Let’s Talk About Food

I’m sure I’m going to step on a few toes with this one but I must say a few things about obesity.  Mind you, according to the charts, I myself am overweight so I get that denial thing. I do believe however, that obesity in children, in particular, is something that we need to get control over. Don’t take it lightly. I do know that genetics plays a big part in this epidemic but I also know that tradition, and patterns, along with food choices play a tremendous part also.  How many times have you heard older folks (my generation and older) look  at infants and say – awww he or she is healthy when they are plump or fat.  How many times did I hear “you better feed that child and fatten him (or her) up”.  That’s exactly what I didn’t want to do. I never was one for over feeding children – even babies.  They got a certain amount of milk and that was that. I could always supplement by giving them water (although they tell me now that the general consensus in the health community is NOT to give babies water). Frankly I\’ll leave that up to you and your pediatrician.  My youngest daughter’s pediatrician told me not to give her cereal until she was about a year old.  I was to start with fruit first and not until she was about 9 months old. I found out that controlling food portions was a great way to control weight.  That along with a healthy, balanced diet, goes a long way. Since my parents, my dad in particular, was very conscious of what he ate, both my and sister and I seem to have inherited that consciousness. I remember him putting wheat germ on our oatmeal each morning and giving us cod liver oil (one teaspoon) before going to school. It was nothing for me to find him boiling watermelons seeds and making a tea from them because “it was good for you”.

When I got pregnant with my first child at 29, I weighed a whopping 105lbs!!! After three children I weighed 114lbs. Following my dad’s blueprint, I took being healthy very serious. The children and I would go food shopping for the week. I never believed in “bulk” shopping. The more food you have available, the more you eat. I found that if I brought a lot of something, the children would devour it twice as fast.  If I told them that this is what we have for the week, they tended to moderate their intake much better.  My assertion is that, they are really not hungry a lot of the time, they only eat because it’s available. Not only that, another benefit is that you teach them discipline and moderation two skills that become more and more important as they grow into adulthood. Thinking back I can understand why I got the nickname “mommy dearest” because I was determined to have some order to things in my household. Grocery shopping was always challenging because I never had an abundance of money to spend at the store. I was equally determined to not buy “junk food”. Everyone knows that eating healthy is extremely difficult on a small budget (especially in minority neighborhoods where we are often inundated with the worst foods just waiting for us to consume.) Just think about it…… how many fast food establishments do you see in poor neighborhoods? McDonalds, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Popeyes, every few blocks. The smell of French fries saturated the air. Please don’t misunderstand me I’m not saying that those establishments are not found in other communities but what I have noticed is that in those other communities you get more of a choice. So you can imagine that I wasn’t very likable by my children when we would bypass all those fast food establishments and head off to the grocery store where I carefully selected fresh vegetables, fruits, real juice (not artificially colored drinks). Definitely NO SODA. I was so amazed to learn that there are soda machines in the high school these days. I would bypass the processed food like boxed mashed potatoes and processed mac and cheese – electing instead real potatoes, a block of cheese (that I had to grate) along with noodles, milk and eggs. Each meal contained a balance diet – fruit, vegetables, starch, and protein. I often hear people say, “I don’t have time to cook” so off they go to grab some fast food. You’d be surprised how quickly you can make a meal. It would all start with food selection. Now don’t get me wrong, I did give the children (on occasion) ice cream or ices – maybe donuts if I could squeeze out enough money.  We even went to McDonalds every once in a while (usually to celebrate somebody’s birthday). After all complete deprivation can sometimes lead to out of control behavior when the opportunity arises. I learned through the years that parenting is a very delicate balance. Anyway the cashier’s at the grocery store all knew us from our weekly shopping spree. There was an occasion that sticks with me all these many years later. The children and I had collected all the items on the list and when we got to the counter I kept watching as the cashier was totaling up my groceries.  started calculating and recalculating in my mind, all the while panic was starting to build more and more as he neared the completion of the groceries. Maybe I had really miscalculated and I wouldn’t have enough money after all for everything. My eyes were fixed on that total and as it turned out I didn’t  have enough to get the broccoli.  Right there in the checkout line I started to cry. Yamil looked up and said “what’s wrong mommy? You crying because we can’t get the broccoli?” He immediately tried to convince me that it was okay. (He probably was thinking….as long as you don’t put the donuts back we are fine!). I tried to brush it off but at that moment I felt so defeated, so inadequate as a parent.  Here I was in the store and I didn’t even have enough to feed my children healthy food. I paid for the rest of the things and the cashier packed my bags for me and off we went for home. When we got in and started unpacking the food, low and behold, I came across that head of broccoli down in the bottom of the bag. This verse immediately came to mind…..“and my God Shall provide all your needs accordingly to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19). “Praise God from whom all blessings flow”!!!!