Choice dinner

The best way to turn children into healthy eaters for life is to let them choose their food but only to a certain degree.

- Jennifer Bowden

Question: Both my children want to snack on biscuits, crackers, and the like constantly during the day, and they aren't interested in eating the vegetables on their dinner plates. Is this just part of being a child? Or is there something I can do to change it?

Answer: Fiction books provide an intriguing insight into our culture's views. I remember with horror the messages about food lurking in my son's schoolbooks when he was at primary school some years ago. One book, called I Like..., had page after page of glowing promotion for processed foods: "I like ice cream, I like hot dogs, I like cake,

I like chips." Only to leave this nutritionist-mother disappointed when we turned the final page to discover a picture of spinach with the caption: "But I don't like spinach, yuck!"

It is interesting how we, as a society, frame foods for children. For example, a typical children's menu in eateries offers deep-fried food, according to a Heart Foundation survey. About half of the children's meals in New Zealand restaurants and cafes come with deep-fried chips, and 32% offer a deep-fried meal as the main item, while just 38% of meals were listed as coming with vegetables. Yet, as the Heart Foundation pointed out, many children eat a variety of foods at home that aren't deep-fried.

Children absorb all these messages and soon understand the expectation from adults that they will love biscuits, chips and ice cream, while simultaneously disliking and avoiding vegetables and more nutritious foods.