Is Disney Telling Kids That They Are Fat?

Boy oh boy, Disney is at it again.

They just can't seem to catch a break. According to an article I came across last week on Yahoo, the Disney company, who is synonymous with oversexualized princesses and children's entertainment with a lack of educational material, has recently created an exhibit at the Epcot Center in Florida called Habit Heroes. The exhibit was designed in partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield and was designed to teach young kids to eat better.

The fun exhibit included some characters that, frankly, make me cringe. Villians such as 'Snacker', who eats too much fatty processed foods, and 'Lead Bottom', who doesn't exercise enough, are featured throughout the exercise. One interactive game was said to allow the played to shoot digital vegetables at the screen in order to knock cream puffs and other sweet junk out of the way.

The exhibit is drawing fire because of its art direction. The villains mentioned above are all drawn to be obese, and in many cases are depicted as lazy or even evil! One villain is named 'The Glutton' which harkens back to one of the seven deadly sins, not to mention that he is dressed in a Sopranos Style double-breasted suit. The pictures of the animation featured in the Yahoo article coupled with the characters' obviously obesity related names display an astounding lack of creativity, in my opinion. Critics are calling Disney irresponsible for allowing such blatant fat-shaming to take place in its works.

Sigh. I think I get all the sides of this debate.

I get the outrage. With 70+ percent of the American population over weight or obese, likely there are going to be over overweight and obese adults viewing this content even though it is an exhibit geared toward children. And with a steadily growing portion of children also registering in as overweight and obese, you can rest assured that some of the audience will be overweight. The exhibit clearly sends the message that fat equals bad. Children especially can't sort out the complicated messages beyond that. Children don't understand the intricacies and science of weight loss. So they are left with only confused emotions and a sense that if they are overweight that they must be deficient in some way.

Fat shaming doesn't work. I have written about that before. If you have a drug problem or an alcohol problem, you can many times hide your health issues from the world. But when you are obese you are on display. And the social implications of obesity are not just 'the obese person isn't beautiful' but also 'the obese person does not have self control', neither of which are true. Exhibits like this one from Disney do nothing to dispel these ever present social assumptions. And who is motivated by shame and hurtful words? Isn't that the first thing they tell you in all those progressive parenting books?

I get the irony. Disney theme parks, though I have never visited one (I want to be up front), are reported to be a wonderland of funnel cakes and French fries. It is ironic that a company that takes in huge profits from all things fast food would be so motivated to create an exhibit like this one. It is then not surprising that they would f@$! it up.

I get the intention. I give Disney some credit for agreeing to take a small portion of their big budget and address this issue. No doubt they see a growing problem in our world. No doubt they see a growing population among their own customer base. No doubt Blue Cross Blue Shield thought they could capitalize on Disney's massive world wide audience in order to send a good message to kids. But with so many hands in the pot from project organizers, animators and insurance people, who knows where this project went astray?

My two cents? Maybe the answer to childhood obesity doesn't lie in the children. Perhaps it lies in the parents. And 70+ percent of the adult population is overweight or obese!! Children cannot legally work. So it is logical to assume that they are not purchasing a majority of their own calories. Maybe just as we should stop marketing ALL foods to children, perhaps we should stop dumping the solution on them as well. They are kids after all. The worst thing we could do to try and combat childhood obesity is try and talk a bunch of science at these youngsters. And complicated eating and exercise plans? Forget about it.

Make Real Food for your family. Get your kids to play outside.

It really is that simple. Kids do not need to worry about their percent of fat in relation to their total calories. Kids do not need to worry about the sugar content of a carrot. Kids do not need to be running laps to have healthy bodies. Kids do not need to be shamed if they have put on a few more pounds than their friends. Kids do need to have active fun doing things like playing tag or kicking a ball. Kids do need you to make vegetables for them so they can try them. Kids do need parents that eat well so that they grow up assuming that is what grown ups do. Kids need to be kids. Keep. It. Simple.

Disney Corporation, I dare you, stop selling funnel cakes in your theme parks and then MAYBE I will take your intentions seriously. Until then I am going to keep assuming that you were looking to make a buck and some much needed positive PR off this project.

Are We All Too Busy To Eat Healthy?

Every couple of months I write some cry your eyes out post about how I am so busy. And I get some awesome responses from you guys in support, telling me to hang in there. I thank each and every one of you who has commented or even just read such a post. But as I continue to hit patches of busy-ness, writing more whining and complaining posts doesn't make for good compelling reading. Or even a cathartic writing experience.

I have yet again hit another such patch. While I have been quite busy at the office (which is a good thing), it is our current school situation that is the biggest culprit. My children and I now spend just shy of 12 hours of every week day outside of our home. And of my just over 12 hours spent in the home, 6-7 are spent sleeping, 2-3 are spent caring for the kids or preparing food and 1-2 are spent in other chore related ways, like emptying the dishwasher or making lunches. That leaves little time for the things that I love, like writing. No wonder I never talk on the phone.

So I have now carved out a love-hate relationship with food preparation. When I started this blog I was inspired by all that I read. I tried new things, even on a weeknight! But today making homemade food sometimes feels like a ball and chain. But what choice do I have? Muster up the energy to cook something simple like sausages and boiled veggies, or order food that will make us all feel sick. Last week I was exhausted fighting some cold and I couldn't even think of stepping foot into the kitchen. So we picked up some pizza. What a mistake. I spent the whole night queasy and I couldn't sleep. Some convenience. Yes, the kids ate with no drama-rama, but I have to imagine that their bellies were tender that night too.

I love the idea of a local, organic and non-processed diet. But I will not sit here and tell you that it is a sustainable lifestyle for most people. The vast majority of people lack the skills to make a non-processed lifestyle work with all the commitments they have in life. And my 'experiment' to prove that any family can eat all homemade foods has lead me to dozens of amazing and inspirational blogs kept by full time bloggers, stay at home mothers and home schoolers. That's awesome, but not all the tips really work for me. I am not home to try all these cool recipes out.

So after 18 months of blogging, I have come to one succinct conclusion. We are all just too damn BUSY! The modern American lifestyle is overstuffed with way too many activities and we have made room for them by cutting out things we really need to do like sleeping and preparing healthy food. And we continue to convince ourselves that we need junky convenience foods and faster smartphones in order to do more work and brain cell sucking activities like searching the Internet. But wait, are we convincing ourselves? Or is it the companies that are selling us the phones, computers and junk food?

Today, The average American workday is 7.5 hours. That makes sense, 8 hour day, 30 minutes for lunch give or take a few. That number has remained fairly constant over the years. In this link, you can see that weekly hours worked has remained the same since the mid sixties at about 40-41 hours total per week. That is actually slightly less than in the forties when the average weekly hours worked was slightly over 43 hours. But no huge difference over the years. Then tack on the average commute, which is today just shy of an hour per day, or over 100 hours each year. I guess I can keep on complaining because my work day is 9 hours each day and I can boast a whopping 2+ hours of commuting time each day.

The change in sleep over the last 100 years is much more dramatic. The average amount of daily sleep has gone from 9 hours in 1900 to 7 hours in the 1970's to just over 6 hours today. I myself admit to getting only 6 hours of sleep regularly. I shoot for 7 hours but don't really feel good unless I get a full 8 hours. The fact that kids are getting less sleep saddens me. Reports show that School aged kids today average only 9.5 hours of sleep each day when they should be getting more. That is less than kids were getting 30 years ago. Sleep is important for everything from physical repair to hormone regulation to supporting memory. I know all this, but so many nights I stay up writing this blog instead of turning off the electric lights and the ever portable iPad.

But naturally it is the time spent in front of TVs, computers and Internet capable phones that is so troubling. According to this study and the article published in Businessweek, kids are now using more than 8 hours of media per day. That includes cell phone and iPod usage, texting, Internet, gaming and TV watching. I don't even want to know how many hours I spend using media. It is virtually all day at work. And then between various personal Apple devices, I overdo it a little. The problem I find with this trend is not so much that we are watching so much TV or reading online, it is that we are not setting down the devices to prepare healthy foods. It is that we cannot turn off the computer to go to sleep. We seem so afraid that we will miss something. Surely this cannot be good for us. And our health is surely suffering from the lack of rest and the abundant 'convenient' food.

I don't mean to say that we should just utilize our time better. That's a cop-out like saying we need to eat less and exercise more to combat obesity. The biggest problem in being too busy today is that in order to stay socially connected in today's world we HAVE to be computer literate and text and stay up on Facebook. There aren't quills for letter writing, parlor visits or calling cards anymore. Companies are pushing you to not even get mail anymore by sending you your bill via email. We cannot live without technology. It is not going away. I don't think we will get any less busy than we are right now. I suppose it could get worse. It could turn into The Matrix.

I bounce between wondering if blogs like mine make a difference to anyone who eats the Standard American Diet and not having any effect whatsoever. Or does my writing into the ether just solidify a group of people who have all independently come to the same conclusion, that we are too busy and we need to make lifestyle changes in order to maintain our health? Are we visionaries? Are we cutting edge? Have we discovered the missing link that could save us from more health problems? Or are we the fringe? Are we the crazies? Are we the Miss Haveshams' still clutching our old failed dreams even as the world passes us by?

Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if we could all learn to live in balance. Do you think anyone will ever get that to catch on?

This post is shared with Simple Lives Thursdays

Our First Week of School & School Food

Last week began a new adventure for all of us. After four years with a full time babysitter, Thing 1 started full time big boy Catholic School and Thing 2 started full time daycare. The reasons for the change were largely financial. Thing 1 needs to now be in a full day school, which can be pricey. And Thing 2 needs to start some kind of school environment to learn basic socialization and even 10 hours of preschool, as many of you well know, can cost you $15-20 per hour. Add on a full time nanny and you have a recipe for bankruptcy. So we decided that instead of the shorter programs that we'd go full on into full day programs and let our longtime well loved babysitter go. It has been a difficult and emotional change for everyone. But even after three days I think we all agree that we made the right decision.

Thing 1 started in school last Wednesday. We like his teacher. He comes home every day saying that he has made new friends, but he doesn't know the children's names. Thing 1 is slow to warm up. The very first day when the teacher called them to come to circle time all the children made a circle and Thing 1 sat on the outside. That's him. Even at 10 months old he was moving in the opposite direction of the crowd. He just takes his time to get into the middle of things. But he tells us that he likes his school and for that I am grateful.

Thing 2 has been less happy about the turn of events. This poor second child has always gotten hand-me-down everything, including hand-me-down attention from parents and caregivers. So just when he stood to have lavishly long days of one on one solo care we decide to stick him in a chaotic school environment with a dozen other children and half as many caregivers. Let's just say he wasn't thrilled. Day one was a true nightmare where he cried all day, did not nap and did not eat. I blame myself (as per usual) for not preparing him more. I am not sure I even told him about his new daytime routine until the day before, and even that was spotty communication. I spent the entire summer preparing Thing 1 for his new school. I trust that in a couple weeks he will fall into line. Even on day two he ate and took a nap with the other children-a HUGE improvement from our puffy red-eyed first day!

School food was something I also hemmed and hawed about. Both the daycare and the school told me that both breakfast and lunch was included in the tuition costs. Great...except that I know a little too much about school food. It was hard enough to have a daily babysitter plying my kid with treats. At least, of all the junky snacks I know my kids were getting, our baby sitter cooked meals from scratch for the kids and even brought home-prepared food in to share with them. School food is an altogether different thing! All summer I weighed our options, do we opt in? Or do I pack a lunch for them?

A week or so before school started I noted in the parent's handbook that the school lunch program followed the Catholic Diocese's Nutrition Program, whatever that means. I figured it was basic My Pyramid, (sorry.....) My Plate, kind of stuff. But I was stressed about all my new food responsibilities, so I was willing to let him eat at school. Several schools have good food programs!

So two weeks ago I called the school and asked, what was the menu like? Could parents access upcoming items? I was told that children needed a note from their child's pediatrician in order to opt out of the program. And that the note needed to cite allergies or some other medical reason. In response to my questions about the menu I received a voicemail from the principal saying that the offering was pretty standard, "It includes a protein and vegetable and a starch and typical meals are like pizza, chicken nuggets or cheeseburgers." That was pretty much all I needed to hear to know that I was opting out.

For Thing 2 I took a different approach. He doesn't eat. And now he isn't even eating hot dogs (bun only now-a-days) So I am down to fresh fruits, milk and juice, anything in the wheat family and turkey sausage. Oh and if he could he would eat as many French fries, potato chips or other junky foods that he could get his hands on. I am pretty sure I have a future food hoarder on my hands. I decided that given his pickiness that he could benefit from a room full of kids all eating the same thing. It might to help him to branch out. And it isn't like I know what he wants to eat anyway. Much of my packed lunches would likely go to waste anyway.

Thing 1 has been doing okay with the packed lunches. But a curious pattern has begun to emerge. The first day of school he ate just about everything from both his breakfast and his lunch. But he told me that in addition to the oatmeal that I packed him that he had the juice and pancakes that the school served. For lunch he just ate his home food. Okay...And then last Friday he ate the school's offering for lunch, 'square cheese' sandwiches with chips (CHIPS???) and a plum. On top of their lunch he ate about half of the lunch I provided. For breakfast he just ate what I provided. He seems to be double dipping when he is hungry, which I am surprisingly okay about. I want him to make his own decisions. It is clear that he doesn't want to fess up about what he has been eating. After a couple of years of me on my health kick he knows that I am the food gestapo of the house. And that makes me a little sad. I keep telling him that mommy won't be mad if he eats the school food, but would he please just tell me what he ate? It usually takes that promise to get him to come clean. The dialogue now becomes about how and WHY to make good food choices. I don't want to swoop in and force him to eat carrots and hummus. I want him to come to that conclusion on his own. That's how he becomes a functioning healthy adult.

But he is FOUR. It is hard for him to make good food choices. And there is something else besides simple menu offering that I NEVER thought about, peer pressure. The very first day I packed Thing 1 breakfast I made a smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal with raisins. He ate everything. But just before bed he told me out of the blue that the kids at school said his smoothies looked gross. He said they told him not to drink it. (Okay okay, I snuck some kale in there, so sue me-it's not like he could taste it!!!!) So I swallowed hard and asked what he thought of the smoothie. He said it was good and that he drank the whole thing. So I said okay, what do those kids know anyway? I went on to say that it was a good thing that they thought it was gross because then he wouldn't have to share any of it. I said to him 'If you had been holding a bag of cookies, they each would have asked you for one.' That made sense to him.

I know this is going to be hard. This is the first time that he has been exposed to peer pressure. This is the first time he has had to eat meals outside of his house every day. He is going to begin to see how other people live. It is an opportunity for me to explain why I make the decisions that I do. My greatest hope is that he comes home and tells me the food I pack for him is so much more delicious than the processed food he could get at school. My greatest fear is that he will come home and tell me that the kids are making fun of him because he is eating too healthy. Food shouldn't be an opportunity to alienate people. But then again, adults at my own office have been known to make a little fun of me because of my choice of grub. I see him trying to sort out all this information to find out where he belongs and where he wants to belong. As much as I want to intervene, the decision is his to make.

As I mentioned, Thing 2 did not eat his first day of school, except for some pear I had sent with him. The second day he did better. I imagine it will get slightly better each day. Until then I am going to make him breakfast in the morning before we leave. I can fry up some green eggs, soaked pancakes or a bowl of oatmeal. Anything to get some good nutrition into him before he goes to daycare and refuses to eat. Then he will get dinner in the evening. Anything in-between 7am and 6pm is gravy.

The transition has been tough. My flow has been completely turned upside down. But each day I am learning more tricks, and in another month I am sure I will have established a routine. Stay tuned for some tips about how to get out the door on time with everybody packed with food they like!

What tips and tricks do you have for packing lunches?

This post is shared with Traditional Tuesdays and Real Food Wednesdays and Simple Lives Thursdays and Fight Back Fridays

It's On: This Is Survival of the Fittest

When I was in the seventh grade, my social studies teacher Mr Shipman taught us that there were 5 billion people aproximately living on earth. Mr. Shipman himself is, for some reason in my brain, integral in my memory of the earth's population. I heard that figure several more times throughout high school but by my college years the news reports were all reporting that earth human population had topped 6 billion. And today we are fast approaching 7 billion.

Writers love to write about 'sustainability', 'doing more with less' and 'supporting growing populations' but what they aren't saying in so many words is: 'Good God, soon there aren't going to be enough resources (read food and water) for all the people on earth!!' Perhaps it wouldn't be wise for them to foster fear among a large section of the population. We can't possibly know how critical our food and water and natural resource situation will get in the next 20 years as a result of population expansion. I believe that if we needed to adapt to shortages of certain items, most people could (provided that the shortages don't encompass. EVERYTHING). Life has continued to find a way to adapt and survive for millenia. I actually have full faith that when oil runs out or becomes endangered enough to become prohibitively expensive that electric car technology will suddenly be pulled out of the dusty back drawer and someone will make ka-gillions!! But until we are forced to wean off gas, we probably won't. $4 a gallon hurts, but it isn't currently making MOST people rethink driving or their job or their living situation, certain subsets of the population excluded.

Food is different though, while some countries have always dealt with simply having enough food for their expanding populations, the US struggles with having TOO MUCH food. You'd think this was a GOOD problem to have. The US currently produces, on a yearly average, about 3900 calories of food for each person in the country per day. The USDA recommends that the average adult consume about 2000 calories per day. Much of the uneaten food is exported and some is wasted, like unsold grocery store food, spoiled foods and restaurant leftovers. But when the extra calories are owned by major corporations they have historically found ways to sell them off and convince you to consume them. From the same source as before, it is estimated that Americans consumed about 2700 caloires per person per day in 2007 for example. That is 28% higher than 1970. And we weigh on average about 30% more too. This tells me that when there is a surplus of food, humans typically rise to the challenge and eat the surplus, even if we don't biologically need it. This also tells me that MARKETING WORKS. Most of the country has succumbed to the message to eat more all while believing that they are impervious to most marketing schemes.

Obesity has created a whole mess of conversation in our nation. We talk incessantly about changing laws and fining fast food restaurants for fraud and public endangerment. We argue about soda taxes and the rights of the overweight. We argue over the Farm Bill knowing that SOMONE will get hurt be it the farmers or public at large. Bloggers like me take to the internet to desperately hope to change our food culture and our children before we all fall victim. But when do we step back from the din of disagreement and say 'I am going to eat right because I HAVE to, not because it is easy.' Some of us have already begun to do so.

Call me a pessimist but I don't think things are going to change fast enough for my generation and possibly my kid's generation. Being so pessimistic doesn't make me write less or feel that what I talk about is futile. We are slowly changing our food culture. But in the mean time I openly admit that I am throwing down the gauntlet. Our obesity crisis is a classic case of survival of the fittest.

If I had a nickel for every person I had met who didn't care about the food that they eat, I would be a rich woman. I have had people tease me and say I was making too much out of our exposure to pesticide residues and chemical food additives. Or, "I have been eating that for YEARS and I am not sick!" Or my favorite "But the chemicals taste so good!"

Well, this pessimist is doing what it takes to feed my kids right, regardless of what anyone else says. I am currently teaching my kids that uber processed sugars, GMOs, chemical additives and the whole host of non-foods that we currently eat as a nation are WRONG! I am not tip toeing around the average child nutritionist's fear of labeling some foods good or bad. I am simply teaching my kids that certain things are food and certain things are not. And in the end, this will make my family stronger and more fit to carry on the gene pool for our species. Call me competetive, but this is survival of the fittest.

We are facing over population. And the biological history book doesn't tell a great story for those species who become out of balance in the world. The earth always wins. Call me controversial. Call me a nut case. Call me drunk with my own opinion. But future fortune will favor those who are strong and healthy. And who knows what lays around the corner? So until then we will continue to eat real food and support local sustainable food systems. We will continue to look for ways to garden and make our own food. And we will continue to encourage people to join the real food movement because we need more like minded people. And it would be unfair to keep our real food secret to ourselves! But what do I say to the detractors? I say 'Bah, you can have your vegetable oil and your Cheetos and your factory farmed beef chunks!' And the next time someone teases me about what I eat or tells me that I am a nut job for believing that the Standard American Diet is such a problem, well, I might just keep my mouth shut. I am a formidable foe after all.

Cibo Express, For Shame, For Shame

Recently I had the pleasure of flying jet Blue out of the old TWA terminal at JFK. The terminal is airy and white, all around modern.

Arriving at 6am I went on a search for an egg sandwich. I have a low opinion of airport food. But never have I been unable to find an egg sandwich of some type. Yet here I was breezing past juice bars and French style bistros serving press coffee, unable to locate two eggs on a roll.
I like getting eggs when traveling because even if they have followed a dubious path on their way to my plate, they will keep me full through long and delayed flights, car rental lines and traffic. Generally the alternatives to eggs are pastries and bagels. Those just aren't working for me. An occasional pastry as a treat is one thing, but it is not a stand in as a meal any more than a piece of cake.

Finally I found my way to the Cibo Express, purveyors of the easiest and freshest mass produced fare I have found at most airports. They are everywhere now, right? Cibo Express did have one line for egg sandwiches made to order but the line was crazy. They also had a hot bar of eggs, but I settled on a pre-wrapped egg salad sandwich because it required no fork.
After getting my coffee I turned to see this...

*GASP* the muffins were so big they were practically erotic. The seemingly steroid pumped flour bombs were piled up like cantaloupes. I think I might have actually muttered something aloud to myself in disbelief. I...had to. I had to read the label.

First of all, forgive my lousy photo, It was 6am and I was holding a muffin and taking a picture with my phone all before consuming coffee. Each muffin weighed in at a whopping 7.5 ounces, just under a half a pound. The label clearly stated that each muffin was two servings. And therefore, it contained 672 calories, 34 grams of fat and Holy Cannoli 52 grams of sugar with only 8 lonely grams of protein. That is gross. Cibo Express, you make lots of good food. You offer fresh options in an otherwise fried landscape. You are my airport go to. But this muffin is inexcusable and unnecessary. Shame on you for producing something so large and unhealthful! I do hold you to a higher standard because you are filling a gap in fresh food for health minded travelers across the country. I could lower my expectations of you to equal that of your faster paper bag take out competition, but then I would probably no longer patronize you.

Later, when I unwrapped it, I realized that my egg salad had been made with 'lite' mayo, so God only knows what I ate that morning. Stabilizers? Fillers? Dextrose? Who knows.

Why is it that it is so hard to find real food when you are traveling? Why is it all triple bacon cheeseburgers or fat free yogurt? Where is the middle ground for people like me? I am not on a Diet with a big "D". I am not always trying to "live life to its fullest" by over consuming greasy dopamine creating calories. I just want to eat food. And I would like to have enough protein and healthy fat to last me 4-5 hours until my next meal. And I am like everyone else, I have a budget and a plane to catch, so sitting down to table service for $12 French press coffee isn't an option. I am starting to see that this pendulum swing between over eating and over deprivation is the real problem of food and health in our great nation.

Non-Food Alert: The Fakest Caramel Sauce Ever

Several weeks ago I came across this in my grocery store. Warning: Snark alert. I am feeling pretty snarky while writing this. When I saw it, I actually laughed out loud! Save 10,000 calories a month?! For real? Sugar Free? Calorie free? If there was no sugar in this ‘caramel sauce’, what on earth was in this bottle? I think of calorie free things as being watery things like vinegar or powdery things like Splenda, not thick sauces like fake caramel. I mean…gross.

So what is in that bottle? If my crappy photo is too blurry for you to read or you merely don’t have the patience to read what is in my crappy photo, the ingredients are: triple filtered purified water, caramel flavoring, caramel color, natural flavors, vanilla, sucralose, food color, salt, potassium sorbate (to preserve freshness) and lactic acid.

Haha! Gross.

So what is all that stuff? I LOVE that the company lists the first ingredient as not just water but triple filtered purified water. As though somehow that meant that the water was somehow higher class than if they’d used just tap. Caramel flavors and natural flavors are just the same, they are extracts or essences of flavors. Check out the link, he explains it better. Vanilla we know. Sucralose we know to be the sweet fake sweetener that is included in Splenda. We know salt. Potassium Sorbate is a potassium salt that is used as a yeast and mold inhibitor in processed foods. And finally Lactic Acid is a curious additive. It is actually found in natural fermented milk products like cottage cheese and kefir and yogurt! But in processed foods this acid is used to inhibit sharpness and other flavor related issues.

But perhaps my favorite thing about this product is that it is manufactured by a company that produces DOZENS of calorie free chemical laced products. And they do it all with a business name of ‘Walden Farms’. If this isn’t non-food being marketed as food, I am not sure what is.