I have just attended a naturopathic conference in Vancouver and returned with some interesting ideas regarding children and nutrition based on a lecture given by Stefan Siebrecht Ph.D from the Netherlands. He works for a large company called DSM that is marketing a type of purified milk protein which, when dissolved in water is clear and contains no lactose or milk proteins that would affect individuals with allergies to milk! This powder, which contains 22 essential amino acids, is being added to athletic drinks in Europe and sold as PeptoPro drinks. This drink was used in the 2004 Olympics by the Dutch Olympic team with great success and is the only protein powder on the market that is taken during exercise with the added benefits of decreased muscle damage during exercise and increased endurance. The market is set to expand where it will be added to fruit drinks that would be ideal for children’s lunches.

The battle to control obesity in children is really fighting the terrible sweet tooth that children develop at an early age from being given sweet things such as fruit juices. Once the damage is done it is very difficult to get these children off of the noodles, pizza and soft drink diets that is at the heart of obesity in North America and countries that have adopted the Western fast food diet.

There are three phases of nutrition education: 1. During pregnancy; 2. From Parents from age 0-14; 3. Make Own Decisions from ages 14 onwards. The issue of childhood obesity may start in utero when pregnant women are diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Elevated levels of circulating insulin increase the number of fat cells in the baby making for larger babies as well as well as increased risk of obesity in children and increase risk of Type II diabetes in the woman later in life. Gestational diabetes can be treated effectively with naturopathic medicine to minimize these effects.

The greatest education takes place between parent and child from age 0-14. Here is where the parent needs to be the example as well as the educator of children on healthy choices. Due to poor diet choices in children these days we are seeing type II diabetes in 11 year olds and fatty liver, liver scars and the beginning of liver cirrhosis at the age of 12! Next time you give your child a “treat” at a fast food restaurant please think about this first! Once the children reach age 14 they make their own food decisions and hopefully all your education will pay off.

Re-educating the taste buds of children is like re-installing a program on a computer. It is hard to install but once installed is difficult to remove. This goes for positive as well as negative foods! The worst mistake is to ask children what they would like to eat! Of course they will ask for pizza, noodles and soft drinks!

Tips on educating children:

1. start at birth: When introducing foods to babies always start with pureed vegetables and limit the fruit. I know of some mothers who have started giving green drinks to babies (6 months or older) and were able to do this until the children got into school when they started to refuse them. By this time however the taste buds of these children have been well adapted to other tastes other than “sweet”
2. Don’t give juices to your babies and children. Get them to eat fruit instead. Not only are juices hard on the teeth but they really establish cravings for sweets. Fruit flavoured herbal teas are well accepted by young children and the Chinese and Japanese start green tea with children at an early age.  Green tea will establish the desire for the “bitter” taste and it is well known to decrease appetite and decrease food intake.
3. It takes 10 different times with one food to get the taste buds of children to adapt to a new taste. Try each food 10 times and the rule is “You always have to try it” before eating the rest of the meal.
4. Get them involved with food and lunch preparation.  It is easy to prepare some foods like scrambled eggs, rice pancakes (see my website for recipe) and avocado dips. Involve your children in this process. This time of year pomegranates are in season. Get them to help you open and de-seed a pomegranate submerged under water. If they don’t like them at first, store the seeds in the fridge and get them to eat a few every day for 10 days and see what happens!
5. Emphasize more protein in their diet and make sure they get some for breakfast. This will maintain their blood sugar at school, so they can get through to lunch with good concentration. Find out what proteins they like. In the future when “Peptopro” is made available in Canada it will be easy to add this protein powder to a fruit juice (this is still better than soft drinks) and when protein is ingested the cravings for sweets is improved as well as concentration and energy.

Make a date with your child today in the kitchen! Tell them that they will get diabetes if they eat sugar and noodles and teach them what diabetes means.