As I was perusing the latest and greatest health research, I came upon this article on athlete endorsements. The Oct 2013 Yale study, published in the journal Pediatrics, showed that some athletes endorse energy dense, nutrient depleted foods and how that could influence our children’s food choices. The stats were a bit shocking. Per the article, “Seventy-nine percent of the 62 food products in athlete-endorsed advertisements were energy-dense and nutrient-poor, and 93.4% of the 46 advertised beverages had 100% of calories from added sugar.” It brought me back to our son. Out of the blue a couple weeks ago, he wanted a chili dog. I thought he just heard someone say they liked them and then made it his own “like” (without ever trying it, of course). The following week he said he wanted a chili dog. I had just made a pot of chili and we had a couple hot dogs (yes, low sodium, low fat ones). My husband made him one and he devoured it. I asked why the sudden love for chili dogs, to which he said…”Mom, it’s Sonic’s favorite food!”. If my son, at age 6, is influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog, then the study is on point with older kids being influence by their favorite sport stars. Right now my husband and I have a major influence on his food choices, so the chili dog is not a big deal to me because I know what is in the chili…we make it, buy the hot dogs and control how often he is allowed to have it. However, 10 years from now he’ll be able to buy the chili dog from some fast food joint on his own. At that point, I can only hope we gave him enough knowledge to make overall healthy choices and keep the chili dogs (or insert any processed not-made-at-home food here) to an occasional treat. I’m also hoping that, since we cook most our meals at home and avoid processed, ready made meals that he will not have a palate for the over salted/sugared/battered/fried foods. Right now he tells me he his favorite food is salad (woo hoo!), but if the correlation the article makes is correct we may be up against a battle with a sports star/superhero/cartoon character in the future. I cringe at the thought of the youth that already have less than desirable eating habits. All the superstars are doing is reinforcing how cool it is to eat like crap….great. I’m curious how many of these athletes actually use the product they are endorsing? They no doubt all work with registered dieticians; wonder if they approve of what the athletes are endorsing? I’ve seen sample diets of elite athletes and no where in it is McDonalds, Burger King, or Papa John’s listed. So, why in the world are they endorsing it? Duh, the money, of course! According to the study, LeBron James pulled in a cool $5 million/year for endorsing Bubblicious; Kobe Bryant made $10 million from his McDonald’s endorsement; and Peyton Manning also took in a combined $10 million/year with his contracts with Papa John’s, Gatorade, Wheaties, Sony and Direct TV. (I’ll give a smidge of credit for Wheaties.) Thinking a bit idealistically…what if these superstars started endorsing water, fruits, vegetables, whole food eating and no processed foods? If Sonic’s favorite food was brussel spouts, would our son be asking for a plate full? Bet the farmers of the worlds would be overjoyed to have Peyton sitting in front of a plate of salad. Ahhh to dream… There’s no reason it could not become a reality…anything can happen, if it is wanted enough. But in the mean time, what do we, as parents do? Well, it’s important that we set the right example first. We have to avoid falling for the “if-the-famous-sports-dude-is-eating-it-it-must-be-healthy” thought process. We have to educate ourselves first and start making the right choices for the family. If you are eating it, the chances are very high your children will eat it…maybe not right off…but if allowed to try over and over, it will happen. One of the worse things I’ve seen parents do is to eat their “diet” food and give the children the chicken nuggets and French fries. If there is change, it has to be done as a family. Communication is crazy important. Kids are smart and they do listen (as much as we think otherwise). I’ll use my son again as an example. The school he goes to has a decent healthy hot lunch program. There are a few areas I’d like to change (e.g. chocolate and strawberry milk), but they do great at serving whole fruits and vegetables each day. The agreement we have is that he gets to have hot lunch on Fridays. It’s a win-win…I have majority control over his diet, he gets to have his “treat” (chocolate or strawberry milk) and we start teaching him to make healthy choices on his own. Last week he forgot his lunch box at school, twice; giving him two extra days of hot lunch and chocolate milk. I cringe knowing how much sugar is in the sweetened milk, but don’t make an issue out of a once a week treat. Three times a week…well, that’s is a bit excessive. So, I casually mention to him that although I don’t mind special milk once a week, three times is a little too much and it would be better if he considered making a different choice. He asked me why and I told him it had a lot of sugar in it, which really wasn’t a good everyday choice. I never made another mention that week. Lo and behold, he chose water on Friday…mom was a proud (and a little surprised) peacock. (Or he was just saying it to avoid a lecture. I’ll just let myself believe it was a good choice.) Let there be cake! Life is about balance…and it’s important to teach that to our children. We do not have a ton of treats in the house; snacks are frequently fruit or a smoothie. However, when there is a birthday, mom is making the cake (and yes, I grab a box mix) complete with frosting and marshmallow fondant. (Okay, confession time…I added flax to the chocolate cake.) Albeit, the birthday cake is sized so there are no, or very few, remains. No matter, my kids see what moderation is all about. But…. Limit the food rewards. Have we bought the treat after they got a shot…oh yeah. I’d be a liar if I said we didn’t. However, we try to keep that to a minimum. If our kids had a tough day at school, we let them talk about it, support them and figure out how to better handle the situation next time…all without comfort foods. Enjoy what you eat. There was a show awhile back called “Honey, We’re Killing the Kids”. The premise was that the nutritionally bad habits the family had were shortening years off of the children’s lives. A registered dietician came into the family’s home and did a dietary overhaul. What shocked me most about the show was that it was the parents that dug their heels in hardest at the changes being implemented. If your child watches you gag at eating salad, do you really think they are going to want to eat it? We have to understand that it starts with the family. If our children see us making healthy choices, enjoying our choices and having a healthy relationship with food there is a good chance they will follow suit; and a good chance we can overcome any sports star junk food endorsement. Consistency is the key, but… LeBron and Peyton, it would not hurt if you started to endorse broccoli.
TruPrevention
Let's prevent disease instead of curing it.
