The other night I was trying to use up some vegetables in the crisper drawer, so I added some spinach to my Italian wedding soup and served it with roasted Brussels sprouts, sautéd mushrooms and grilled cheese sandwiches made with sliced pears and a pretty “stinky” cheese, taleggio. We sat down at the dinner table and, while not everyone ate everything, my kids ate most of what I’d offered without complaint. And that’s when I realized just how far we’ve come in the TTL household: not that long ago, the same meal would have been far too challenging for my kids, each for their own idiosyncratic reasons.
That dinner led me to reflect on how gratifying it’s been lately to feed a high school freshman and a seventh grader. (And, by the way, when did that happen?).
For one thing, adolescents are hungry pretty much all the time, and hunger creates a greater willingness to try new foods; I’m sure my son’s expanding vegetable repertoire is related to the fact that he’s shooting up like a weed. And while peer pressure often leads kids to eat less healthfully, it can have the opposite effect, too. For example, there’s a restaurant near my house which offers only locally grown foods in the form of healthful salads and sandwiches. My daughter, who used to spurn both salads and sandwiches, hated it when I dragged her there — until it became a popular hangout spot for her social set. Now she eats both of those foods with enthusiasm because her friends do, too.
But adolescence can also undermine healthful eating. Teens are always on the go, which means a lot of grabbing whatever’s at hand. Lunch hour at school can be more about social interaction than the meal, and older teens may also have the option to leave campus for nearby fast food restaurants. Sugary, caffeinated drinks at Starbucks become an enticing badge of adulthood. And, of course, eating lots of junk food with gusto can be a way for teens to feel rebellious, especially if they have a particularly health-conscious parent. (If you didn’t see our discussion of the “Snackwave” meme on TLT’s Facebook page a while back, this article about it is worth a read.)
But as Jill Castle observed in an April New York Times Motherlode post about feeding teens, parents have to know when to let go. Adolescence is the time when you have to rely on the (hopefully) solid groundwork you’ve laid down since birth, trusting that kids will return to healthier eating habits as young adults.
It’s also the time for kids to take more responsibility for caring for their own bodies, since soon you won’t be around to play gatekeeper at all. So when my teens ask me to buy some junk food I’d rather keep out of the house, I’ll explain my reasons for saying no, but I might also mention that once they’re in college, they’ll have complete autonomy over what they eat. That reminder tends to cause a moment of sober reflection, and now when I see my daughter making healthy food choices of her own accord, or when she asks me questions about nutrition, I wonder to what degree she’s “rehearsing” for life on her own in less than four years. (Sniff!)
If you’re a parent of a teen or pre-teen, be sure to check out a recent Teen Being piece from Sally Kuzemchak, blogger at Real Mom Nutrition — “Are You Being Snacked to Death?” The article is written for teen readers and offers solid advice on healthy snacking without being condescending. It also explains in simple terms how the food industry has a vested interest in getting kids to eat highly processed junk food, which is a nice bit of “inoculation” that works well with kids of this age. I also loved this sweet 2012 post from Katie Morford of Mom’s Kitchen Handbook, in which she lays out eight pieces of advice for feeding on-the-go and sometimes rebellious adolescents. Her last rule is by far the most important:
Lighten up There are worse things that could happen than skipping an occasional meal and worse places they could go than the drive thru. It’s what they eat day in day out, not once in a while, that matters.
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[…] parent or teen. Bettina over at The Lunch Tray blogged about the growing pains of feeding the teen here, and I have lamented on the lack of control parents have over what their teens eat on the […]