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So Do I Take Vitamins or Not?

If you have been reading the newspaper or listening to the TV (or radio/internet) reports over the past few weeks, you undoubtedly are aware of the controversy surrounding vitamins. Most recent reports have come up with negative findings indicating that most vitamin supplements do not prevent disease and in fact some are associated with a higher risk of causing the disease itself. With the exception of folic acid for prevention of neural tube defects, omega-3 fatty acids benefit in heart disease and B12 supplementation for dementia, the bet is off for basically everything else. The pendulum has definitely swung in the negative direction for the supplement industry. So what do you do? According to most health experts, eating a diet that includes all of the natural vitamins is the best way to keep your body healthy. This translates into making fruits and veggies over half of your daily diet, eating low saturated fat proteins,  low fat dairy, whole grains, plenty of fiber and keeping your diet low in added salt and sugar. Eating the fruit or vegetable gives you many more health benefits (and much less sugar) than drinking the juice or taking a pill.

Advertising Directly To Children: Healthy and Nutritious Makes an Impact

In the advertising world, statistics abound. Most advertising firms know very well what will sell to kids: cartoon characters with a message. How many cartoon characters are covering the cereal cartons and packages of food items that are marketed for kids? So it should come as no surprise that when cartoon characters and well known fast food franchise icons are on foods, they will be the most popular choices when it comes to selection and purchase. A recent study published in the Journal of Pediatrics                 (Ferguson, CJ et. al., Journal of Pediatrics, Aug 2011) confirmed that commercials influence children. And the study also was able to show that parents also have a strong effect on the child’s choice. So what do you do? My suggestion is to have cartoon characters, like Nerdel, eat healthy items and show these to kids all over the world. Children will watch Nerdel choose the healthy choices and learn this behavior. With the parents support, a child will learn to eat and select the nutritious and healthy choices as part of their diet.

Family Meals Can Influence a Child’s Food Diversity

I am a proponent like my predecessor GG, in advocating family meals. It’s great to sit together and discuss the day’s events and just talk. So much of our lives have become filled up with techno socializing: you know what I mean, texting, emailing and all of the other forms of social non vocal messaging we do from a distance.  We are really losing our ability to talk and have an actual conversation.  From teachers who ask for email messages, to kids conversing over the internet without talking to each other, we are focusing on our typing skills more than our vocal cords.  In fact, according to many orthopedic experts, our future generations of kids will develop carpal tunnel problems, hand and finger arthritis and need glasses much sooner than prior generations. Anyway, studies have found that kids who participate in family meals are more likely to try new types of food (e.g. Faye Powell-Loughborough University). In this recent study by Powell, she found that a positive interaction between parent and child was more likely to result in the child trying new foods compared to strategies that involved parental coercion. So what do you do? Never underestimate your role as a parent in shaping the behavior of your child. Your child is like a sponge and will watch, mimic and copy your every behavior. From your likes and dislikes, to your comments about food taste and choice. If you are open to new foods, your child will be as well.

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