Wednesday, 11 March 2009

• he really monitors this type of thing

  From the New York Times today...
  
  

  ...I[]n the November issue of Parents magazine, she and her husband described their decision to ditch juice boxes and processed foods.
  
  “A couple of years ago — you’d never know it by looking at her now — Malia was getting a little chubby,” Mr. Obama told the magazine.
  
  They took action, Mrs. Obama said, when “her doctor — he really monitors this type of thing — suggested we look at her diet. So we cut out juice boxes, sweets and processed foods.”
  

  
  Others around the fatosphere have commented -- there's an interesting discussion over at The F-Word.Org about this article.
  
  Here's what I think:
  
  Malia is 10. They are a tall group, so I think that it's reasonable to think that her chubbiness was a precursor to a growth spurt. And it's possible it was the doctor, not the Obamas, who identified it as a problem. What I worry about was for both girls, was there a message of, "you, Malia, are putting on too much weight, so we're all going to cut out boxed drinks and processed snacks" which sets her apart from her peers and makes her feel blamed? And her sister learn from watching that she had better not "put on too much weight" either?
  
  I think it's a pretty normal dilemma for someone in the public eye to try to figure out how to manage eating without gaining weight -- "It’s like: How do we keep the calories down but keep the flavors up?" as Michelle Obama said in the article.
  
  I can only imagine how hard it would be to be 10 years old and have your dad (who happens to be the President of the United States) say that you used to be fat (which is how "was getting a little chubby" would have been translated in my own mind) to the whole world. And to say, "you wouldn't know by looking at her now" does imply some pride in her current appearance. When I was 10, I would have thought that this meant I had better not get fat again.
  
  I have a daughter.
  
  We have a mix of treats and other foods and my daughter doesn't only crave the treats. We were having a picnic dinner tonight -- ended up eating in the car -- and she had a small bag of these mini-rice cracker coated with chocolate -- low calorie and low nutrient -- and when I brought out the carrots with hummus, she asked for that, ignoring the sweet snacky thing she had in front of her. Next, she wanted chicken dipped in the hummus. And yes, a boxed juice (small one, but it was her second). I give her a variety of foods and it's up to her to choose what of I give her to eat, and how much. I've found if I keep treats as too much of a "special occassion" food, then she tends to overdo it with them, so I try to include them with some regularity so they don't become so magical and desirable that when they are available, she will choose them over what her tummy is telling her is good to eat.
  
  I didn't know how I would be as a parent when it came to food. I certainly didn't trust myself. I didn't imagine I would have oreos in the cupboard (I don't) or restrict her greatly (I don't) -- but I'm in some ways more lax that I would have thought, and in other ways I'm more sneaky -- cracking out the raw veggies while the meal is getting finished, or putting some pureed cauliflower in with the homemade mac n cheese -- not because I'm trying to get her to do something she doesn't want to, but because if she can eat the stuff with plenty of nutrition and not as much sugar and fat first, she can still have "fun food" but she's gotten what she truly needs first.
  
  My sincere hope is that the message that the Obama girls get is that if there are foods they aren't allowed to have, it's not because they (the girls) are bad for wanting them, but that those particular foods aren't particularly good for anyone. In that way, Michelle Obama is being consistent in promoting fresh, unprocessed foods for everyone, from soup kitchens to the White House kitchen. And having an occasional treat herself.
  

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