I started this blog with the intention to give potential clients (and even current ones) a better idea of my approach to nutrition than they might get by just looking at my webpage. The problem is that, like some people, I get pretty insecure about putting my ideas out there. I have written posts, posted them, taken them down, rewritten them, and on. Unfortunately, the ones that I have been most comfortable posting, have been ones about my daughter, Emma, as she begins to experience things around good. So… here’s another one.
Emma, is 4 ½ years old and recently started “pre-school”. Things have been going well and I was even thrilled when I heard that her class was visited by Dr. ZZZ last week. Per Emma, he spoke about great topics such as brushing her teeth 2x/day, washing her hands before eating, healthy eating, etc. I felt my skin cringe a little when she mentioned this last part. I try very hard to avoid the labels in our house.
Then Emma handed me her “homework”. The worksheet had a variety of black and white drawings of food items with instructions to color the “healthy” items and cross out the “unhealthy” ones. I immediately knew this was not going to go down easy for me. I gave the sheet a quick one-over and said that I thought that all of the foods on the sheet could be healthy. Emma didn’t seem to find the humor in this and quickly pointed to a piece of candy and said, “This isn’t healthy. It has lots of sugar.”
“What’s wrong with sugar?” I found myself responding as though she were a client and not a 4.5 year old. “The dentist said it causes “sugar-bugs” on my teeth,” she responds.
I wanted to dive into a conversation on moderation, but instead, I stopped myself and agreed to try to play Dr. ZZZ’s game. “Ok, Emma. Let’s work on this.” I then tried to take my RD hat off and see what he was looking for in this worksheet. I could obviously assume that he meant for a picture of ice cream to be crossed out but I couldn’t bring myself to tell Emma it was “unhealthy”. The child can remember what so-and-so was wearing when we saw them that time at the store. I was not going to have her remember me saying something I couldn’t stand behind later. She ended up coloring every item on the paper as “healthy” (except for the candy- since at this point, I had Dr ZZZ and her dentist going against me). She seemed to have a confused look at the end since only one item was crossed out but thankfully didn’t think too much of it and we moved on to the next activity.
Why am I ranting? First of all she is 4. At this age, she doesn’t grasp the whole message that Dr ZZZ was probably trying to relay- ice cream can be an unhealthy food, so you should have it in moderation. I’m not sure. I wasn’t there to hear the message but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. What my daughter apparently heard, and I can only imagine other children heard as well, is that sugar is bad for you. So what came out of this? Well, for the last week, Emma has asked me “Does this have sugar in it?” for about 15 items in our house. And when I’ve confirmed that, yes, yogurt does have sugar in it, I’ve had to spend another 5 or so minutes explaining to her that while there is sugar in yogurt, it is still ok to eat. I get why she is confused- if she is told sugar is bad, how can eating something that has sugar in it not be bad? She is after all 4.