Picky eaters are not born, they are created

It never fails. Whenever I choose to have a sit-down meal in a family restaurant, inevitably I'm sat next to a family with a finicky child.

The parents, bless their hearts, are usually tired of dealing with Junior's temper tantrums over any suggested change in his diet. You can see the defeat in their eyes when they start to order from the waitress. Junior, who long ago won this particular battle, now only eats chicken nuggets and only if the chicken is cut into exact three-inch strips and there is ketchup for dipping. Junior will not be eating vegetables, today, or any day, so the kitchen staff can just keep them. And, to drink Junior will be having a large cola.

And, shockingly, Junior is overweight for his age, has juvenile diabetes, is hyperactive and has a longer list of health problems that would make you cringe.

Folks, do you think there could be a connection?

Look, I'm not a parent, and I can only sympathize with the parents' plight. It's by far not an easy job, but it is the most important one they'll ever have.

However, picky eaters are not born, they are created. If we want healthy children who will grow up into healthy adults, we--the adults--must be in control of the menu at home and in public.

I believe it's easy to be picky if you think your food comes out of a microwave carton or the drive-through window and not from a feedlot or a field. Maybe it's because I was raised in an agricultural environment, but I grew up knowing the benefits of a well-balanced diet and the cycle of nature. Afterall, I had a hand in raising most of what appeared on our dinner table, from the beef main course to the green bean casserole and corn-on-the-cob sides. I knew what effort had been put into the loaf of wheat bread and the butter that graced its slices because I'd seen my father run the combine in the wheat field and had neighbors who milked cows twice a day.

If Junior actually had a hand in the raising of his dinner, maybe his appetite would improve.

And, granted, not everyone likes all foods. But at our family table there was one unbendable rule: Try one bite and if you still didn't like it then you just ate around the offending item on the plate and didn't comment further until the meal was done. There was no complaining, no whining and no exceptions. And if Dad felt particularly charitable, he'd take your plate and scrape off the leftovers onto his own so that you wouldn't have to stare at them.

I still say the mark of a true Dad is if he's willing to eat cold steamed cauliflower florets in congealed sauce off of a kid's dinner plate. That's a real hero.

The rare occasions any of us kids complained about the food, Dad would pipe up with "it helps if you're hungry," a slogan he picked up on a missionary trip to the Dominican Republic as a young man. And, the even rarer instances when he himself didn't like a meal, the only comment he'd make would be, "Deanie, you don't have to make that recipe again if you don't want to." It was Dad's code to Mom for, "I appreciate the effort you made on this meal darling, but please lose that particular recipe. In a black hole."

The thing is, folks, we're in the middle of a society where children and their parents keep getting bigger and bigger. We're not doing justice to the next generation by giving up the battle at the dinner table and allowing little Johnny to expand his waistline with junk food and soda just to keep the peace.

Granted, the issue is not going to change overnight, that's true. But, last fall I spent a day with a group of 10-year-olds as they toured a farm learning about agriculture and it opened my eyes to just how bad the situation's become.

Of the group of students, I'd estimate that a third could be classified as overweight for their age. Not only that, but their attention span was less than a gnat's and most were so jittery that a coffee addict would be appalled. Looking around at lunchtime, you could easily see the reason why. Lunches packed with sugary sodas and junk food. During one stop on the tour, where two gentlemen were explaining the various uses of corn syrup and illustrating the candies and sodas in which it appears, the children were so focused on the bottle of soda in one man's hands that they didn't pay attention to the actual speech.

It was like teasing monkeys at the zoo with bananas just out of their reach. The thing is, monkeys don't know any better, but we should.

So, I'm calling for action on the part of agriculture. It's not enough to try to educate children where their food comes from, we must teach them about healthy eating. Sure, the food pyramid is a start, but we need to take the message into the schools and into the 4-H clubs and Scout meetings, to the Little League ball games and the fast food restaurants.

It's not enough to say we grow the freshest, safest, most wholesome food supply in the country if we can't even get the Juniors of the world to eat it.

Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com.

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3/5/07

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Date: 2/27/07

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