Parents as Enablers and Saboteurs, Part 1
Parents want to know what to do about childhood obesity. The answers are difficult ones because most of them involve a change in philosophical outlook and/or everyday behavior — a change made by parents, that is. When we parents set out to fix our kids, we often run up against the uncomfortable truth that we […]
The Edible Schoolyard
We talked about garden-based nutrition education, also known as garden-based learning, or GBL. We made connections between the benefits that kids derive from GBL, and the ways in which children can avoid falling prey to a crippling dependency on hedonic foodstuffs. The Edible Schoolyard is based on the garden-based learning philosophy. It’s in Berkeley, California, […]
Don’t Just Stand There — Grow Something! Part 1
Way back in 1959, almost no one (except its inhabitants) spared a thought for Harlem, the festering black ghetto of New York City. Warren Miller’s novel The Cool World was startlingly different. A 14-year-old gang member gets into serious trouble and is sent upstate to Juvenile Hall. For the first time in his blighted young […]
George Ball: “Nothing to Lose But Our Waistlines”
Many people realize that childhood obesity is a serious and growing problem, and many even ask, “But what can we do about it?” For parents, a great, big, wonderful answer is: Grow veggies! We’re looking today at a recent opinion piece in the The Wall Street Journal, written by George Ball, who urges us to make […]
Thoughts About Real Kids and Real Food
Liz Snyder is full of ideas for healthier families, and she shares several of them in her fascinating article about kids and food. Snyder has a Master’s degree in nutritional anthropology, and she describes herself as a food activist. Snyder’s special concern is nutrition in schools, and she is also very interested in what the […]