You can learn a lot from a 4 year old…

If you ever want to check yourself a bit on what you are eating go hang out with a preschooler.  Cade has been learning about healthy eating and what is good and bad in our diets.  They call them healthy food and sometimes food.  Well let’s just say it seemed at the time that we were eating a lot of sometimes food.  I felt like every time he asked if this is sometimes food or healthy food I was answering with sometimes food. 

We often look at a Healthy Cookbook and think that sounds great but my family won’t eat that.  While that is sometimes true I think a lot of times it is in our head more than the family.  Take Cade and I for instance, we were in the grocery store one day and Cade asked if he could get a snack, my thoughts went right to something like cookies, when I said I suppose he responded with, “could you help me find a healfy snack like yogurt or something?”  At that point I was almost ashamed and very glad that I did not mention what was on my mind.  How often do we change their thoughts with our habits?  When I think about this I go straight to thinking about childhood obesity, so many of us think there is nothing we can do but we are supplying their food.  If we don’t buy it they can’t eat it and if we just take time to listen to them before speaking our thoughts they might just make the better choice.

All of this also makes me think of what I am eating and choices I make.  I was all set to share a cookie that day and thanks to Cade we had yogurt instead.  And every time I have the answer of “sometimes food” it makes me stop and think.  While even healthy foods need to be portion controlled there are many things that aren’t terrible but I would still consider them sometimes food.  There are also ways to make the sometimes food a little better and sometimes it is the little changes that make a big difference.  I have a Healthy Cooking Class this Thursday at 6pm that is going to discuss just that.  As I was talking about the Healthy Cookbooks earlier, it is often the case that the ingredients are something you haven’t heard of or it is almost impossible to find in our area.  This class is going to focus on making over your favorites.  This class is open to the public the cost is $10 for non-members and $5 for members.

So while I think I have been doing a pretty good job at watching what I eat Cade is definitely keeping me on my toes.  Maybe we need to just stop and think like a 4 year old.  Also hats off to Precious People Staff for teaching some great lessons!