Why are Healthy Kids the Weird Ones?

As a Chiropractor and family wellness practitioner, I am charged with the responsibility of helping families create healthier lifestyles to improve their experiences and minimize their illnesses.

One of the key areas we need to focus on is, of course, nutrition. Typically, today's American diet is chock full of preservatives, chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and sugar. Unfortunately, there are very few whole, fresh, chemical-free and naturally sugar-free foods eaten by adults or children these days. As a result, chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, ADHD and many others are literally skyrocketing year after year. (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/nutrition/facts.htm)

One of the biggest challenges I face in helping these families improve their health is the social environment children face in school. Although the numbers are rising, there are still too few families making healthy choices food choices. As a result, the ones who suffer are the healthy kids eating carrots and berries, not the ones eating pudding, candy, chips and baked goods. We need a paradigm shift wherein eating healthy becomes cool. How do we make that happen?

There’s a strong model in the shift that took place regarding cigarettes and smoking. At one point, everyone smoked cigarettes (or so it seemed) and those who didn't were looked at as if something was wrong with them. There was actually a time when doctors recommended smoking! As our knowledge of the health consequences grew, there was a public shift away from smoking, so much so that now it's actually hard for smokers to find a place to smoke outside their own homes or cars. Witness the special smoking cubes set up in some airports. The very sight of people standing in a plexiglass box of smoke reinforces society's current thinking on this activity.

The comparison to smoking is appropriate, although we hardly want to put children eating Twinkies inside plexiglass boxes in school cafeterias. We do, however, desperately need a similar shift to take place at our children's lunch tables at school. There is no more room for allowing our children to become ill from food choices simply because these choices are convenient for parents or because "that's what their friends are eating." Those of us who know better and understand the consequences need to take a stand and help educate those around us to change this unhealthy trend. I see this paradigm shift resulting from a grassroots movement of parents in collaboration with school systems one by one. Just as some schools have established "peanut-free zones," why doesn't a forward-thinking school establish a “junk-free zone”? As a society, we should have a higher standard for what our children are exposed to when they sit for lunch with their friends at school.

Are you willing to be part of such an effort? How would you go about setting the bar higher? Write and let me know!