Does your diet influence how you feed your children?

My kids have definitely been eating more fruits and veggies lately, and cutting back on the sweets. I make sure to emphasize the fact that I am trying to get healthier, not just trying to lose weight. In fact, while we were at the store today, my 9 year old daughter was looking at the candy bars and said she wanted one. I said okay, because she really hasn't had candy in a while. She asked if I wanted one too, and I said no. Then she said "actually, maybe I won't have one. I'd like to have ice cream later, and that would be too much junk food.". Okay, so she will still be eating junk food today (ice cream after dinner) but at least she recognized that there is such a thing as 'too much' and she made the choice to only have one treat. I think it's these kinds of lessons that will help shape their attitude toward food in a positive way.

I'm sad to say (or maybe proud?) that my diet is actually finally more in line with how I feed my kids. I have spent years learning about proper nutrition and food needs, and I applied what I knew to feeding my children. We have a lot of over weight adults on both sides of the family, and I didn't want to start my kids at a disadvantage, so I started them eating very healthily and mostly unprocessed from the time they started eating baby food. I even made my own baby food for both kids and didn't really give them any processed carbohydrate products - almost all of their carbs came from dairy products, fruits and veggies.

I, myself, didn't follow these healthy eating habits(especially when I was at work and away from prying eyes) and my weight reflects this, but I have always encourage whold foods, fruits and veggies, meats, dairy products and snack foods in moderation. We rarely keep junk food in our house, but we often do go out to get a single serving of a dessert with the kids. I don't believe in depriving them, but I don't think they need that stuff around all day every day. My oldest DD is 6 and we are now starting to give her choices (i.e. she can have chocolate milk at a restaurant OR french fries OR dessert, but not all three), and generally she chooses the healthiest options on her own. She also had a great pre-school class that did a pretty good study on nutrition and what makes us grow and what doesn't.

My children are grown now but I found the opposite to be true. I grew up in the 60's and 70's eating a lot of processed foods, margarine and sweets out the wazzoo. Those eating habits continued through my young adulthood except not as many sweets because I wanted to be skinny.

But, once had children I suddenly felt this responsibility to feed them good food and teach them good eating and exercise habits. So I started learning just exactly what that meant and I've been eating healthy ever since. And I'm proud to say that both my daughters still eat heatlhy and exercise regularly, and the one with children of her own teaches them to be heatlhy as well.