I am a little chunky -- a size 16, for those who know dress sizes. However, I am strong. I walk daily. Two years ago, a skeptical housemate (who had been raised to believe that if you had fat on your frame, you must be lazy and weak) did not believe that I had any "umph" to my muscles. On a bet, I scooped her off the floor, tossed her a foot or two in the air, and caught her cradled in my arms. The look on her face was a combination of shock and a toddler's DO IT AGAIN!
I know it's not that I don't eat well -- I just like my own cooking a bit too much. And, admittedly, asthma and the insults of middle age have slowed me down from the girl who ran cross country and spent 20 plus hours a week in modern and social dancing.
But I am proud of my son. At 13, his pediatrician went out of her way to congratulate us last fall -- his height and weight fall in the middle of the ideal range for his age. Slight and wiry, he walks easily three miles a day to and from school, and exercising the dog. When we go somewhere else, we might double that.
I ensure through our daily routine that he exercises, and ration his TV and computer time. Diet alone won't work. Does it shock you that I don't own a car? Here in Boston, it's easier than most places, between public transportation and car sharing.
We eat well. I go and load up a hiking pack of vegetables and fruit at Haymarket nearly every week for two of us. As I work at home, I usually have a pot of something cooking. Yesterday it was beef and barley soup, loaded with veggies and, of course, whole grain.
Our most common drink is water. Unlike many parents, who seem to encourage their children to drink little to reduce bathroom breaks, I encourage my child to drink water freely, and take frequent breaks.
Desserts are rationed, as is candy and sugared drinks (including fruit juice!).
But I'm not a puritan. We eat meat. Yesterday, we went to a coffeeshop to celebrate my kid getting honorable mention for an essay he wrote on fair housing for a city-wide prize competition. I told him he could have anything he wanted, so of course he picked the most expensive thing in the case -- a key lime cheesecake tart. He slugged down a fruit smoothy, but only got about 20% through the tart. Wonderful, but too concentrated a flavor to just eat! So he'll enjoy it over the weekend (and maybe give Mom a couple bites).
One principle I've raised my son with is that eating at home is better for you, economical, and makes eating out more special. In a day when fewer and fewer people learn to cook, or make the time to cook, eating out has become pedestrian. Foods that we used to reserve for feasts and festivals become degraded in "hungry man dinners," fresh from freezer to microwave, poorly executed and taken for granted.
When we really cook something special -- and I delight to cook for friends -- it is, truly, special.
Food is meant to be care for the temple of the soul, and our culture prostitutes it. We find meals with elaborate makeup and paint on the cardboard carton, but what's inside doesn't satisfy the body, far less the soul.
If we, again made a virtue of food, a celebration, something with a little bit of sacred and a lot of love and intention, perhaps our children would learn to care for their bodies. If you think you don't have time, you're moving too fast. Your children's youth is flying past -- what are you preparing them for in adulthood?
Slow down. Make your food slow, conscious, deliberate, good. Make it part of the love for your kids, not just something you throw at them like pellets to a caged animal.
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Comments: 10
Now that I am getting ready to have a baby I give these types of things a lot more thought and hope I do as good of a job in this area as my parents did. Luckily I love to cook. No drive-throughs for my kid.
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David is Editor in Chief at Gather
I think back to all our family meals together, the roucous dinner times, the celebratory feasts that took days and hours to prepare and now I smile when I hear my kids as they ask how to make my specialties... these kids who are svelte, and healthy and beautiful. They eat healthily, exercise regularly and call mom on the phone as often as possible. I must have done something right!
You are quite right with your admonitions in that last paragraph. We all need to slow down. The image you provoked by that statement "Make it part of the love for your kids, not just something you throw at them like pellets to a caged animal." is simply powerful. In this busy times, some people don't even do that, they just throw the animals out to find their own food to graze!
Every mother should read this reminder. Thanks for writing it so well!
2 plastic grocery bags of Mesclun, $2
A bunch of watercress $1
two fat canadian hothouse beefsteak tomatoes $1
A 1/2 lb filet of grouper, $1.50
3# bananas $1.50
4 green peppers $1
2 huge rutabagas, solid, not spongy #3/$1
(2) 1# boxes of California strawberries $2
six organic valencias (small) $1
two yellow mangos $1
(3) 1# bags of Florida radishes $1
Really, I only spent $13, because one bag of salad I promised to pick up for my landlord.
Not only do you rock, but you rock IN PERSON. So glad to meet you in person, it was really a special morning, was it not? The sun was shining on us, girl!
I look forward to reading more of your articles in the future.
Keep up the good work.
And btw, thank you for holding my bag & coat. You sounded awesome on camera!!!
Glad we met, glad to have you in my network, I'll check out more of your stuff!
Thanks Shava, as I believe we can learn a lot from eachother.
Have a super weekend!
With all our modern conveniences, it is odd to me that we all seem to be so much busier than we were decades ago. Rituals such as preparing dinner seem to have fallen by the wayside in favor of some really inspid convenience foods. It is definitely time to bring back slow food.