Learning
Eat Your Breakfast! Throw out the fruit loops!
Karen Schachter, contributing editor
www.dishingwithyourdaughter.com
WAKE UP!! Down a bagel! Pour some cereal! Grab a quick bite!
Oh my! Our mornings (and our lives) are so busy and many of us are rushing through the most important meal of our day!
And guess what? So are our children!
This is not so great, for them or for us.
It’s time to “wake up and smell the coffee,” as the saying goes!
I know you’ve heard it a million times before and it’s true: breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Yet, if you are like many of my clients, your mornings are so rushed that you barely have time to gulp down a cup of coffee and grab a quick bite before running out the door. By 10am you're starving or exhausted, and find yourself reaching for a quick snack like a bagel or a donut and...more coffee. You feel great until the coffee wears off, at which time you notice you're craving another quick pick-me-up.
Sound familiar? A mediocre breakfast (or no breakfast at all) can lead to mindless snacking and cravings throughout the day, while a substantial breakfast can help stop this pattern in its tracks. It's true: if you do not get enough of your nutrients (like fat, carbohydrates and protein) in the first half of our day, your body will make up for it later.
And a good breakfast is equally as important for our children, setting the stage for a healthy mind and body as they go off to work and play. Unfortunately many children are not getting the nutrients they need, either at breakfast or throughout the day. The food industry has figured out how to capitalize on our busy lives and our children's imagination by making junk food look "kid-friendly." But those brightly colored cereal boxes and fancy yogurt containers with favorite characters on them, as appealing as they look, are the opposite of growing foods. Most of them are filled with sugars, chemicals, additives and dyes. The negative effects of these "fake foods" are numerous, including their affect on behavior, learning capacity and health (not to mention overeating and weight problems).
Not only is it important that a breakfast be filled with nourishing, real foods, but it’s also critical that your body — and your children’s bodies — are relaxed enough to absorb the nutrients you’re eating. In a state of stress, your digestion is not working optimally and that nutritious breakfast sits in your stomach rather than nourishing and supporting your cells, muscles and brain.
Not an easy task while rushing out the door to start your day. But an important one, I assure you.
For the next month, experiment with breakfast. If you're not ready to throw out your bagel and coffee, and you know you'd have a full-scale rebellion on your hands if you tossed that box of Captain Crunch, try adding a "real food" to your breakfast and your child's breakfast. An egg, a bowl of oatmeal, some organic yogurt, whole grain bread, fresh or dried fruit, for example.
And take a few minutes to actually sit down, take a deep breath, and ENJOY your nourishing breakfast with your child.
Your body will thank you — and I can guarantee, even if you don’t hear “thank you” from your child, you are offering him a wonderful gift by setting up a healthy habit that will nourish his body, mind, spirit...and, connection with you...for a lifetime.
