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On the Right Track
The Benefits of Writing Down What Your Family Eats
By Teri Brown
Colleen A. Thompson, a registered dietitian and author of the book, Overcoming Childhood Obesity (Bull Publishing, 2004), believes that tracking your family's eating habits is a significant step in promoting healthy eating. "Often parents assume the child is eating well and may not realize this is not the case," Thompson says. "It's important to assess the nutritional status of all family members periodically to give you a sense of where they are now and what improvements may need to be made to improve overall health."
When you track your family's diet, you quickly become aware of possible issues, such as low fruit and vegetable intake or excess sugar. You will also have a better idea of what changes need to be made in order to correct the problem. Thompson states that it is far easier to track the diets of younger children than older children because the older the child the more food they eat away from the home. "The major dietary concerns for most children today are low intakes of fruits and vegetables, low intake of calcium, low intake of whole grains and excessive intake of sugar, particularly from sweetened beverages," Thompson says. "I would recommend looking carefully at overall diets of children with an emphasis on those items."
The Brown Family from Beachwood, N.J., has made some surprising discoveries since they began writing down what their family eats. "I now know they eat a lot more junk than I thought they did!" says Patti Brown of her four children. "I have also found that school lunches aren't as nutritious as I thought they were and that my family barely gets two or three servings of fruits or vegetables daily. My children rarely ever eat fruits or vegetables at school."
