Why Adults Eat Poorly.

Adults eat poorly because we ate that way as kids.

The Good News:  Even though our national obsession with nutrition can lead you to think you are going to absolutely ruin your kids if you don’t feed them right each and every day, the situation isn’t so dire. A bad day of eating here or there won’t kill your kids.

The Bad News: Recent studies have found that the first 3-4 years of eating set the foundation for lifelong eating habits.

• The eating habits kids have at age 3 will follow them through life.  This is especially true with regard to how varied their diet is: if it’s limited early on, it will probably stay that way.

• Kids are more likely to accept new foods between the ages of 3 and 4 than between 4 and 8.

• Although children do add new foods to their diets as they get older, the strongest predictor of what they’ll like when they’re 8 is what they liked when they were 4.

Kids who don’t eat a varied diet eat fewer fruits and vegetables and a lot more processed foods (containing lots of added sugar, fat and salt) than kids who do eat a wide variety of foods.  And this pattern of eating continues into adulthood.

In fact, our adult eating habits are the best evidence that childhood eating patterns follow us through life.

Where do we adults get our calories? The top 10 sources are mostly inferior foods.  Take a look.

1. Regular soft drinks (7.1%)
2. Cake, sweet rolls, doughnuts, pastries (3.6%)
3. Hamburgers, cheeseburgers, meat loaf (3.1%)
4. Pizza (3.1%)
5. Potato chips, corn chips, popcorn (2.9%)
6. Rice (2.7%)
7. Rolls, buns, English muffins, bagels (2.7%)
8. Cheese or cheese spread (2.6%)
9. Beer (2.6%)
10. French fries, fried potatoes (2.2%)

In other words, we get more of our calories from soda, sweets, salty snacks and foods like pizza than we do from fruits and vegetables, whole grains… the stuff that’s actually good for us.

Since most parents don’t feed their kids soda and chips, how do adults end up with such bad eating habits?

Research shows kids (and the adults they grow up to be) like foods for their sensory properties – taste, texture, color, appearance – and not their health properties.

That’s why juice is so problematic. It trains our kids to prefer sweet beverages.  Later in life, juice turns into soda. Read more about juice.

And the Goldfish crackers our kids love? This gets them used to eating salty, crunchy things… like chips! Read more about snacks.

You can turn things around.

• A willingness to try fruits and vegetables is related to the proportion of fruits and vegetables in the home compared to other types of foods. So, buy more fruits and vegetables.

• More money spent on junk food – in particular soda – reduces fruit and vegetable consumption.  So, buy less soda.

• Kids eat more fruits and vegetables when their parents do too. So, eat more apples and broccoli yourself.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

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Sources:

Bittman, M., 2009. Food Matters: a Guide to Conscious Eating. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Busick, D. B., J. Brooks, S. Pernecky, R. Dawson, and J. Petzoldt. 2008. “Parent Food Purchases as a Measure of Exposure and Preschool-Aged Children's Willingness to Identify and Taste Fruit and Vegetables.” Appetite 51: 468-73.

De Moura, S. L. 2007. “Determinants of Food Rejection Amongst School Children.” Appetite 49: 716-19.

Dovey, T. M., P. A. Staples, G. E. Leigh, and J. C. G. Halford. 2008. “Food Neophobia and 'Picky/Fussy' Eating in Children: a Review.” Appetite 50: 181-93.

Nicklaus, S. 2009. “Development of Food Variety in Children.” Appetite 52: 253-55.

Skinner, J. D., B. R. Carruth, W. Bounds, and P. Ziegler. 2002. “Children's Food Preferences: a Logitudinal Analysis.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 102(11): 1638-47.