In the documentary Fast Food Baby, three families struggle
with feeding their kids an unhealthy diet and start the
journey toward healthier eating
Many diseases that once only plagued middle-aged or older
adults, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood
pressure and even liver disease, are now plaguing kids,
largely due to poor diet
The best time to shape your kids' eating habits is while
they're still young, as kids learn very quickly to prefer
certain tastes and textures, and these can last a lifetime.
Offering healthy foods to your children regularly is one of
the most important parenting decisions you can make; and
remember that it can take up to 15 ‘exposures’ before your
child accepts a new healthy food
In the documentary Fast Food Baby, you can follow
three families on a quest to change the way their children eat.
Each case is unique – a young single mom who doesn’t want to
cook, a healthy-eating couple who gives in to their toddler’s
junk-food demands, and a family of five resorting to carry-out
over home-cooked meals far too often.
But in the end, the results are the same: kids consuming far
too much sugar,
unhealthy fats and additives from a poor diet that’s already
manifesting into health problems ranging from anemia and tooth
decay to hyperactivity, all before the age of 5.
What Happens When Kids Eat a Fast-Food Diet?
Nutrients from quality foods are critical in helping your
child reach his or her fullest potential. Unfortunately, many
kids are not getting the nutrients they need, including in the
US where:1
Nearly 40% of children's diets come from added sugars
and unhealthy fats
Only 21% of youth age 6-19 eat the recommended five or
more servings of fruits and vegetables each day
This is a veritable recipe for disease, and is a primary
reason why many of today's kids are arguably less healthy now
than most all previous generations. Obesity, type 2 diabetes,
high blood pressure and even
liver disease -- these are diseases that once appeared only
in middle-age and beyond, but are now impacting children.
Mental health is also at stake. One study from British
researchers revealed that kids who ate a predominantly processed
food diet at age 3 had lower IQ scores at age 8.5.2
For each measured increase in processed foods, participants had
a 1.67-point decrease in IQ.
Along with the potential for lowered IQ, a junk-food diet can
also set the stage for
asthma, eczema, and a variety of allergies, inflammatory
conditions and autoimmune diseases.
In fact, most of the leading diseases plaguing the US are
diet-related, including heart disease, diabetes Alzheimer’s and
cancer. The National Institutes of Health even states that four
of the six leading causes of death in the US are linked to
unhealthy diets.
Nutritional deficiencies in your child's first years of life
can even lead to deficits in brain function that put them at
risk of behavioral problems -- from hyperactivity to aggression
-- that can last into the teenage years and beyond. This is why
the importance of proper nutrition simply cannot be overstated.
Your Child's Taste Preferences are Largely Formed by the Age of
3
The best time to shape your kids' eating habits is
while they're still young, as kids learn very quickly to prefer
certain tastes and textures. When parents fed their
preschool-aged children junk foods high in sugar, salt and
unhealthy fats, it had a lasting impact on their taste
preferences in one study.3
All of the children tested showed preferences for junk foods,
and all (even those who were just 3 years old!) were also able
to recognize some soda, fast-food and junk-food brands.
The researchers concluded what you probably already suspect:
kids who were exposed to junk food, soda and fast food, via
advertising and also because their parents fed them these foods,
learned to recognize and prefer these foods over healthier
choices. This doesn’t mean there’s no hope for older children
raised on junk-food; they, too, can learn to love healthy foods,
but it is easier if they instead learn to love such
foods right from the start.
Is Your Child Drinking Soda?
Per capita soft drink consumption has increased nearly 500
percent over the past five decades,4
and children, unfortunately, are a major reason for this
staggering increase. Kids are introduced to soda at very young
ages and consumption only increases as they get older. An
estimated 56 percent of 8-year-olds drink soda daily,
and once the teenage years come, some kids drink at least three
cans of soda each day.5
In the documentary, some of the children featured were drinking
6 glasses of soda a day, and they were well under the age of 5!
Regular soda is, of course, a significant source of sugar
(mostly in the form of
fructose), with each can containing about 10 teaspoons of
sugar. Consumption of sugar-sweetened soda and other beverages
has been linked to the rising obesity epidemic, along with other
health issues, among kids. And diet sodas are not an
acceptable alternative. Diet sodas are actually worse for your
health than regular soda, due to the artificial sweeteners they
contain, and have been linked to weight gain, obesity, cancer,
type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, stroke, addiction, and
other health issues. There’s really no reason for children of
any age to be drinking soda, but toddlers and young children,
especially, should not be wasting valuable calories on this
health-damaging beverage.
Tackling the Reasons Why You're Eating Unhealthy is the First
Step
The documentary is intriguing because it follows three
different families, detailing the reasons why their diets have
gone downhill. The top reasons mentioned, which are probably
similar for many families, include:
Too busy or lack of motivation to cook
Not believing the junk food is harming their children
Battling with a picky eater and believing it’s better
for your child to eat something, even if it’s
unhealthy
Trying to keep mealtime too strict for kids, such that
they’re not free to explore and taste new foods
Parents eating junk foods and teaching this behavior to
their kids
Experts were utilized in each circumstance to help the
families overcome their unique obstacles, and this is what
you’ll need to do in your own home as well. If you feel you’re
too busy to cook, for instance, you’ll need to re-examine your
priorities so nutritional meals can be made to be a part of your
daily life. If motivation is the problem, you may need to
consult with a health care practitioner who can tell you what
health problems are in store for your kids if their diets don’t
change …
Exposing Your Children to Healthy Foods is So Important
As prominent celebrity British chef and food advocate Jamie
Oliver explains in the video above, our food culture has changed
so drastically over the last 30 years, a majority of young
children of today do not even know what fresh, whole food is.
This is a major setback, as the more different flavors a child
is exposed to early on generally the easier time they will have
developing a taste for a variety of healthy foods. This actually
starts with breastfeeding, as the milk will take on the flavors
of whatever the mother eats.
Then, it’s important to keep offering healthy foods to your
child, even if they refuse them or seem to not like them. It can
take 10-15 food exposures before a child becomes familiar with
and likes a certain food, so persistence is important. Food is a
part of crucial lifestyle choices first learned at home, so you
need to
educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of
junk food and processed foods in order to change the food
culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start
in life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a
lifetime, you must lead by example.
If you're not sure where to start, I recommend
reading
my nutrition plan first. This will provide you with the
foundation you need to start making healthy food choices for
your family.
Are Your Kids Hooked on Junk Food? Taking Action Now Could Save
Their Health
Most parents go to great lengths to keep their children safe.
You hold their hand when they walk across the street, teach them
to stay away from a hot stove and tell them not to talk to
strangers. Yet, the majority of parents feed their children
potentially harmful food without a thought for the later
consequences. It's not the occasional treat here and there that
I'm referring to, either. It's the fact that most toddlers
recognize the sign of the "golden arches" long before they are
speaking in full sentences.
Why? Because they are often raised on French fries, fast-food
hamburgers and orange soda, or if "raised" is a bit of a
stretch, are taught that French fries, chicken fingers and soda
is an acceptable meal (worse yet, they may come to think of it
as a reward).