My daughter is very opinionated about food.  She is not a picky eater in the sense that she wont eat certain things but she definately thinks she can eat what she wants when she wants.  Last night for instance Ryan had a bunch of friends over for a Halo Party (for those of you who don’t have video gamers for husbands they hook up as many TV’s as they can in one location and they all play video games and “Save the Universe” together).  One of the guys that came over brought some Pizza.  I had just finished making dinner (Herb Crusted Flank Steak, Garlic Chalet Veggies, and Jasmine Rice) for the girls but she kept saying she wanted Pizza. 

This made me think back on alot of stuff I have reading lately about the eating habits of kids today.  Here are just of few of my favorites

“Only three percent of kids’ meals offered at fast food restaurants meet federal dietary guidelines for nutrient quality” Supermarket Guru

“Over a year’s time, a child can pack on 6 extra pounds because of high fast food consumption, writes researcher Shanthy A. Bowman, PhD, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Bellsville, Md” Web MD

“Their central finding was that while children who ate more of the above (fast food)were more likely to be overweight, they were also less likely to report being unhappy.”  parenting.blogs.nytimes.com  This last one was my favorite because it shocked me a little but the article made some interesting points that while we should make sure our kids eat healthy its ok to let them have a french fry every now and then. 

But back to my observation.  I think McDonalds and other fastfood restaurants have help create the so called “picky eater”.  Just think about when you go to a restaraunt, and I don’t just mean fast food, everyone orders something different from the menu.  Everytime we take our kids out to eat we allow them to choose what they want.  Then when we make dinner and they think the same rules apply and they tell us they don’t want what we made they want something else we wonder why or even get upset at them.

Just some food for thought.  I for one will still be going out to eat but I need to rethink my parenting tactics a little so I don’t contradict myself.