Added: 11/16/2006 |
Looking Closely at the Link between Nutrition and DietThe following article was written by a woman whose mother was always conscious of the link between nutrition and diet. In fact, one time, when the writer was on a Girl Scout outing, her mother provided her with three very nutritious meals. A fellow Scout made note of the nutrition in those meals. On the one morning of the outing, the fellow Scout said, 'Your mother even gave you a well-balanced breakfast'.
Educators who work with expectant mothers seek to emphasize the link between nutrition and diet. They know that the diet of a pregnant woman must supply the growing baby’s needed nutrition. They offer advice on ways to create a diet that insures a steady intake of proteins, vitamins and calcium.
Once those women start caring for their babies and toddlers, then they need to share their understanding of the link between nutrition and diet. Then they need to make sure that the children in their care have nutritious meals. Such children should not have a diet that is full of junk food.
By the same token, the link between nutrition and diet should not be seen as a signal that all snacking needs to be eliminated from the daily routine. Instead, mothers and care givers must strive to initiate the habit of eating primarily healthful snacks. A Persian grandmother in Los Angeles did an excellent job of demonstrating the veracity of the above statement.
That grandmother loved fruit, and so she liked to reward her grandson with fruit. When her grandson “helped” a neighbor who was moving into an adjoining apartment, then she gave that new neighbor a banana, intended as a reward for the small boy who had “helped” with the moving chores. The small boy learned to enjoy snacking on fruit. Later he accepted an orange, in place of the orange bottle that he needed to abandon.
Of course, life would be very dull if one were to always think about nutrition and diet when planning any sort of meal or snack. On certain occasions, such as on birthdays, one feels entitled to bypass certain guidelines established by experts on nutrition and diet. That occasional sweet and fat-laden snack does not usually introduce children to bad eating habits. Sometimes, however, a birthday can call for the serving of such a snack at a rather inappropriate time.
That’s what happened to one kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles County. She’d always given her students time for a mid-morning snack. She encouraged the eating of healthful snack food. But she also invited each mother to serve birthday cake to all the students, whenever their son or daughter had a birthday. In September of 1990, that policy caused a bit of a dilemma.
That year two of her students had a birthday during the first week of school. If fact, one girl had her birthday on the first day of school, and one boy had his birthday on the second day of school. That kindergarten teacher faced a real challenge, in finding a way to discourage such sweet snacks during the bulk of the days in the school year.
She appears to have risen to that seemingly insurmountable challenge. At least one of her students remains aware of the importance of nutrition, and diets have not yet become a part of his existence.
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