posioning by chips ahoy
Posted on April 27, 2007
Filed Under kids, parenting, suburban joys, snark |
Almost every day at my house we have a discussion about food; a loud discussion with tears and defiance and barbed accusations. Because, according to my kids, they are the only unfortunate children in their entire elementary school of six hundred children that are sent to school with ‘healthy snacks’. It is their observation that ALL their friends get to gorge on Oreos and Doritos and Cheez Doodles, washing it all down with Lemonade or Gatorade or some other high fructose corn syrup concoction on a daily basis while they are stuck with yogurt, apples, Kashi crackers and Nutri-Grain Breakfast Bars.
When helping out in G’s classroom this morning, I was careful to observe what delicacy each child pulled out of their pack at snack time. And truly, my kids are NOT exaggerating. I could find only two children in a class of twenty that had brought something that met my healthy snack standards and one of them was my G. The other little boy whose parents share my aversion to junk food had sent in a nice little trail mix of nuts and dried fruit and something else that looked like twigs. He seemed content with his mother’s snack choice though I’m sure he gives her hell about it every morning while she’s lovingly stirring up a big pot of cashews and dried apricots and leaf litter from the yard.
Let me explain what the four children I helped with their tadpole project this morning ate for morning snack. Valerie had a Capri Sun lemonade and Ritz Bitz Peanut Butter Crackers, Danielle had Hostess Ding Dongs and a juice box, Madison ate Doritos and Gatorade and Mark relished some Keebler Fudge Stripes and a chocolate milk.
G walked up behind me while the feasting was in progress and whispered in my ear, “See, Mom. I’m the only one who has to eat this stuff.” And she held out her Stonyfield Farm smoothie (which in my opinion has way too much sugar) and her apple with disdain. I whispered back, “Yes but they will all be obese and diabetic when they get older and you’ll be just perfect.”
WTF parents of elementary aged kids. Didn’t you get the memo? This stuff is not nourishment, it’s nothing but sugar and fat and chemical additives the names of which we can’t pronounce. No wonder we have a rash of kids who can’t sit still during class time and have to take medication to remain on task. The meds are just the antidote for Chips Ahoy poisoning.
The way I feel about school snack is similar to the way I feel about boob jobs and sun tans. If all children brought yogurt and fruit and nuts and leaf litter to school as snack then there would be no discontent. If all the world’s women would eschew breast augmentation then there would be fewer women suffering from the I-must-have-the-breast-of-an-eighteen-year-old-even-though I’m-forty-two-syndrome and clothing manufacturers would stop making spaghetti straps and tube tops. And if glamorous people would just stop showing up to awards events all bronzed up and exuding the warmth of St. Barts then we could all embrace our natural grayish pallor, strutting our glaringly white legs with the confidence that comes from avoiding Basal Cell Carcinoma.
This mom of the slightly deflated breasts with the handbag full of sunblock and raisins and cereal bars is off to the grocery where I will buy organic milk and whole wheat frozen waffles and, because I’m feeling kind of crazy, a bag of SmartFood. Afterall, a kid’s gotta live a little.
(Painting lifted from Artchive website done by Paul Cezanne in 1899.)
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16 Responses to “posioning by chips ahoy”
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I’m somewhere in the middle between you and those other moms when it comes to snack…
I have an almost 10-year-old who is 4′7″ and who weighs 60 pounds on a good day.
So I’m not above sending him to school with peanut butter crackers.
However, I draw the line well before Doritos.
I am dying to know what Jolie’s classmates bring to school. Not even just for snacks but for lunch too. I’m scared to death of putting anything unhealthy in Jolie’s lunchbox (not that I would knowingly) because of the teacher fall out. They’re pretty judgmental over there.
ouch.
over-processed pepperoni.
jello.
diced peaches in syrup.
gatorade.
every. single. day.
i tried healthy but found that we were wasting wholefoods money on uneaten lunches.
i caved.
i pick my battles.
one crappy meal a day, EVERYday is not going to kill her, right? (thank goodness the other one is still a half-dayer)
sigh.
Hey there. Nice blog, thanks for dropping by and comenting.
Glad to find a kindred soul. I am pretty obsessive about every morsel that goes into my son’s mouth. But he’s barely two yet so the real battle will be when he starts school and the peer presure kicks in.
i am totally with you….unfortunately, i think we are totally alone. i get the same complaint and we have the same conversations. i make myself feel better by buying the “all natural paul newman” oreos. i still cut his “all natural, fructose corn syrup free” juice 50/50 with water when he’s not looking (not really working lately).
i think (and i am the first to point the big finger at myself) that it’s part laziness. we are all educated and want the best for our kids so why else? honestly, i just don’t have the time to stir up that “big pot of cashews and dried apricots and leaf litter from the yard” that you mentioned!
but it’s also that i don’t want my baby (almost 7) to be singled out. isn’t childhood tough enough some days? my partner talks my ear off about theories on peer influence (yada yada yada) but i think i’m seeing that more and more. after all, he spends more waking hours during the week with his mates than he does with us. so, until we get everyone on board, we are swimming against a strong current.
i will say that working in public health, obesity is the new “it” disease to focus on. we no longer have soft drink machines in our schools. is there hope? maybe.
As a homeschool Mom, I never have to deal with these issues. I have my 13 year old on a gluten free diet and my 7 year old on a strict health food diet. The treats they get are high quality, and I’ve taught the elder one to read ingredients lists. She knows nearly everything I know about health nutrition.
Oops, I think you may have stirred up a little wasp nest of “proper mommyhood” here. Sort of a later version of the Breast or Bottle debate. I, myself, being childless, am way above the fray…however, my dog is fed both health food and french fries. I guess the means I feel everyone’s pain.
I know this is a contentious issue and you’re right, By Jane, it’s a little bit akin to breast or bottle except I understand why people bottle feed babies: for some, breast feeding just isn’t an option due to work or physical discomfort or food allergies or whatever. Though formula isn’t AS good as breast milk by scientific standards, it’s a pretty nutritious stand in. But in terms of what parents feed their children post breast milk/formula there’s NO evidence that suggests anything good comes of a daily dose of Ding Dongs. I suppose if it were once a day maybe I could see the lapse but the Kindergartners in G’s school have two snacks a day… that’s two helpings of ding dongs and a high fructose corn syrup beverage each time. I’m gonna get serious here and say while we all tell our children about looking both ways, never to take candy from a stranger, we make fires safety exit strategies and make sure our children are inoculated against measles, chicken pox, etc. But we don’t bother to care what our children put in their mouth every day. They are far more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes or some other obesity related illness than of being hit by a car, abducted or contracting TB. The difference is the disease will be slow coming and they won’t have to contend with results of their terrible eating habits until they are adults. As parents we are doing them a disservice NOW, when they are little and, like all human beings, would eat cake three times a day if allowed. It’s difficult, inconvenient and expensive to provide healthy eats but it’s criminal not to.
chrlane, as a homeschool Mom, you never have to deal with these issues… to wit: how to steer your child one way when others are doing something different. You have removed your children from such situations. This does not teach anything, it simply avoids the problem. How long can your children avoid the call to fit in?
What? Were we seperated at birth or do you just eavesdrop on my conversations with my children? I get the same grief and they eat the same foods as yours (down to the whole wheat waffles - which I kinda like).
I plan to print this one off and show them the next time they complain. See? There are other children just like you. You just don’t know them….
My parents are health food people too. They aren’t as strict as you are, but I was the kid jealous of what other kids were eating. You are definitely doing the right thing though, your kids will be much healthier for it.
Did I just say that…
Anymouse, in our experience, other kids from families with unhealthy diets make no issue whatsoever with how we eat. Kids are so much more resilient and open minded than we credit them for.
No- they are not jealous. They get so much intellectual freedom that commercial junk food is no longer an emotional placebo.
We just moderate the frequency and quality of treat consumption. They are often horrified, though, with what their poor little friends are eating.
Hey there - weighing in here - I am the proud mother of a daughter who regularly gets compliments from the teacher about her “healthy” lunchbox. And also helping out in the classroom and at tuckshop (looking for a job - may as well fill the hours) I see what the competition is!
But I do it for more reasons than aiming to please the teacher.
The first reason is that I refuse to spend money on the junk food in the first place, as she can be as faddish about that as about fruit - at least the fruit can be chopped and made into iceblocks!
The second is that I have witnessed my child on sugar highs, and I am not willing to give that experience to anyone. And yes - I have seen those other children on sugar highs and thank higher powers that I am a volunteer only and can WALK AWAY from others.
The third is that my family have a lovely little tummy foible that means high fat content = extreme discomfort, so why would I do that?
I know that there is a problem that a lot of mums point fingers at other mums and feel superior, but the reality is that there is no really good reason to fill our children with preservatives, sugar and fat. We are meant to be the ones to give our children lessons in life, and I think healthy eating is one of those lessons.
Seriously - I can buy the bottle feeding argument because I know some people have problems and being a mother is a time consuming, mind numbing experience, especially during infancy.
But seriously - it is far quicker to pack a piece of fruit than open a packet of sugar laden crap. And if there is no choice, children will generally not starve themselves.
I love it that you tell her they’ll all be obese and diabetic! Too funny. (well not funny in that it’s true, but it’s a funny response to a complaining kid)
I am a semi-fanatic about this — I’ve loosened up a lot over the years. But yes, I’m shocked by what some kids are eating. At my kids school, one person brings a snack each day for everyone, so everyone has the same. And some kids bring CANDY.
So I’m telling my kid — uh, candy is a TREAT, not a SNACK!!!! but I let him bring Teddy Grahams and Animal Crackers on his snack day — because it’s not worth it to me to argue about that once a month.
I let my kids eat WAAAAY too much sugar, for certain, but I feed them three healthy meals every day too.
I have a lot of comments…but it won’t do much good to air them here. I won’t even touch the breastfeeding - I tried it and it didn’t work for me. I believe it’s a choice and that altough it might be healthier, I’ve seen plenty of breastfed kids with continuous illnesses.
Our 4.5 year old attends a Pre-K where the parents bring snack once a month and they only allow healthy snacks. But to them a healthy snack would allow: cheese, peanut butter crackers, apple juice, etc… They just prefer no chips, cookies, dessert type foods, etc…
While we don’t ‘exclude’ any food, we do monitor how much & when he gets it. We try to balance his meals, as a little fat/sugar is considered alright in a daily diet for a growing and energetic boy.
For dinner tonight he ate - 2 slices of cheese pizza, watermelon, cheese cubes, carrots with veggie dip, tortilla chips and milk.
But tomorrow he’s off school and we may eat lunch out at Chik-Fil-A? But again, I think it’s a personal choice as a parent.