September 6, 2011 The Bad News about Healthy Lunches
I'm going to suggest something radical: Don't worry about packing a healthy school lunch.
I'm not suggesting you send your kids off to school with Devil Dogs and Twinkies.
But sending children to school with a healthy lunch often (unintentionally) teaches kids the wrong habits.
Healthy lunches teach kids to "Seek and Destroy."
Of course the goal of sending in a healthy lunch is to fill kids up with healthy nutrients. But let's be honest: What would happen if you sent your children off to school with a lunch like this? Would they really eat it?
Unless you have extraordinary eaters, your children would probably devour the banana bread, attack the cheese and crackers, nibble a few blueberries and ... if you're lucky...you might get a bite or two of broccoli out of them.
The Internet is bursting with healthy lunch ideas—This one came from Parents.com—and most of them look delicious to me. The question is: Do they look delicious to your kids? It's worth finding out.
Regularly send food to school that your children won't eat and they'll begin lunch by automatically looking for the items they're going to discard. In other words, they learn to "seek and destroy." (That's a habit to skip!)
Avoid teaching your kids the "Seek and Destroy" mentality by packing foods you know your children will eat.
The best way to do this is to make sure your kids agree on everything that goes into their lunchboxes.
It's scary, I know. You probably think that if your kids have any say, their lunches will consist of PB&J, chips, and cookies. Every Day! It doesn't have to be so.
Giving up on healthy lunches doesn't mean you have to throw in the towel...er..the chips.
You can use school lunch to teach your children healthy eating habits, you just have to be strategic.
1) Make sure that every lunch includes at least one extremely small serving of fruit and one extremely small serving of vegetable.
- You'll get better buy-in for fruits and vegetables (and your kids won't "seek and destroy") if the "challenge" seems "doable," so make the serving size small. Don't send 1/2 cup of broccoli if your children will eat 3 bites.
- Make fruits and vegetables a daily practice. The more you expose your kids to fruits and vegetables, the more familiar these foods will be and the more willingly your kids will eat them. (It's circular logic, but it's true.)
2) Pay attention to portion size.
- Your children will be more likely to eat their fruit and vegetable if the sandwich or other lunch items are on the smaller side.
- Learning to eat right means learning about appropriate portion sizes.
3) Never pack the same lunch two days in a row.
- Variety makes nutritional sense.
- Variety sets a foundation for new food acceptance. Kids who get used to the idea that they eat different foods on different days become more open to trying new foods. Even if your children only like 2 different lunches, make a point to alternate between them. Eventually you'll be able to add in other stuff. Read House Building 101.
4) Be sure to make lunch different than other meals served during the day.
- Consciously varying what your children eat will keep them out of food ruts. If your children have peanut butter on their morning toast, forget about serving PB&J for lunch and if your children are eating pizza for lunch, skip it at dinner.
- Varying foods across the day will increase your children's palates by exposing them to different tastes and textures. If your children eat sweetened cereal in the morning (even if they're eating oatmeal) limit the sweet flavors at lunch (even if they're eating yogurt). Read The Variety Masquerade.
5) Skip the chips—or chip substitutes such as Goldfish Crackers, pretzels or veggie chips—on a daily basis...
...unless you want your children to develop a daily lifetime chip habit.
6) Limit lunch items to 3 or 4 items.
- Give your children too many choices and you can forget about the vegetables. Most children will eat their preferred foods when given the choice.
- Contrary to parental expectations, reluctant eaters won't eat more food if they're given more choices. Reluctant eaters typically consume more food when given less of it. Read When Less is More.
- On the other hand, researchers show that overeaters eat more food when they are given more choices.
It's important to shape how your children eat before you worry about what they eat.
Children with good habits automatically eat nutritiously whereas kids with poor habits still eat dreadfully—even when they are surrounded by healthy food. Teach your kids how to eat, and it won't be long before they know what to eat.
~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~
Reader Comments (12)
Did you notice whose byline was on that Parents Magazine story? :)
I find that the smaller I make Henry's lunch, the more likely he is to eat ALL of it. School kids have so little time to eat, and it's easy for them to get overwhelmed by a lot of food--so they focus on one or two items they like best and that are easy to eat. And I agree that you need to talk to your child and find out if they actually like what you're putting in their lunch.
I read a great idea on a blog (can't remember which one now) that suggested a "Try it Tuesday" lunch--putting a new-ish (or at least different) food in your child's lunch one day a week. I thought that was a nice, nonthreatening, and fun way to encourage acceptance of new foods.
Oh I had to laugh at this one. I sent my oldest son to school today with a packed school lunch for the first time and it could have been right out of your example set of healthy lunches. It was in fact the first school lunch I ever packed and I have spent quite some time fretting about how to get this whole lunch packing thing to work out for us. I asked my son what he wanted in his lunch and this is the list he came up with: cucumber, cauliflower, peas, grapes and yogurt (natural of course). Honest. I had to do quite some negotiating to be allowed to add some pita wedges and cheese... The kid likes his food healthy.
Thanks for the tips of keeping the servings small and focusing on what they actually will eat. It is not about nutrition as you say, but the habits. But it is soo easy to get hung up on whether he will get enough calories or enough protein!!
Sally: Ha Ha. I didn't notice whose byline was on the story. But now I know why I thought the lunches looked so tempting!!!
My only issue with the pics is the quantities shown. I would rather see parents give their kids 3 bites of vegetables instead of 1/2 a cup. I know the goal is to fill more of the plate with fruits and vegetables but you have to take the long approach and work up to that quantity as kids get used to eating the fruits and vegetables. And as you point out with Henry, less really is more.
I'm skeptical about the Try-It-Tuesday Unless the child has tried the new food on Monday night and agreed to eat it on Tuesday at lunch, I think serving new foods is a risky proposition. It puts a lot of pressure on kids to eat certain foods and, in my experience, more pressure=less success. But if you try it and it works let me know.
Thy: Thanks for sharing. Your son sounds like a terrific eater.
Dna
A great post Dina, as I've come to expect from you! I think all of your points are extremely valid. One additional strategy that I've used for years with my kids (and just wrote about yesterday on my website www.rainbowplate.com) is to involve the kids in packing their own lunches. I agree with all your points about choices, variety and portions, but would add the suggestion to get the kids to actually put it all together in the lunchbox (with parental help as age-appropriate). This way you avoid the "what did I get?" scenario (which is the precursor to the "seek & destroy"). I'd appreciate your thoughts!
One thing I noticed with lunches last year is that packed lunches are in a whole different ballpark. At home, a bowl of broccoli and carrots is a fun snack. In her lunchbox, there is no way 2 veggies are allowed in the same baggie! She would rather eat a bigger portion of a single veggie than have multiple veggies together. Same rule with fruit. At home she will happily eat mixed fruit salad. At school, she prefers her strawberries separated from her cantaloupe.
She will only eat 3 veggies for lunch- broccoli, carrots, and celery. To add variety, I cut up carrots into different shapes- matchsticks, "pirate gold coins," and triangular chunks. At home, she eats a much wider variety of vegetables. She does not like a lot of variety in her lunchbox for anything. Sandwiches always have peanut butter and she always wants an extra water bottle just in case she gets sweaty at recess. She has stated herself that she likes lunch to be predictable. Each school day brings different activities and lessons. I guess she feels safe knowing that she can rely on her lunchbox contents to be consistent. She is adventurous with her after school snacks.
If she were a picky eater at home, I'd worry, but she eats fine for breakfast and dinner. I actually think that her non-variety lunchbox menu is healthier for her, emotionally and mentally. She has such a huge variety of different activities each day that a standard lunch comforts her.
Janet: I agree with you that kids should actually put the meal together. Thanks for pointing that out.
MCP: Your daughter sounds like a great eater. I would still suggest trying to get some more variety into her lunch. Her lunch would be predictable each and every day if she made the decisions about what went into the lunchbox. There are so many benefits to variety, both with regards to nutrition and to habits. But, of course, you know your daughter best, and she's already doing a great eating job. Thanks for sharing.
Dina
This is how we do it Anyone can make a simple chart like this: right now, we're using a magnetized version that sticks to the fridge. My son then designs his meals for the week, entirely on his own. He usually does a good job eating his lunch, and when he doesn't, I remind him that it's HIS choice, so HIS responsibility to eat what he chose, or choose better next time.
I calculated that our chart has over 10,000 possible permutations for lunch, none of which are difficult for me to prepare either the night before or that morning. Some lunches are healthier than others, but since our rule is that you can't have the same thing more than once in a week, it evens itself out.
Michele,
I love it!!! You might just see your chart show up in one of my blog posts!!!
Dina
I agree that you should pack what your children will eat, and that smaller portions all around encourage better eating of the whole meal. However, it's also worth noting that even if they "ok" a lunch item, some kids will still decide not to eat that item when lunch comes around. My preschooler loves raw spinach and will request it in his lunch, but about 30 percent of the time he just doesn't eat it. I look at it as no big deal, because I pack their lunches with opportunity in mind -- a healthy lunch we can all agree on gives them the chance to eat as much or as little of everything I pack as they choose, while stacking the deck in favor of them getting at least a reasonably nutritious meal out of the equation. http://redroundorgreen.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/lunchbox-philosophies-part-i-the-opportunity/
Bri,
One way to address the problem of kids not eating food even when they request it is to teach them the importance of eating some of everything before they finish any one thing. Lots of times kids don't eat what's in their lunch because they eat the preferred food first. Then they either aren't that hungry or they run out of time before they get to the other stuff.
But I agree it's important not to sweat it.
Thanks for your comment.
Dina
I really like your posts! I agree with you on so many levels. As an Ex Food Service Director for a school district (7 yrs), I have to agree the food is horrible. As a Dietitian, I did my best to change what I could change (white to whole wheat, fresh fruits and veggies, decrease bad snack variety, making food from scratch (going back to basics), etc. But it is hard for the school districts because they rely on government funding. Not just the money but the commodities which are not always the best. Unfortunately, school lunches come from a box of processed food to a baking sheet pan to the tray line. Our foodservice staff lacks cooking skills but can certainly open a box very well with a box cutter. Back in the 50s and 60s schools had army/navy cooks batch cooking from scratch. Now Food Service Directors are offered so many pounds of whole chicken and they turn around and sell it to major manufacturers to receive chicken nuggets. It is easy and cheap! So, many things need to be changed in the school food industry.
As for eating behavior, parents need to be models. They need to model behavior (any) for the child to learn proper behavior. I have a blog dedicated to this and I would love for you to read it! I just started. I am a mom who stays at home. I am inspired by other parent conversations. They do not know I am a dietitian and I do not offer my advice (not that type) but come home and WRITE! I am not selling anyting but hoping to help fight childhood obesity one blog at a time. I hope you like it!
I do have your blog on my blog and will continue to follow you.
Thanks
Clancy
http://healthybabybeans.blogspot.com/
Clancy,
Thanks for your comment. I'll definitely check out your website.
Dina