I am courious about your homes. Has this had an impact on your kids and dh? I am trying to get ins approval and my family is under the impression that they will benefit with a new style of food purchasing, cooking, menus, more physical activity... what do you think? myturnow....donnaco

this thread is great!!!! I'm HOPING my change.. changes the family, but dbf eats HORRIBLY.. and he is a night eater... I do worry about him, but it is HIS choice.. and I myself don't want the food police patroling so, I won't BECOME the food police....

One thing I have tried to instill in my 3 year old is that finishing our plates are NOT a race... (he is always saying.. I BEAT YOU)

I do hope that less junk and more healthy options will flood our home..... and even though fruit has carbs I think a cut up apple w/peanut butter is a far better choice than chips and a box of girl scout Cookies.

Good points Tracy..

Specifically..

- If DBF is having such a hard time, hopefully you will lead by example and he will follow. If not, he's killing himself slowly, like many of us were.. We all know about that..

- "cleaning the plate" is one of the WORST things my parents generation believed in. With our 7y/o the only time he is asked to eat anything is when he wiped out his starch but ignored his Protein (usually lean chicken, etc). I'll ask him to take a couple of bites of the protein to balance the starch, but I don't care if 1/2 of his food goes to waste. I'll never make him eat. He goes in cycles.. When he is about to hit a growth spurt, he eats a lot, and we monitor the carb/protein balance just to help assure it's not too skewed. once the spurt is over, he eats like a bird.. all good in my book.

- We ditched most of the true junk, and the few chips are balanced with things to go with them. Apples with PB are great.. We found some good natural PB with no TransFats and we all seem to enjoy it. He also loves banannas. Carb haters can bugger off.. If my kid wants lots of fruit, he gets it. Chips/cookies/candy/soda... no.. they are very seldom in the house, and when it is, we'll have just a few and focus on savoring the taste of those few, not eating a box of them.. I want to leave him with the gift of healthy food attitudes.. Hopefully we succeed..