Pizza. Pizza. Pizza.

Some parents feed their kids pizza every day.  Some parents even encourage their kids to pound down the pizza 2 or 3 times a day. Can you believe it?

No? OK. Maybe most parents aren’t exactly passing out pizza 2 or 3 times a day, but they are giving their kids pizza-equivalents: grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, mac & cheese…

From a nutrition perspective, these foods all have basically the same nutrition profile. 

More importantly, from a habits perspective, regularly eating pizza and pizza-equivalents reinforces your kids’ love of pizza; it does nothing to teach them to eat peas, broccoli, or mushrooms…  That's why pizza makes it onto my list of The 10 Most "Dangerous" Foods.

When is pizza not pizza?  When it's pasta! Pizza equivalents are all made with the same ingredients. 

Flour. Cheese. Tomato.  Here are 10 equivalents.  See what I mean?

1. Pasta with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese
2. Grilled cheese sandwich
3. Quesadilla
4. Bagel with cream cheese
5. Macaroni & cheese
6. Ravioli
7. Cheese and crackers
8. Cheese sandwich
9. Lasagna
10. Calzones (AKA Pizza Pockets)

So a child who wakes up to a bagel and cream cheese, moves on to a grilled cheese sandwich at lunch, and finishes up the day with a bowl of pasta has eaten...well...a lot of pizza.

Read What's the Problem with Cheese? and La Crème de la Crème.

Pizza equivalents have the same nutrition profile.

Here are the numbers for a slice of pizza from Pizza Hut compared to a Kids Grilled Cheese from Panera Bread.

 Honestly, I don't make this stuff up!

Pizza equivalents constrict rather than broaden the number of foods your children will accept.

It’s true that pizza is crunchy and pasta is gooey, but if you go down the list of pizza-equivalents you will see that they offer a limited range of mouth-feel experiences.  And it's mouth-feel that determines what your kids will eat. 

Read Pizza and Peas: The Untold Story.

There are lots of other equivalents out there. 

Most “child-friendly” foods are sweet, gooey or crunchy.  If you have trouble introducing new foods, overusing child-friendly foods may explain why.  Even if you think you are offering up a diverse diet, your kids are probably not experiencing a lot of variety.  

Read The Variety Masquerade.

You don’t have to introduce new foods to expose your kids to different tastes and textures. 

I’m going to say that again: You don’t have to introduce new foods.

You simply have to start examining the foods you offer from your kids' perspective, and then consciously rotate through foods based on flavor, texture, aroma, appearance and temperature. For instance, serve eggs for breakfast one day, cereal the following day, and yogurt smoothies the next.  Read House Building 101.

Remember, every time you feed your kids, you are:

• Training their taste buds.
• Teaching them how often to expect certain flavors.
• Shaping their ideas about what foods they should want to eat and when.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

The 10 Most "Dangerous" Foods

I want to be clear: the items on this list aren't dangerous in the sense that they are poisonous.

But they are dangerous in the sense that they poison your children's eating habits.

Danger #1: Regularly eating any of these items will constrict rather than expand the range of foods your children will accept.

Nothing on the list looks, smells, tastes or feels like any of the new foods you're always coaxing your kids to eat. This matters because kids eat foods with sensory properties they're used to.  Instead of introducing new tastes and textures, the foods on this list reinforce the ones your kids already enjoy.  They're all...

• Bland or Sweet
• Liquid/non-chewable goo or Chewy/Crunchy

Danger #2: These foods all point your children's taste buds in the direction of the junk you're trying to control.

When "healthy" foods mimic junk they encourage your children to eat more junk. For instance...

• Chocolate milk has more sugar than some chocolate bars and drinking it regularly teaches kids to like chocolate, not milk.
• Oatmeal breakfast bars taste more like cookies than oatmeal (and are usually less nutritious than oatmeal cookies). 

Danger #3: These foods trick YOU into teaching your kids these foods are healthy.

These items seem to pass nutritional muster -- if barely -- and because you've got your eyes on monitoring vegetables and junk, these items slip right by.  

Even worse, because these foods (and I use the term loosely) seem "good enough" (even though they're really not) they fill in for healthier fare, and that's what we teach our kids. Who hasn't made their kids finish their mac & cheese, their pizza, or their bagel (because it's the "good" stuff) before moving on to dessert?

"Dangerous" Foods can be used safely, they just have to be used sparingly.

• Be Unpredictable: Make sure there's a gap of at least one day between "uses" so your kids don't expect these items as daily fare.
• Be Selective: Don't use more than 1 or 2 items from the list on any one day.
• Be Choosy: Consider these items as stand-ins for junk (even if they're healthier) and then let your kids choose between these foods and the junk they clamor for. Make it sweet yogurt or ice cream, chocolate milk or cookies...

10 Most "Dangerous" Foods (in no particular order):

1) Cheese Read What's the Problem with Cheese?

2) Sweet Yogurt Read Yogurt vs. Coke

3) "Healthy" crunchy snacks like veggie chips, pretzels or Goldfish crackers. Read Goldfish vs. Bunnies and Potato Chips Win Again!

4) Bagel and Cream Cheese Read The Snacking Minefield and Manna from Heaven.

5) Granola or Breakfast Bars Read Cookies for Breakfast?!

6) Chocolate Milk Read Chocolate Milk vs. Chocolate Bars and Chocolate-Flavored Formula Rocks!

7) Juice Read Training Tiny Taste Buds

8) Sports Drinks Read Soccer Moms, BEWARE!

9) Pizza Read Pizza and Peas: The Untold Story.

10) Macaroni & Cheese Read Mac & Cheese Scores Again!

You may have a slightly different group of dangerous foods, but if you're having trouble getting your kids to eat something exotic (like tuna, tomatoes or turnips) evaluate the foods you feed them on a regular basis.

And then start mixing it up. Read House Building 101.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

Party Hardy!

No one expects party food to be nutritious -- and I'm not here to bash parties -- but you've got to admit, the typical kids’ party really takes the cake (if you know what I mean).

It’s difficult to know the nutritional value of most party fare:

• There isn’t one set menu -- although kids' parties where I live almost always serve pizza, juice and cupcakes.
• The calorie content for seemingly identical items can vary quite a lot -- the range for cupcakes can be more than 500 calories.

I'll get to the nutrition of party food in a moment, but first, let's think about habits.

If parties occurred infrequently -- and if kids only ate pizza, juice and cupcakes when they attended parties -- there would be no problem.

But kids seem to gobble up party food on a weekly, or sometimes even a semi-weekly, basis.  And while it may be true that most kids don't hit the trifecta of pizza, juice and cupcakes too often, I think it's safe to say that many kids have the opportunity to indulge in a duet of two (pizza and juice or cupcakes and juice) fairly frequently.

The Habits Perspective: Have your ever thought about what blurring the line between party food and regular food teaches your children about food and eating?

I've written about the impact of juice and pizza on kids' eating habits.  Read Juice: Apple, Grape, Punch; Coke Beats Juice; Pizza and Peas: The Untold Story; The Snacking Minefield.

And I assume everyone knows what eating cupcakes on a regular (say weekly) basis would do to their kids' eating habits.

Well, regularly eating party food messes with your kids' habits too.  It teaches kids the wrong message about:

• What foods are valued. Read The Look.
• What kinds of foods they should prefer.  Read Mind Over Matter
• How often it's OK to eat nutritionally inferior fare. Read It Doesn't Matter WHAT Your Kids Eat.

In addition, pizza, juice and cupcakes all shape your children's taste buds to prefer high fat, sweet and/or salty foods.  These nutrients have been linked to overeating.  They also influence whether your kids will accept the finer foods you offer, foods like asparagus.

The Nutrition Perspective: To accommodate the range in calorie counts, let’s consider two different scenarios -- one party hosted by Minimus Mom and another one hosted by Maximus Mom.

With Minimus Mom your child is likely to take in..

• ½ slice of Pizza Hut thin crust cheese pizza from a regular pie = 95 calories
• 1 small juice box = 60 calories
• 1 small Hostess Cupcake type of cupcake = 200 calories

Total for the party = 355 calories.  That’s not bad, even if it is basically a third of a toddler’s daily intake.

With Maximus Mom your child is likely to take in…

• 1 slice of Pizza Hut hand tossed crust cheese pizza from a regular pie = 220 calories
• 1 large juice box = 100 calories
• 1 cupcake from someplace such as Crumbs Bake Shop or one of the new cupcakes from Cinnabon = 500 or more calories.

Total for this party = 820 calories or around 80% of your toddler’s daily intake.

See USDA calorie intake recommendations.

Remember, though, that neither the count for Minimus Mom nor the count for Maximus Mom takes into consider all the extras.  If your child...

• Drinks 2 juice boxes instead of 1, add 100 calories.
• Snacks on 1 ounce of Goldfish Crackers, add 140 calories 
• Scores a scoop of ice cream, add 100-200 calories. 

With these added delicacies your child could consume 600- 1000 calories at one event.  (And don't forget the candy from the party favor bag that she'll gobble down on the way home.)

The variation in calorie counts for pizza depends upon things you can see -- the type of crust, type of topping and size of the pie (larger pies yield larger slices) -- but that's not true with cupcakes and the truth about what goes into these little treasures will really shock you.

An NPR story from a few years ago calculated that eating one of Crumbs Bake Shop's creations is the equivalent of eating 3 slices of pizza. According to this report, at least one Crumb's concoction contains over 700 calories -- and 36 grams of fat.  (I can't verify this because Crumbs doesn't supply nutrition information for their cakes -- and after seeing these numbers, I can understand why -- but other internet sources concur.)

For some perspective: 1/2 cup of Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Caramel Fudge ice cream has only 270 calories and 14 grams of fat.

So what can you do to salvage parties?

1) Save party food for parties. Not only will this put pizza, juice and cupcakes into your children's diets in the right proportion, it will teach your kids the right lessons about party food.

2) Start using parties to teach your kids some valuable lessons about eating right. For instance, it's an ideal venue for teaching kids some ways to avoid overeating.  I'll say more about this in my next post.

3) Then, let your kids party hardy!

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

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Sources:

http://www.pizzahut.com/Files/PDF/PH&WSNationalBrochure4.13.10.pdf - accessed 6/3/10

http://www.juicyjuice.com/Products/Juicy-Juice-Fruit-Juice.aspx# - accessed 6/3/10;

Center for Science in the Public Interest. 2010. "Sinnercake." Nutrition Action Healthletter, June. p. 16.

Pesca, Mike, 2007. "Just How Fattening is that Cupcake?" National Public Radio. May 23. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10328143 - accessed 6/3/10; 

http://www.benjerry.com/flavors/our-flavors/#product_id=38 - accessed 6/3/10;