There was a report on NPR this morning about high blood pressure in children.

Though obesity in children may be slightly abating, according to NPR, one third of America’s children are overweight or obese.

I’ve also read that:

Diabetes is on the rise in the youngest Americans,

• Doctors are seeing children with severe potty problems (one doctor writes of a 3-year-old with a grapefruit-sized mass blocking her rectum and a recent study shows that constipation among children has more than doubled in the last ten years), and

Children are becoming increasingly hyperactive due to non-food additives in what they eat.

EDIBLE FOOD-LIKE SUBSTANCES

It’s not just that kids are eating too much and not exercising enough, it’s that what we’re all eating really isn’t food.

One doctor I interviewed for the book I’m writing, Michael Klaper, M.D., lamented that much of our daily diet in America is made of “edible, food-like substances.”

Klaper is worried about how little attention most doctors pay to nutrition. I asked him for an interview him after I read this quote from him:

“What’s really tragic about this is that we were so busy learning how to fix broken arms, deliver babies and do all of those ‘doctor’ things in medical school that we considered nutrition to be boring. But after we get into practice, we spend most of the day treating people with diseases that have huge nutritional components that have long been essentially ignored. I frequently get calls from doctors across the country saying that their patients are asking questions about nutrition and its role in their conditions and they don’t know what to tell them.”

If you put the wrong kind of gas in your car, it won’t go.

If we fill our children up with edible food-like substances, they gain weight but they do not grow and thrive. Instead, they get sick.

FOOD RULES

It’s one thing to know what we should be eating, but it’s another to actually eat it.

The food rules are pretty simple. As Michael Pollan puts it:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

We need to feed our families whole, fresh foods.

The closer they are to their natural state the better.

Eat a potato, skip the potato chips.

Choose an apple over an apple-flavored fruit roll-up.

Fresh blueberries? Yes!

A Betty Crocker product that advertises it contains blueberries but actually contains “fruit-flavored clusters” and no fruit of any kind? Yuck!

In addition to lots of fresh vegetables (greens are especially good) and fruits, we need to eat whole grains not refined highly-processed foods. Whole wheat pasta is better for you than white pasta, brown rice contains more nutrients than polished white rice.

WHY WE AMERICANS DON’T EAT FOOD

It seems pretty easy and straightforward to eat stuff our grandparents and great grandparents recognized as food. But somehow it’s not.

Here’s why:

1) Many products that are advertised as “healthy” and “natural.” They are actually food-like substances laden with additives and artificial dyes. As consumers it is easy to get duped.

2) Many products advertised as “whole grain” actually contain very little, if any, whole grain flour.

3) Most of what you find in a conventional supermarket has a long shelf life and is full of things to make sure it does not rot. (Mold inhibitor is added to bread, for example.) Those fillings are just. not. good. for. you. or. your. kids.

4) We seek out the comfort foods we grew up with. For me it was Apple Jacks and Chef Boyardee.

5) It’s hard to change family habits.

6) Kids are picky and so many products are advertised towards kids. They nag. We buy them. We don’t mean to poison our children. We just want harmony at home.

SO WHAT’S A CONSCIENTIOUS MOM TO DO?

A few days ago my son was eating candy, my daughter was chewing gum (most chewing gum contains plastic) and I was too tired to do more than open a can of soup and throw some whole wheat bread in the toaster.

In the last six months my mom died, my book manuscript was due, and my husband had to have emergency surgery. Ever since my mom died, I’ve found it hard to cook, an activity I usually enjoy. Lately I feel like I’ve been failing pretty miserably at my we-need-to-eat-healthier-as-a-family goal, so I asked my wise friends to advise me.

Here are 11 of their excellent suggestions on how your family can eat healthier:

1) Only keep healthy food in the house: “The biggest thing for me has been only keeping healthy foods in the house. If the junk isn’t there, they can’t eat it. I always offer my little ones healthy options for snacks–such as fruits and veggies–and always with a positive tone and very matter-of-fact. My girls love eating carrots, apples, kale chips, salad, raw nuts… And they almost always drink water. I don’t keep juice, soda, or other sugary drinks in the house at all. If you limit what’s available and don’t make a big stink about eating healthy, they will think it’s normal and just how it’s meant to be.” –Grace Magnum Fox

2. Plan ahead: “For me, it has been a commitment to plan and prepare meals using real, whole foods. (no ingredients list!) it takes time to think ahead about meal planning and time to soak, defrost and do some prep … but ultimately it’s SO worth it. Real, homemade food tastes incredible and ultimately is friendlier on the budget.” –Emily Green

3. Eat together as a family: “Taking time to eat together as a family is a huge challenge in our modern culture–but I think it goes a long way toward building healthy eating routines. My advice to young parents would be to strive have family meals as a priority. Even if every family member cannot be at the table for every dinner . . . try to find time away from dance classes and sports practices for the family meal. With older kids and teenagers it gets crazy–but almost all families can commit to 4 family meals together a week.” –Jeanne Chouard

4. Shop right: “Healthy eating (and willpower) starts at the grocery store. Buy healthy stuff and that’s what you’ll eat!” –Sarah Jane Nelson Millan

5. Make it fun to eat: “Making food look cute and appealing goes a long way towards getting kids to eat it, which is why cooking in muffin tins is a great way to make healthy foods for kids.” –Brette Sember

6. Grow your own: Homegrown fruits or veggies, even if it’s just veggie sprouts in a jar, increases children’s exposure to these foods and they are more inclined to eat them.” –Cara Anthony (who has an amazing green thumb. I’ve seen her garden!)

7. Add healthy extras: “I went through a period when my little one would eat nothing but pancakes she could hold in her hand. I used to ask her what color she’d like and then we’d find a fresh vegetable to match that color: carrots, spinach or whatever. I’d put the fresh vegetable into a blender with an egg and a bit of matzah meal, or corn meal then pour the batter (pancake) on a teflon skillet. I knew she was getting three food groups in that one pancake.” –Carren Strock

8. Make it fun to eat right: “Silently encourage your kids to eat more veggies by making them fun finger foods. Make a healthy dip of organic plain yogurt, chopped cucumbers, celery salt, and dill or other spices. Then cut up mini broccoli and call them ‘trees,’ slice baby carrots into pirate gold.” –Sheryl Kraft

9. Talk about healthy eating with your kids: “From a really young age we always try to educate our children about healthy eating. It usually starts with teaching them the color green to begin with, that they have to eat something green at meals. Then we usually move onto the “bank account system” and teach that healthy foods put nutrients into the bank, while junk food takes them out. We might illustrate the point with marbles in a jar, or pennies in the penny bank. If we take too much out and there is nothing left, then if we continue to eat junk food, our body uses stuff from itself to work, and our bodies stop working. By the time they are 8 our children have been taught how the body works and how we absord nutrients, as well as how to recongnize colorings, sugars, etc.” –Christina Fletcher

10. Let them help you cook: “Involving my kids in shopping and cooking makes them more excited about what we’re eating. My guys (4.5-year-old twins) love to rinse, chop, measure, pour, and whisk.” –Suzanne Schlosberg

11. Take your kids to the farmers’ market: “Take kids to the farmer’s market and let them pick fruits and veggies that look appealing to them. (Sometimes it’s fun to let them pick something you haven’t tried before and then go home and try to figure out how to cook it!)” –Mary Margulis-Ohnuma

Related posts:
Don’t Eat My Brocolli!
The Amazing Banana Opening Trick Video
Eat Your Age in Salad

Three of my Favorite Sites Where You Can Learn More About Kids and Food:
Spoonfed: Raising kids to think about the foods they eat
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Super Baby Food (This book is a bit chaotic but it has excellent information for kids and grownups & is a must-have for families, I think)

Are you trying to improve your eating habits? What do you do as a family to eat healthy? What do you think of these ideas?

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Confession #1: I did not want to go to the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) conference this year.

When the plane was two and a half hours delayed from Oregon and it looked like I would miss my connecting red-eye (I did), I called my aunt and cried.

But I was speaking on a panel, “Photography Basics to Boost Your Bottom Line,” and moderating a panel, “Nurture Your Writing Career With Parenting Markets,” and there was no not going.

Confession #2: I am a travel writer who does not like to fly.

I have an article in this month’s FamilyFun magazine about family travel to Eugene.

You can read my New York Times article about eco-luxury hotels in the Pacific Northwest.

To research the book I’ve been writing for almost two years, I traveled to Iceland, Norway, Chicago, Boston, Bend, and Portland.

But the older I get the more I hate to fly.

[Insert image of disheveled lady paying full attention to the safety briefing, which she is actually reciting by heart in real time with the stewardess.]

Was it really worth trekking 3,000 miles across the country, being away for four days, and leaving my anxious husband home alone with a nursing toddler and three other kids and no help?

The answer is yes!

(N.B.: I’m writing this on the plane flying West so maybe I’ll qualify that answer once I assess the state of affairs at home.)

THIS YEAR’S WAS THE BEST ASJA CONFERENCE I’VE ATTENDED.

Here’s what I learned:

1. AS MUCH LEARNING, NETWORKING, AND IMPORTANT STUFF HAPPENS OUTSIDE A WRITING CONFERENCE AS AT THE CONFERENCE. I had coffee with a travel editor at the New York Times. I’ve always enjoyed working with him: he’s responsive, smart, and spot-on in his corrections. I knew what he looked like from Twitter and the Internet. But I found out from spending an hour with him that he is also someone with tremendous integrity whom I can only describe as a lovely man.

2. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO COLLABORATE THAN TO COMPETE: Writer-to-writer collaboration was a theme reiterated in several panels. Help a writer get started, share an editor’s name, put two people in touch. It makes you feel good and it sends good karma into the world. You get that good karma back tenfold.

Will some of the people you introduce to each other like each other better than they like you? Yes! Will a writer you pass along to your agent get DOUBLE the advance you did? Yes! Will someone steal your ideas and your photos? (Writers tend to be tremendously neurotic about this). Maybe! But does it matter?

Imitation is the finest form of flattery.

When your friends are successful it makes you look good.

What really matters is that you are being a good team player, growing your business, honing your skills, learning from others, and helping other writers dodge the holes you fell into at the beginning of your career.

3. ASK YOUR EDITORS ABOUT COMMON MISTAKES WRITERS MAKE: When this question was asked of my panelists, it yielded interesting answers. Diane Debrovner, a senior editor at Parents, shared that writers need to spend more time making sure what they submit is well organized, getting quotes from experts that are understandable to the lay reader, and matching the style of the query letter or the story to the magazine’s tone (Parents shoots to be that friend down the street whose kids are a bit older than yours. She’s compassionate, funny, lighthearted, and kind. She’s been there and done that and has wisdom to offer, but she doesn’t judge or criticize).

On the panel, “Secrets of Successful Freelancing,” Sam Greengard, a past president of ASJA, said one of the 7 deadly sins committed by writers is to only do the minimum. Greengard advises that you be the writer who cheerfully does more than you are asked.

4. WRITING IS A PROFESSION AND YOU NEED TO ACT LIKE A PROFESSIONAL. ALWAYS: In one of my favorite panels, “Inside Investigative Journalism,” Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman, told this joke:

A politician tells his aide to go see who is waiting outside his office. The aide goes to look and then returns to the office, shutting the door behind her. “Three journalists,” the aide tells her boss, “and a gentleman from the New York Times.”

Dedman says he always tries to be that gentleman from the New York Times. He dresses nicely for interviews. He never carries a stereotypical journalist’s notebook. Why note? Because he does not want sources to think of him as a harried reporter but rather an intelligent, educated professional interested in listening to the stories/scoop/insider information they have to share.

5. WRITING IS A PROFESSION AND YOU NEED TO ACT LIKE A PROFESSIONAL. ALWAYS: Didn’t I just say that? It bears repeating. When I asked my editor at Scribner about common mistakes authors make (see #3), she said we need to realize that our publicists are sometimes working on up to ten books at the same time.

Less person power + more titles = busy staff.

Instead of freaking out at your publicist for a perceived slight that has nothing to do with you or your book (honest), you need to have reasonable expectations, show them you appreciate their time and go the extra mile (see #3). Don’t send increasingly frantic emails every 15 minutes all morning cc’ing more and more people when you need a book overnighted. Send one. If you don’t hear back by 3:30 p.m., send a follow-up or call and politely ask if the first message was received. No one was ignoring you. They were in a meeting. The book will arrive at the same time either way. But the frantic emails make you look bad.

“It’s really just about acting like a professional,” my editor said.

Amen sister.

6. In the panel, “Become Every Editor’s Go-To Freelancer,” Kate Appleton of TRAVEL & LEISURE mentioned that even travel EDITORS LIKE “FRESH” ANGLES. A fresh take, a new look at an old problem, a surprise.

(Full disclosure: I’ve heard this insight so many times it’s become a bit … stale.)

Some in-production examples from the editors on that panel:
1. Spas around the world where people recover from surgery
2. Controversial statues—why visit them, why they provoke debate
3. Revolving restaurants. The food sucks and you just go for the view. Right? Wrong. A round-up of ten where the food’s actually good.

7. LONG FORM NARRATIVE IS NOT DEAD. Readers are hungry for it and it is still being printed in places like the New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and Vanity Fair. On-line websites where space is not an issue are an exciting new venue to write long-form narrative. Atavist.com, which pays writers a flat fee and then profit shares based on how many people download the article (one writer made $80,000 on a story this way, according to Nicholas Thompson, a senior editor at The New Yorker) accepts narrative non-fiction of up to 10,000 words! Hooray!

8. NO BOOK EVER DIES: I only caught a bit of M.J. Rose and Jacqueline Duval’s excellent panel on book publicity but one point M.J. made was that with the advent of book sales on the Internet, you can continue marketing your book and people will have a place to buy it.

When books were only sold in stores, once the book was remaindered it was dead.

Not anymore.

Some other pearls of wisdom about book publicity from the intrepid M.J.:

1. No one buys a book they’ve never heard of.

2. Some work-for-hire publicists will take your money and give you nada. Ask around A LOT before you sign with someone, no matter how pretty her pitch to you is.

3. If you’re planning to pay out-of-pocket for publicity, spend as much on MARKETING (Internet ads, for example) as on PR (where a firm tries to get you editorial mention with no guarantees).

4. Get involved with promoting your book early on, enthusiastically, and creatively. Gone are the days when the publicist does it all.

5. Don’t underestimate the power of making connections and word of mouth (see #1). “Viral can’t be bought.”

Enough drooling over the conference.

Nothing’s ever flawless.

I would like to point out a less-than-perfect aspects of ASJA this year:

Writer (and editor) friends, hello! We need to get with the 21st century!

Let’s start incorporating slides, video, drop in text, audio, and creativity into our talks.

Let’s add a little pizzazz!

There are a lot of technology tools out there to make a presentation visually interesting. There’s old-fashioned show-and-tell. There’s break-into-small-groups for two-minutes to brainstorm. There’s lots of ways to make your presentation fresh! Let’s put some new twists on an old subject (tee hee.)

I estimate fewer than 5 percent of the panels had audio-visual enhancement. Fewer than 1 percent of the panels I attended used PowerPoint.

Almost no one was brave enough to step outside the box and do something unexpected.

If we are going to be on the cutting edge of the news, sharp writing, sexy features, excellent photography, let’s start showcasing our skills at our conference.

If ASJA doesn’t jump with both feet into the 21st century, we’re all going to be pulling shots at the local café.

Go to a BlogHer or IRE conference and weep at how behind the techno-curve we are.

What did you think of ASJA 2012? What worked for you and what didn’t? What did you learn? If you blogged about ASJA 2012, please provide a link to your post in the comment section below. I promise to visit your blog, leave a comment in return, and read every word.

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Arrested Midwife Says She Won’t Deliver Babies in Indiana Anymore

April 13, 2012

(April 13, 2012) Ireena Keeslar, 49, a certified professional midwife (CPM) announced today that she will no longer attend homebirths in Indiana. In Indiana it is a felony for certified professional midwives, like Keeslar, to attend homebirths. “We have defined the delivery of babies as the practice of medicine,” said Representative Tim Brown, M.D., 56, [...]

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23 Reasons to Breastfeed Your Baby

April 6, 2012

1. Breast milk has never been recalled. Similac has. Oops, so has Enfamil. Ut oh, so has Good Start. 2. Breast milk has never been found to contain metal particles. Formula has. 3. Breast milk has never killed 3 babies, caused renal failure in 158 others, and made 6,244 babies sick. But in this case [...]

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Midwife Arrested in Indiana, Released on $10,000 Bail

April 3, 2012

When a car pulled up to her house a little after 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 31st, Ireena Keeslar was still in her pajamas. Ireena and her husband, who keep the Sabbath from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, were just finishing up a late breakfast. They weren’t expecting any visitors. They certainly weren’t [...]

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Are You Being Too Critical of Your Kids?

March 29, 2012

“What’s the matter with you?” Last week we were talking about the problem with praise, an issue that psychologist Madeline Levine, Ph.D., explores in her book, The Price of Privilege. But, Levine points out, if overpraising our children is harmful (because it focuses on achievement instead of effort, makes children reluctant to try new things, [...]

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The Problem With Praise: Experts Say It’s Imperative We Stop Overpraising Our Kids

March 19, 2012

The time: 6:30 p.m. The place: A messy kitchen. The characters: My husband, four children, one tortoise (in the cage in the dining room. Sleepy has nothing to do with this story but I thought I’d throw him in), and me. The scene: I’ve biked to the Co-op to buy challah for Shabbat and pedalled [...]

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How Do I Get The Naughty Wax Out Of My Kid’s Ears?

March 6, 2012

“Etani, bring your lunchbox into the kitchen,” I call when my 8-year-old son comes home from school. He throws his backpack on the ground, flings off his coat, and goes to play with Legos. “Lunchbox. Kitchen.” I say again. I’m emptying the dishwasher and feeding the baby some yogurt in said kitchen, so I hesitate [...]

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Dad Faces Misdemeanor Charges For Trying To Get His Baby Some Fresh Air

February 28, 2012

Have you heard about this? It’s so unbelievable. On January 7, Douglas Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy’s son tried to take his newborn outside the hospital for some fresh air. A nurse gave him permission. Two other nurses freaked out when they saw him heading for the door. He shielded his baby with his body to [...]

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Are We Americans Overparenting Our Kids?

February 17, 2012

I have to admit I loved the snarky review in the Los Angeles Times of Bringing Up Bébé, a new book that examines why French parents are superior to Americans. We American moms get a lot of flack. We don’t wear skinny jeans. We feel harried. Our hair is out of place (no, I won’t [...]

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