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The Bad News about Healthy Lunches

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This is a guest blog post by Dr. Dina R. Rose

I’m going to suggest something radical:  Don’t worry about packing a healthy school lunch.

I’m not suggesting you send your kids off to school with Devil Dogs and Twinkies. But sending children to school with a healthy lunch often (unintentionally) teaches kids the wrong habits.

Healthy lunches teach kids to “Seek and Destroy.”

Of course the goal of sending in a healthy lunch is to fill kids up with healthy nutrients.  But let’s be honest: What would happen if you sent your children off to school with a lunch like this?  Would they really eat it?

Unless you have extraordinary eaters, your children would probably devour the banana bread, attack the cheese and crackers, nibble a few blueberries and … if you’re lucky…you might get a bite or two of broccoli out of them.

The Internet is bursting with healthy lunch ideas—This one came fromParents.com—and most of them look delicious to me.  The question is: Do they look delicious to your kids?  It’s worth finding out.

Regularly send food to school that your children won’t eat and they’ll begin lunch by automatically looking for the items they’re going to discard. In other words, they learn to “seek and destroy.”  (That’s a habit to skip!)

Avoid teaching your kids the “Seek and Destroy” mentality by packing foods you know your children will eat.

The best way to do this is to make sure your kids agree on everything that goes into their lunchboxes.

It’s scary, I know.  You probably think that if your kids have any say, their lunches will consist of PB&J, chips, and cookies. Every Day! It doesn’t have to be so.

Giving up on healthy lunches doesn’t mean you have to throw in the towel…er..the chips.

You can use school lunch to teach your children healthy eating habits, you just have to be strategic.

1) Make sure that every lunch includes at least one extremely small serving of fruit and oneextremely small serving of vegetable.

  • You’ll get better buy-in for fruits and vegetables (and your kids won’t “seek and destroy”) if the “challenge” seems “doable,” so make the serving size small.  Don’t send 1/2 cup of broccoli if your children will eat 3 bites.
  • Make fruits and vegetables a daily practice.  The more you expose your kids to fruits and vegetables, the more familiar these foods will be and the more willingly your kids will eat them. (It’s circular logic, but it’s true.)

2) Pay attention to portion size.

  • Your children will be more likely to eat their fruit and vegetable if the sandwich or other lunch items are on the smaller side.
  • Learning to eat right means learning about appropriate portion sizes.

3) Never pack the same lunch two days in a row.

  • Variety makes nutritional sense.
  • Variety sets a foundation for new food acceptance.  Kids who get used to the idea that they eat different foods on different days become more open to trying new foods.  Even if your children only like 2 different lunches, make a point to alternate between them. Eventually you’ll be able to add in other stuff.  Read House Building 101.

4) Be sure to make lunch different than other meals served during the day.

  • Consciously varying what your children eat will keep them out of food ruts. If your children have peanut butter on their morning toast, forget about serving PB&J for lunch and if your children are eating pizza for lunch, skip it at dinner.
  • Varying foods across the day will increase your children’s palates by exposing them to different tastes and textures.  If your children eat sweetened cereal in the morning (even if they’re eating oatmeal) limit the sweet flavors at lunch (even if they’re eating yogurt).  Read The Variety Masquerade.

5) Skip the chips—or chip substitutes such as Goldfish Crackers, pretzels or veggie chips—on a daily basis…

…unless you want your children to develop a daily lifetime chip habit.

6) Limit lunch items to 3 or 4 items.

  • Give your children too many choices and you can forget about the vegetables. Most children will eat their preferred foods when given the choice.
  • Contrary to parental expectations, reluctant eaters won’t eat more food if they’re given more choices. Reluctant eaters typically consume more food when given less of it.  Read When Less is More.
  • On the other hand, researchers show that overeaters eat more food when they are given more choices.

It’s important to shape how your children eat before you worry about what they eat.

Children with good habits automatically eat nutritiously whereas kids with poor habits still eat dreadfully—even when they are surrounded by healthy food. Teach your kids how to eat, and it won’t be long before they know what to eat.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~


Dr. Dina Rose is a sociologist, foodie and mom. In It’s NOT About Nutrition: The Art & Science of Teaching Kids to Eat Right, Dina combines her professional expertise on socialization, her knowledge about nutrition, parenting and food psychology research, with the practical skills she has gained from talking to, interviewing and coaching hundreds of parents.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/cactuswren Susan Cactuswren

    Compare this piece to another, right here at Fooducate less than a month ago:  http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2011/08/21/are-short-school-lunch-periods-causing-obesity/

    A child who only has a few minutes to eat her lunch and get out onto the playground for what activity she can cram in is *naturally* going to go for the tastiest things first.  The lunchroom rush is itself conditioning children to focus on the “exciting” but high-calorie items and discard the healthier but less tempting ones.  A child who had a full 30 minutes to eat her lunch — without the concern that she would miss out on playtime — might well eat a few pieces of the broccoli and the other things and “save the best for last”.

  • shris

    Wow, I am accidentally doing something right. :)

    Every morning, I ask my kids what they want for lunch while they’re eating breakfast. They have to choose a ‘main’, a vegetable, a fruit, and a beverage.

    The main varies from PB&J to crackers and cheese, sometimes a simple microwaved quesadilla, half a sliced meat sandwich, or something else along those lines.

    The veg is usually raw, such as carrots or bell peppers, but my son also likes corn in his lunch. Remarkably, most of the time they don’t even ask for dressing to dip the veg in.

    The fruit is often dried fruit like cherries or cranberries or raisins. Sometimes apple slices or canned fruit. Right now we have watermelon, so that goes in too, in little cubes.

    The beverage is milk or ice water, in a thermos.

    I spend about 15 minutes putting together what they’ve asked for, it doesn’t take long. The side portions all go into the tiniest little cheap plastic containers I can find (they’re about 1/2 cup or 1 cup depending on the shape of whatever I’m putting in there).

    We hear comments back from their teachers about what they eat–compliments, usually. Our kids like taking their lunch because they get more time to eat than if they stand in line for the hot food. It’s cheaper for us, also, and even if they don’t eat everything in their box we know they’ve had an opportunity to get good food at lunch. This year so far they’re eating almost everything every day.

    We have been doing this since about the second week of kindergarten, they’re now in first grade. It’s become a habit for all of us. When they are bigger we will need bigger containers and bigger lunch boxes, probably. But I hope to keep the veg/fruit/main thing going as long as possible, without any processed snacks or desserts. We’ll see how long it lasts.

  • Marion

    This attitude is wrong. Children should be forced to eat healthy food. It is for their own good. This is why we need regulations to change school lunches and stop kids from bringing Twinkies from home. Stop pampering children and teach them. Spare the rod, spoil the nutritional health and wellness.

    • Mr. Bill

      I am trying to find some sarcasim in your post and am finding it difficuly. So I can only conclude that you are serious. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

      Here is the downside to your methods: you can’t control your kids forever. One day they will leave your control. Will they consume good food because they actually like it? Or will they see it as another way you excerted control over them and rebel? Use the rod, ruin the child.

    • Sheri

      Forcing kids to eat what they don’t want is bad. I was forced to eat what I didn’t want as a child and still hate that food to this day. I think starting out when they are babies to eat healthy food is better. If they aren’t raised with chips and junk food then they won’t know what they are missing.

  • Mr. Bill

    Good advice. I would also like to suggest having your kids make their own lunch once they are capable. Slowly ease them into of course.

    This is what my mother did aroudn 3rd grade. It had two big benefits: 1) I learned how to make a meal; 2) It was one less thing for my mom to worry about everynight.

    • Whattoeat2001

      Kids making their own lunches is probably why they are all obese and sickening with diabetes. Kids don’t know any better than to make a lunch of Nachos or Snickers washed down with a couple of Cokes. If you’re going to let kids make their own lunches why don’t you just let them drive themselves to school, too. Bad ideas abound among the food-obsessed.

      • JT

        I agree with you “whattoeat2001″, parents need some form of control over kids’ lunches until they reach the point where they can  make the decisions for themselves (teens) and hopefully by that point the parents have shown them that the healthy choices not only taste good, but make them feel so much better than the unhealthy ones.  My daughter asked in grade 1 if she could make her own lunches because lots of the kids in her class did. In asking her what they were packing themselves she said, “Oh, chips, chocolate bars, granola bars lots of junky foods.” Ummm, o-kay then. One of her classmates lunches consist of a half ring of kielbasa and three packs of gushers (sticky artificial fruit candy)…not in my house. i make sure that my kids get things that are a) healthy (low sodium, higher fibre, low sugars) and b) favorites (favorite fruits, veggies and sandwich fixin’s, plus a special goody a few times a week). And if their fruit and veggies are still there when they come home from school, that’s fine…that becomes their afterschool snack ;0)

        • http://www.carleencuevas.wordpress.com Carleen

          If the snickers and cokes aren’t in the house in the first place, it wouldn’t be an option for children to make their lunches with. Allowing children when old enough to be involved in the food choices that will effect them is great advice to opening their minds to new food possibilities! 

  • My Munch Bug

    Wonderful piece packed with tons of helpful hints – thank you!  This are suggestions for setting a child up for success in an authoritative manner, rather than authoritarian.  The subtle difference lies in the amount of control.  By structuring their choices (as noted above) we provide the opportunity for them to make healthy choices over time – and teach the child about autonomy.  If we force healthy food (authoritarian) we are exerting all control, and what parents ultimately want are children that make their own healthy decisions, not being forced to follow adults’ decisions.

    • Suzanne

      Children cannot decide good nutrition for themselves. Ordinary citizens are too ignorant and irresponsible to do the right nutritional thing. That is why public health experts must step in and decide for the good of society. Personal responsibility is not to be relied upon for anything so vitally important as nutrition and healthiness. We must strictly regulate food choices to bring obesity under control before it kills us all.

      • Moma

        we must stop corporations from pumping our children full of artificial everything: stabilizers, colors, flavors, sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats, HFCS, bleached this, fat-free that, microwaved this, 10 year shelf-life that. Does Kraft and Nestle have a conscience? I don’t think so.

      • http://www.carleencuevas.wordpress.com Carleen

        Really? So how did our ancestors survive without the help of “public health” experts? How come ever since nutrition science and public health figures have began giving nutrition advice the obesity epidemic has gotten worse. Not to mention the rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. And furthermore there are quite a few links between Big Agriculture businesses like Monsanto and Smithfield and the USDA & FDA. The very organizations our government has in place to protect our health and help educate our citizens are being controlled by former execs of Big Ag companies who are still getting pensions and probably have stocks in their old employers. It’s ridiculous! US Citizens aren’t stupid or naive. Most everyone knows they should eat more fruits and veggies and less Coke and candy, but its the habits and triggers they pick up as children that end up determining what they eat. There has never been a time in US history when nutrition education and “health & wellness” have been so forth right and everyone seems to be shoving their opinions out there. It doesn’t take a college education to know what to eat, it takes a healthy relationship with food and exposure to all sorts of healthy whole foods as a child. Public health experts and nutrition scientists constantly make the mistake of trying to pinpoint one single nutrient, macro- or micro-, that is the enemy or the savior. Always labeling nutrients and foods as good or bad, attaching guilt and shame. There are a number of traditional diets that have sustained the cultures with the longest life spans but not one of them is exactly the same. They are varied but all consist of WHOLE real foods, the Western diet and its obsession with what’s the “hot” new healthy food choice is creating yo-yo dieters, and a never ending spiral towards obesity. And who is benefiting? The companies who can no make fortified cereals with the latest and greatest nutrient and health claim slapped on the package. Encouraging kids to try new items while giving them choice empowers them to explore real whole foods. 

  • Sara

    My kids have always eaten this way.  At home, at restaurants and at school.  If you don’t train them to eat crap or use junk foods as a reward, they won’t come to desire it.  Hello, who is the adult here?

  • jen in MN

    I find this bizarre.  If you actually care about what is going into your kids bellies, they likely have been eating fresh veggies in some form/texture from about 7 months onward. By school years it would be a familiar plate filling food. My 5 and 7 year old kids will throw punches for the last cauliflower floret. Why? Because they’ve eaten it weekly since infancy/toddlerhood and it’s a familiar favorite.     …. if your kid is used to lunchables, koolaid drinks, and oreos for lunch you’re probably not into this blog and are unlikely to want to battle them now at school age years to completely change their eating habits.                   why does a kid in order to eat the lunch you pictured have to be extraordinary?  they just have to have been raised on real food and not french fries.

    • KM

      Same here; I didn’t…identify with this, at all. The little meal pictured is pretty close to the usual response to ‘I’m hungry’ here, minus the crackers.

      My own mother would never have given me any non-homemade junk in my lunch; store-bought cookies, Wonderbread (“supermarket fluff!”), pop, chips, etc were stuff you had at friends’ houses or bought with your allowance. Lunch was often a tomato-cheese-lettuce sandwich, with the tomato slices in a separate bag to avoid soggy bread. “Lunchables” make me weep…

      I’m not sure I hold with “Limit lunch items to 3 or 4 items.
      Give your children too many choices and you can forget about the vegetables. Most children will eat their preferred foods when given the choice.”
      …which is not how it works here, and do kids really eat the junk and leave the rest if they are for-real hungry? Maybe there’re serving size issues? Sometimes I throw just a nibble of everything in the fridge onto a plate, and the broccoli disappears just as fast as the raspberries and cheese curds. 
      (1) here is odd advice and seems contrary to the rest of the article. Tiny portions of veg? What? How about finding produce your kid will enjoy? I think part of the problem lies with woody “baby-cut” carrots that taste terrible unless drowned in “ranch,” beat-up apples, and other gross ideas. While realising this is not going to be realistic for all families — if you are regularly eating fresh cherries and asparagus and wild rice salad at home — your kid is going to enjoy having those things for lunch.
      I don’t want to sound mean and dogmatic — I take my kid out for ice cream and fries semi-regularly — but the old ‘eat it or starve’ works — and not just temporarily. I didn’t buy white  bread until I was in my 20s, at which point I experimented, and then went back to good brown.[sorry for length here!]

  • http://www.awakenedwellness.com Rachel Assuncao, Health Coach

    I really enjoyed this article – thank you.  I thought the guidelines were sensible, and when applied within the context of the healthy foods we’re already eating regularly at home it will naturally lead to healthy school lunches that my daughter enjoys eating.

    When I read the article, I felt like what you were saying was to find a balance between the healthy foods we are serving at home and setting realistic expectations for what our kids will eat at school – both without our supervision and with peer pressure, desire to fit in, and intrigue at what other kids are eating too taken into consideration.

    Figuring out how to deal with food at school has been an interesting challenge.  My daughter started at a Montessori school when she was about 18 months old.  For the first year or so, she simply ate whatever I sent without question.  As she’s become more aware of others around her, and has begun learning about different foods (and most specifically about food products that other kids are eating), that ‘seek and destroy’ concept you’ve highlighted has already started to emerge (by about age 3).  Sometimes this has resulted in her choosing not to eat all day long.  Sometime, it has resulted in her teachers choosing to give her foods from the school’s hot lunch program (which I put a stop to very quickly – you don’t get ‘rewarded’ with Jello for not eating your cherry tomatoes!).

    My solution is very much like what shris has shared in the comments.  Little J gets choices.  She doesn’t get a free-for-all choice to eat ‘Nachos or Snickers washed down with a couple of Cokes’ as Whattoeat2011 suggests.  This isn’t a black or white, ‘my healthy lunch’ or ‘your junk food’ scale.  Instead, she gets to choose from lentil soup or stirfried quinoa and veggies (or whatever other 2 options I might have available).  I insist on a raw fruit, so she gets to choose from 2 or 3 options that are in the house.  I insist on a raw veggie (or a combo) so she gets to choose from what’s available.  By having simple guidelines (and the ones suggested in this article are a great start), I ensure that the foods that are in the lunch are healthy, while Little J’s choices ensure that she actually eats what goes into the bag. This is already teaching her how to make healthy choices on her own as she grows up – and yes, kids can make healthy choices if we give them the tools to do so.

    We’ve also had to figure out what to do with her desire to eat other things that are similar to her classmates.  While plain yogurt with some fruit mixed in might be great at home, individual sized Stonyfield organic yogurts (no artificial stuff, though they are sweetened) make an appearance in her lunch some days.  It’s better than some of the other individual yogurts out there.  Fruit roll ups are replaced with fruit leather. Choosing the healthiest options available, but still exploring things that are similar to what other kids are eating. Again, it’s about giving tools to make healthy choices for the rest of her life while also finding a balance of enjoying the odd indulgence.

    • child_hero

      How unfortunate. ‘Little J’ is an orthorexic-in-training and mom Rachel is the coach.

      • Atefi

        child_hero, you’re a douche-tastic idiot

  • Kmtasky

    as a child my mother always packed ham and cheese, chips, some sort of fruit or fruit snack, and a capri sun for me. Sometimes there would be veggies. I’ve always loved fresh food and home made food more than any processed food, but we bought chips and junk cereal at Costco all the time, so I was exposed to it every day as a kid, and it didn’t effect me terribly. This doesn’t relate to me right now but then again, I am not a parent yet.

    I’ve been working with Preschoolers for about a month now and I notice that what goes on around them effects how they eat. If one girls friend starts complimenting on her green beans, her friends will eat as well. If you tell them they can’ have seconds until they have a few bites of something they didn’t eat, sometimes they eat all of it before asking again. It’s really tough to say whether or not it’s picky eaters, or just the exposure to other kids and their eating habits.

  • Steph

    My daughter would DEVOUR that lunch shown.  Seriously, devour it.  We had to start putting up the blueberry’s because she was sneaking then and took out a whole carton in a couple days.

    As for changing things up, she wants the same thing everyday and asks for more fruit and veggies.  So I guess this all depends on your kid.  We’ve never given her junk and sugary snacks at home, all she’s even been given is this sort of thing so this is what she loves!

    • child_hero

      It certainly sounds like your child is starving. She’s eating everything in sight and having to sneak food. You do realize fruits and veggies are mostly water by weight so it takes a ton of them to substitute for bread, cereals, sugary foods? Child Protective Services may need to check in on the welfare of this child if food is being too severely restricted in the home. This is why public health experts are so indispensable.

      • Steph

        Wow, gotta love this.  My child is anything but starving and the reason she was sneaking the blueberry’s is because she loves them.  Depending on the time of the year they can be pretty costly so we don’t just exclusively snack on them but have some with other stuff, she just wanted them instead of the other less expensive snacks we had on hand.  We also don’t only feed her veggies and fruit, we just eat a lot of it and she loves the stuff.  And yes, she eats plenty of bread, cereals, pastas, etc just sugar junk no so much.

        Obvious troll is obvious.

      • Meee

        smart ass, you are definitely not a parent and if u are….you see no use in preserving them to fulfill destiny, then again sorry, u probably don’t know what that is too…..we just evolved from the sea, do time and die….

  • Silence

    In the picture is that plastic food tray BPA free? BPA is a dreadful toxin around children. The child cannot wash the food after it has been in that tray. You should use a composite paper tray made from 100% recycled. The meal in the picture doesn’t require a fork so the plastic fork should go too it has BPA on it. This is all so toxic it makes me cry. Our children will be the first generation in America to suffer shorter lifespan than parent or grandparent. So sad.

    • Michelle

      Is it me or is “Silence” being snarky and mocking Americans who are concerned about BPA products in our environment?

      Maybe it’s just me…

    • just sayin

      The lunchox is from laptoplunches.com  We have two of those boxes, they are BPA-free.  The company was started by a couple of California moms concerned about BPA and wastage. 

  • ddsprncs

    My daughter would totally eat this, I guess I am lucky that way. Today she chose green beans,  a salmon pattie, and some boiled potatoes with an organic yogurt for dessert. When we got to school she was upset that she forgot her h2o bottle, she is 7 yrs old.

  • Lori

    As a Registered Dietitian, I am concerned about the advice offered in this article because it is not science-based and a “foodie” with a PhD in Sociology does not qualify as as a child nutrition expert. Disappointed in Fooducate’s decision to post this article

    • child_hero

      Even an RD is unqualified to manage child nutrition advice. Only an MSW with experience in the field can appropriately evaluate the home environment of the children and make proper referrals to child protective services, as needed.

    • http://www.fooducate.com/blog Fooducate

      Lori, that’s sounds like a very narrow world view. 
      Let’s keep an open mind here and NOT paint a world of black and white (RD=good advice / not RD=not good advice). Non-RDs can teach us a lot about healthy eating. In fact, with the obesity epidemic as big as it is, the RD community should be open to as much help as possible from divergent fields…

      • N.Mary

        absolutely! I’m an RD in training and couldn’t agree with you more. Not enough RD are stepping up the plate and suggesting, nah, enforcing, plentiful, healthy foods in school cafeterias, hospitals, and other settings where RDs have direct influence over what children are eating. I meet too many RDs who think they know whats best and think they are more knowledgeable than anyone else without the same credentials. Yet those same individuals are doing nothing to change the unhealthy climate that is our food culture.
        In my personal and clinical experience, Dr. Rose’s comments read true. Has Lori ever worked at a daycare? I never learned so much about how we (Americans) developed our eating habits and preferences than during the years I spent as a daycare and after school assistant in high school. That experience has help mold my career in pediatric nutrition. While Dr. Rose’s opinions are not what one should base his or her entire approach to providing important nutrients to children, it’s one method of a few which I found at 16 years old to encourage better eating habits amongst children and adults, alike.
        Healthy living starts at home and it should start with the parents.
        Not everyone’s mother provided amazing, fresh cooked/packed meals for lunch throughout his or her childhood. Let’s look at reality. The majority of children in public schools get cafeteria fare. By cafeteria I mean “glorified microwave”. Any negative commentator ever eaten food from or visited a public school during lunch time? It’s the sad and current fate of more than one generation of Americans. Dr. Rose’s blog understands that not all children are voracious plant-shoveling foodies. Your child loves arugula, fresh blackberries, roasted cauliflower and sprouts? Congrats. Thousands of children wouldn’t be able to identify those ingredients, let alone tried them. Thats not an exaggeration, it’s a call on everyone to change the way all of our children eat, not just your own.

        • http://www.practicalnutritionbydietitian.com Nour Zibdeh

          Let’s stop bashing each other and focus on the problem. I don’t think sending a smaller portion of veggies with your child is a good idea. If they’re hungry, and you didn’t send junk, they will eat the veggie. If the parents eat a variety of foods, the kids will. And why not find something they like and make it fun? Talk about fruits and veggies at home, have them prepare lunch, grocery shop, wash produce, etc.

          You wrote “Dr. Rose’s blog understands that not all children are voracious plant-shoveling foodies. Your child loves arugula, fresh blackberries, roasted cauliflower and
          sprouts? Congrats. Thousands of children wouldn’t be able to identify
          those ingredients, let alone tried them” eating healthy starts at home and we can, as a whole country, watch less TV and learn to cook few healthy meals. And let’s remember who the parent is and who should be teaching the kids the right habits. (And I don’t force them to eat anything they want, I just offer what I want. And they get to eat cookies and candy, but no need to send it to school every day)

  • Evab

    I disagree with this article as well.  We’ve been eating primarily healthy food since our 3 kids were babies.  We do have junkier food or dessert, but we save it for family night every Friday and then it’s from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods only.  Although I think the author is trying to balance reality with healthy food, the true reality is that parents need to be in the driver’s seat  - a problem that extends way beyond eating!

  • Patches Magarro

    Although I have comments about the article, I think it’s far more important to comment on the comments.  Let’s keep it polite.  If we could adopt the same tone that we’d use speaking face-to-face, I think things would sound very different below.  It seems that those who use their real names don’t attack and are less snarky.  Even if you use an alias, consider writing what you would if your name were there.

  • http://shannonsdiet.com Shannons

    Love this article!  My daughter is such a great eater, and I really think it’s 90% luck and 10% creativity on my part.  I agree all the way with small portions, I can even get her to eat one fork full of spinach.  We say it’s all about trying new things!

  • commonsense mom

    I find it extremely annoying that parents with kids who eat a
    wide variety of healthy foods, think that they were responsible for
    that in some way.  I’ve been *offering* my kids healthy, homemade, wide
    variety of foods since birth too, and they only eat 4 things.  It seems
    to me that if your kids eat a wide variety of healthy foods, you should
    not be patting yourself on the back, but instead consider yourself
    lucky.

    • practical papa

      I agree. The braggarts are actually manipulating their poor children like a biology experiment. Too bad kids don’t get to choose their parents. Most kids would probably make better informed and less biased choices than most faddish foodie parents. Little kids are pretty durable. They bounce back from parental abuse then they grow up and get even.

      • Meee

        You sound like a divorcee….

  • Dina Rose

    I really appreciate all the comments – even the ones that think I’m crazy.  For the record, all the advice comes from research; I didn’t make it up.  It’s been pretty well established that a parenting style that mixes structure and choices works best.  All kids can be taught to eat well, but forcing kids to eat a certain way doesn’t work.  If your kids eat well, be happy, but many parents struggle.  My point is that shaping longterm habits is way more important than the immediate meal and if your child isn’t already eating a cup of broccoli at lunch (like the picture shows) you would do well to back off the pressure, and then put a structure in place that teaches your child to appreciate different flavors and to know how to eat foods in proportion to their healthful benefits.  Everyone knows what their kids should eat.  Where parents have trouble, though, is in getting kids to eat what is served.

    Dina
    http://www.itsnotaboutnutrition.com

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LOCND3JAJL4PGYWJBHUT3HWAZM web/gadget guru

    Sheesh! What a lot of work that is! Don’t worry though…if your kid is starving then they *WILL* eat the broccoli!

  • Graceread

    I would eat this and so would my child. I agree with some of the other posts, that you have to teach your kids to eat healthy. I ask my son, what vegetable do you want and what fruit, that is the choice he gets. He will usually get a very small snack at lunch because he eats so well, this might also be something he picked out. My son watched the movie… forks over knives, it was not his choice of a movie but he knows how to make good choices because he has been taught how to. Like the old saying goes, teach a man to fish and he eats for life, give him a fish and he eats dinner (something like that). Anyways if anyone has not seen the movie, I thought it was very good. I was able to get it at our public library.

  • carol

    If a little more thought were put into the presentation and taste of this lunch I think it could be more appealing: steam the broccoli and cauliflower (which also makes their nutrients more available/digestible), add a few carrot sticks and cut them into longer pieces for easier dipping; make a better dip (not sure what that stuff is, but kids generally like hummus); add some yogurt to the blueberries and sprinkle with a little granola to make it more interesting, plus more nutritionally well-balanced.

  • http://twitter.com/MelisaNutrition Melissa Schlenker

    I think Dr. Rose is right on.  I often make the mistake of sending my kids with too many choices.  What comes back home?  The raw carrots, of course!  I’m going to try some of these tips.  It’s time to get my 8-year-old and 6-year-old involved in planning their own lunches. 

  • http://www.practicalnutritionbydietitian.com Nour Zibdeh

    I have to disagree with you. I’m a mom first and a dietitian second, and I do send healthy foods–lots of fruits and veggies–with my son to school. In fact, he eats more fruits and veggies at school than at home. He doesn’t usually like cut up cucumbers, but I kept send them with carrots, and I kept getting the cucumbers back home. One day, he ate them all. Sometimes, he would eat something for lunch he didn’t want for dinner the night before. You never know and you should always offer new meals that are healthy. You never know what they feel like being adventurous. I follow Ellen Satter’s approach. I decide what to offer, they decide if they’re going to eat and how much. At the same time, we pack lunch together, so he knows what’s in his box and he’s always excited about it.

  • PappaMi PappaMi

    Interesting article, I agree on the principle that healthy food must also be perceived as “good” and tasty by kids.

    I would like to write a short translation in Italian and post to my blog, can I ?
    htto:

    • http://www.fooducate.com/blog Fooducate

      Please attribute the post and link to Dr Dina Rose.

      • PappaMi PappaMi

        Ok, many thanks

  • Water Molecule

    So, it is simply based on the fact that we cannot trust our children eating when they are having lunch alone…I disagree with this idea.Have some faith!
    The rest of the article was fine.

  • Cheryl

    A lot of these comments make me sad. I had terrible eating habits from when I was a kid; now I am doing better, and trying to teach my children good habits as well. This blog is not only for those of you who were perfect, teaching your kids to eat cauliflower at 4 months. I understood the article to say for us to send what the kids are most likely to eat. My daughter loves sauteed spinach and brown rice (yay me!) but every time I have sent it to school, it has come back untouched. Why? Beats me, she just says she wasn’t hungry. I send something else instead, save the spinach for home. We as parents do not have as much control of what our kids are eating in school as we want or would like to think. You really don’t know if they are just dumping the food in the trash or trading it. Maybe the picture was a poor choice, but the substance of the article was good advice.

  • Sarah

    I think, perhaps, the title of the article sets it up for misinterpretation. 

  • AE

    I find this ridiculous! Especially the section about packing one extremely small portion of vegetables. If you teach your kids to eat vegetables everyday and that they are a part of their diet, and very good for them, you won’t need to follow this strange advice. If you yourself eat healthy and don’t give them another option, they won’t know any better. 

  • Katie

    Depriving kids of small treats at lunch makes them crave and sneak it in any way, shape and form they can. Don’t believe it? Believe it!

  • http://twitter.com/lisa_sherrill Lisa Sherrill

    thank you so much for this article. my kid has asked for chips in his lunch and i have been adamant on not including them and then second guessing myself on the harm in doing so. every once in a while they have been and will be included for fun but not every day. thank you for reinforcing that. makes me feel like i am on the right track.

  • http://www.facebook.com/maritia.brickbealer Maritia Brickbealer

    Kids need healthy information about nutritional foods to eat right. It’s our job as parents to teach them how to eat healthy.