods is the real way to cut a grocery bill, and sticking with fresh fruits and vegetables often will end up being comparable in cost, or even cheaper, and much healthier to boot.
Fruit is perishable, though, and I understand that busy parents who go shopping only once a week don't want to throw good money away. Below I have some tips for buying and storing fruit, and plus ideas for getting your child to eat more of it!
Ten Tips for Buying, Storing and Eating Fruit:
1. Buy fruit in varying stages of ripeness, if you can. Ideally, some fruit will be ready the day you buy it, and some fruit will ripen over the week, so that you and your kids can eat the best fruit as it becomes ripe.
2. If freshness is waning but the fruit is still good, stick it in the fridge. This will help it keep another couple of days.
3. Don't forget about fruit in the fridge! Since the kids may not see it to grab it, you may have to remember to cut it up and serve as snacks, or with breakfast.
3. In general, fruit keeps better unwashed. Teach your kids to give it a rinse before eating.
4. Use an apple corer. For some reason, fruit slices are much more enjoyable for snacking. Once I bought an apple corer, my kids' apple consumption doubled! Also keep the skin on because it has lots of vitamins. If the apple is cored, a skin hater can still just eat the inside, though half the time, my daughter still eats the whole slice, skin and all.
5. Slightly damaged fruit can be saved to use in smoothies or in fruit sauce. I cut out the brown parts and either freeze or, if I have enough, I throw in a pot to make sauce for pancakes. One or two apples or pears with a little water and sugar can make a quick and delicious sauce to be used for a weekend pancakes.
6. Many fresh fruits can be frozen at home. If strawberries are on sale, you can buy two packages and freeze one. They don't taste quite as good defrosted, but they are still good for you and can be used frozen in smoothies or thawed over cereal or in a fruit dessert.
7. Figure out the fruits that your kids like and always get them. Fruit should be like milk and bread, something you always get. Make it a new habit. Don't get stuck thinking your kid doesn't like fruit just because they don't like the red delicious apples at the cafeteria. (In case you didn't know, red delicious apples mostly stink; they are the biggest misnomer in the fruit world!) Gala apples are kid favorites, so are golden delicious, but there are lots of other varieties to explore.
8. Add new fruits every once in a while to expand their interest. Right now, there are lots of choices in citrus, so try some varieties of oranges that you haven't before. Tangelos and blood oranges can be amazing and you may be surprised that kids actually like the sour-sweet combination. (There are some popular candies on the market that exploit this.)
9. Fruit is best when it is local and in-season. In season fruit tends to be cheaper and taste the best. But in the winter time, it may not be possible to only eat locally, and still actually eat fruit. As a mom and as someone who promotes healthy eating, I am still in favor of eating fruit year around.
10. Increase the times you give fruit to your child. Fruit can be served with breakfast, packed in lunches, and offered for dessert. It's not just an in-between snack.
More great resources for learning more and making eating fruit and veggies fun!
Today I Ate a Rainbow Kit This kit that encourages your kid to get eat the colors of the rainbow, everyday.
The Produce Geek: Sign up for weekly newsletter on what to eat now.
Fruits and Veggies More Matters website has lots of tips and ideas for increasing the number of fruits and veggies in your life.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Q: New Year's Resolutions? A: Eat Dinner
New Years Resolutions for 2011:
1. Lose Weight.....eat dinner.
2. Eat More Fruits and Veggies...eat dinner
3. Help Support Kids to do better in school...eat dinner
4. Help Kids Make Healthy Choices (avoid obesity, smoking and drugs)...eat dinner
5. Make time for family and improve relationship with your partner...eat dinner.
Eating dinner with your family is the answer to many common New Year's resolutions. Family dinner takes a committment (what better time to make one?), but the time and effort it takes is more than paid back in the benefits to you and your family.
Mark Bittman recently wrote about how cooking at home is the key to a more healthy and sustainable life. One Department of Agriculture statistic estimated that normal weight Americans spent just 6.8 more minutes per day, on average, shopping and preparing meals than overweight Americans. In light of the fact that Americans spend 35 hours a week watching television, this is not a lot of time.
I'd add that the routine of family dinner, with its daily connection and conversations, can improve emotional health and relationships as well. If you add a walk after dinner or count schlepping groceries, you might just add one more resolution to the list: "Get More Exercise."
Consider making family dinners (3 or more nights a week) the centerpiece of your efforts to have a happy, healthy new year for you and your family. Happy 2011!
Articles and Resources:
Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion, Mark Bittman NYT 12.31.10
Back to Basics for Healthy Weight Loss, American Dietetic Association, www.eatright.org
CASA 2010 Report: The Importance of Family Dinner
eatdinner.org Posts from 2010 with more tips on making family dinner work
1. Lose Weight.....eat dinner.
2. Eat More Fruits and Veggies...eat dinner
3. Help Support Kids to do better in school...eat dinner
4. Help Kids Make Healthy Choices (avoid obesity, smoking and drugs)...eat dinner
5. Make time for family and improve relationship with your partner...eat dinner.
Eating dinner with your family is the answer to many common New Year's resolutions. Family dinner takes a committment (what better time to make one?), but the time and effort it takes is more than paid back in the benefits to you and your family.
Mark Bittman recently wrote about how cooking at home is the key to a more healthy and sustainable life. One Department of Agriculture statistic estimated that normal weight Americans spent just 6.8 more minutes per day, on average, shopping and preparing meals than overweight Americans. In light of the fact that Americans spend 35 hours a week watching television, this is not a lot of time.
I'd add that the routine of family dinner, with its daily connection and conversations, can improve emotional health and relationships as well. If you add a walk after dinner or count schlepping groceries, you might just add one more resolution to the list: "Get More Exercise."
Consider making family dinners (3 or more nights a week) the centerpiece of your efforts to have a happy, healthy new year for you and your family. Happy 2011!
Articles and Resources:
Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion, Mark Bittman NYT 12.31.10
Back to Basics for Healthy Weight Loss, American Dietetic Association, www.eatright.org
CASA 2010 Report: The Importance of Family Dinner
eatdinner.org Posts from 2010 with more tips on making family dinner work
Friday, July 30, 2010
Friday Family Dinner Fan Club: Miriam Weinstein
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| The Surprising Power of Family Meals, by Miriam Weinstein |
Recently, thanks to a J.M. Smuckers company endorsement, she's been give a new slick web platform to spread the word of family dinner at The Power of Family Meals. It's sort of a funny partnership, but I guess Smuckers feels like this is an authentic way to promote breakfast as a family meal. In a similar vein, Stouffer's launched the Let's Fix Dinner media campaign and website this year, created in partnership with CASA, one of the longest-running family dinner advocates. CASA, founded by Joseph Califano in the early 1990s, is the research group responsible for many of the oft-cited statistics that family dinner is a protective factor against teenage alcohol and substance abuse.
What does it mean that big corporations are espousing family dinner? While part of me is skeptical, there is a big part of me that welcomes the money and resources that big companies bring in promoting what I see as an essential good. For major brands that sell food products at supermarkets, it is a positive trend if people eat at home more. I think the more people eat at home, the more routine it becomes and the better they'll like it. So first steps are important. I worry when the promoters are selling relatively unhealthy processed foods, but sometimes convenience foods may be necessary in order to get something on the table for dinner. There has to be a balance. Perhaps the more healthy foods, like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains need their own champion marketers, funded by the CDC, a consortium of California growers, or a major health foundation like Robert Wood Johnson. Or basic home cooking versus reheating convenience foods has to become a more common and valued skill.
The experts like Weinstein and CASA have a responsibility to make sure the message of the importance of family meals gets out there without too many strings attached to the processed foods themselves. Stouffer's pizza for dinner or Smuckers jam on toast for breakfast are not the only way. Both these campaigns, though, seem to hit the balance very well, and are excellent and authentic in the information they present. So far, so good. I'm glad to seeing Weinstein on a bigger platform, touting the importance of family dinner in her approachable and non-judgmental style.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Latest links and news on family dinner
I've been posting a lot of interesting news, research and tips about family dinner on my Facebook fan page (Eat Dinner.org) and Twitter (eatdinner). Here's a few recent links. Happy reading!
New Kids Mag: Chop Chop: Getting Kids in Kitchen always a good idea!
Miriam Weinstein's book "The Surprising Power of Family Meals" is a favorite; now a blog and family meal website
Family dinner pep talk. Great, non-judgmental advice for starting family dinners
Journal of Pediatrics study: Structured family meals help kids eat veggies and have good body weight
10 pitfalls to avoid for picky eaters, no.8 is the best. bring that baby to the table!
University of Minnesota Study on Parenting Styles and Family Dinner: Authoritative Style (set rules and routine, but also empathetic and listening) did best with family dinner. Picked up by Babble Editors and many others. Official press release here.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
The "One Cookie" Debate
The NYT Well blog this week features an interesting article debating whether cutting one cookie or a can of soda a day from your diet is enough to make any significant impact on weight loss. Or taken writ large that question could be posed: Can small changes in behavior be enough to make a dent in the obesity epidemic in America? The 385 + comments that trail from the blog post, while not in unison, pose an important challenge to the author: if we don't have the "small changes" to make, what do we have? Some people report how several small changes, taken together, start to amount to broad changes toward healthier lifestyles. Others seem to suggest that a commitment to a better diet or improved activity has to start somewhere. Only a few seemed willing to throw up their hands and give up.
Another issue is that we are actually not talking about ONE cookie; we are talking about many cookies and extra snacks a day. (See Parker-Pope's blog the every next day: Generation Snack.) And sometimes it's the GIANT cookies or muffins or bagels you find at the local bakery, which are many times the calories of a lowly normal cookie. The habits of having a cookie a day or a soda a day are not learned overnight, and may take some doing to unlearn. Again, acknowledging the problem and starting "somewhere," is an important step.
Sometimes dramatic change in lifestyle or diet is needed. Often a surprising lab result from a doctor's visit or a loved one's illness can prompt one to review diet and activity levels. But what's the best way to make life-long behavior changes? Single drastic changes, such as adopting "the all fruit diet," "the all carb diet," or whatever fad diet is in the spotlight, are doomed to be short-lived. On the other hand, focusing on the "small stuff" can actually mean making mindful changes in eating or exercising habits. This represents a constant, on-going process of decision-making that can result in more profound changes. It is not an overnight fix, mandated and scripted by someone else. It is taking responsibility for ones' self and making manageble changes that will improve your health, both now and long term.
In Obesity Epidemic, What's One Cookie? Tara Parker-Pope, Well Blog, NYT, 3.1.10
U.S. Children: Generation Snack, Tara Parker-Pope, Well Blog, NYT, 3.2.10
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Food Stamps and Healthy Choices
A profile of the Food Stamp/EBT program in the New York Times last weekend had a number of surprising statistics, foremost that an astonishing 1.5 million New York City residents received benefits. Another surprise, to me, came in the breakdown of most popular items purchased. The "most popular" item: red meat. Nationwide, inexpensive red meats (7.8 percent of all transactions) and milk and yogurt (7.6 percent, combined). That's just as a percentage of actual transactions, not dollar value. Since meat tends to be more expensive that any other food purchase, the percentage of actual costs associated with meat purchases must be even higher. Also, high on the list were "more expensive" red meats at 6.7 percent and "bacon, sausage and luncheon meats" at 5.9 percent. Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? Red meat is not the best nutritional bang for your buck and is not the healthiest choice, especially for a demographic group that may be having health issues, in addition to tough economic straits.
While I don't support strict shopping restrictions for food stamp recipients, there's an argument that better education is needed to promote better shopping habits and menu planning. By inadvertently supporting a steady diet of red meat, the food stamp program might be contributing to larger problems of obesity and health concerns related to high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I'm certainly an occasional red meat eater, and I believe in moderation rather than strict dietary rules. But economical and healthy meals can be created without a over-dependence on red meat. Chicken (just 5.3 percent of EBT purchases), fish, beans, grains and vegetables can all be the center of healthy and satisfying meals.
I'm interested to learn what nutritional advice or other educational supports are provided to people who depend on the food assistance program. Can better information lead to better buying choices now, and improved health down the road?
Buying Milk and Meat, With Plastic Alan Feuer, NYT, 2.26.10
Once Stigmatized, Food Stamps Find Acceptance, Jason DeParle, NYT 2.10.10
A History of Food Stamps, Use and Policy, An interactive timeline. NYT, 2.11.10
Hungry in America, NYT 2.09.10
Monday, February 22, 2010
Michaell Obama takes on Childhood Obesity
Michelle Obama, self-proclaimed Mom-in-Chief, is taking on one of the biggest challenges parents, educators, and health professionals face today: how to combat rising obesity in children. The numbers are striking: close to 1/3 of American children can be considered obese and obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years. Over $150 billion dollars are spent each year on obesity-related conditions overall. It is a huge and important endeavor to encourage parents and kids to choose healthier food and fitness options and to motivate health professionals, government agencies, and foundations to work together to meet this challenge.
Personal change is needed, but so are policy changes and structural supports that can help parents and kids make better choices. School lunch and school recess are perfect examples. Kids need healthy lunches both to learn better and to keep healthy. Active play at recess or gym is important as exercise and a way to release pent-up energy so that the kids can settle in and learn better in the classroom. Every parent and teacher knows this. But sadly, school lunch is too often high-fat fried foods and athletic time is too often cut for budgetary or scheduling concerns. No individual parent has control of a school's schedule or its lunch options, but together parents, educators, and local politicians can support common sense choices that can benefit all.
A call to action is needed to make sure these issues are on the table as viewed as critically important. Here, here to Michelle for leading the call. Her newest effort has two parts. The Let's Move campaign is aimed at parents, teachers, and kids providing both practical advice and information on policy advocacy for school lunch and affordable access to healthy food. The Partnership for a Healthier America is a collaboration of the biggest foundations in the health field (W.K.Kellogg, Robert Wood Johnson, etc), many of whom are already sponsoring evaluations on how to improve fitness and food choices among youth. It is so exciting that these ideas are getting a national spotlight with leadership from the First Lady.
Childhood Obesity Battle is Taken up by First Lady, NYT, 2.09.10
Let's Move campaign
Partnership for a Healthier America
Friday, January 9, 2009
Happy New Year Family Dinner
Photo from www.healthnews.comSaving money and losing weight often top the list of New Year's resolutions and it's no surprise that cooking at home and having family dinner can help with both those goals. (Plus, it helps with being more connected to loved ones, which is a good resolution too.)
The biggest challenge with resolutions is that most people who make them give up with shocking speed. I think the average time on a diet is one week. This old CNN article tells the tale that at least 30% of people don't keep their New Year's resolutions into February. It's understandable, because change is hard. The best way to change is to make it a part of your routine. Want to exercise more? Get a dog that needs walking or bike to work, or sign up for that exercise with a friend who will absolutely make you go. Want to cook more at home and eat healthy foods? Start out with a weekly shopping trip and a plan, get your family involved and start doing it. Everyday.
For a little inspiration, Bittman starts out the year with a great column on how to stock you fridge and pantry to have the ingredients for easy, delicious meals on hand. There's even more tidbits on his Bitten Blog. And remember, even small changes can make a huge difference. Good advice on picking a manageable healthy eating goal here.
Fresh Start for a New Year? Let's Begin in the Kitchen. Mark Bittman, NYT 01.06.09
What to Ditch in the Kitchen. Bitten Blog, 01.07.09
Recipes for Health A NYT Round-up
New Year's Resolution 2009: One Small Step Toward Healthy Eating. Susan Brady, Health News Blog, 12.28.08
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