Forum; Joseph Piscatella: Fat Proof Your Child

from the longhorn radio network the university of texas at austin this is for him that number is very interested in the health of the children are very interested in healthy eating we're very tired of trying to tell me what to do just a biscuit author of that proof your child published by workman publishing we've got a lot more overweight children and teens today more importantly we've got a lot more kids that are physically inactive and can therefore can't fake passes a core fitness tests that test that day you and i would remember that were originally instituted nineteen sixties real prayer president's fitness council testing i'm sixty three we had about us about eighty five percent of kids full rules pass a test that year in a couple of years ago when it was re institute we have eighty five percent of the charles fail the test it's b

doesn't this could tell it describes the battle waged between children and parents over fast food versus good nutrition contemporary lifestyles world at such a pace is to edge out sound nutritional choices in favor of high fat fast food what's a parent to do just a biscuit teller has the answers in his latest publication that proof you're trapped he offers commonsense solutions to the parents and educators who have the most responsibilities for child's day to day nutrition i'm not so concerned about what the child ways because there are numbers of kids that are going to grow through that mean we've all seen kids that are party for a year or two and then they grow through that and i also think that from its own fear and in actually ridiculous too to kind of put diets and children together i mean we don't need nine year old girl's dieting as they are in a society what concerns me is that when you look at a child

that is overweight one of the thing and that weighed it has come about because of a lifestyle based to watch tv too much computer that you know none of moving around coupled with high fat foods a lot of snack foods a lot of fast food that's the same lifestyle that produces high cholesterol and people produces higher risks of things like breast cancer a high blood pressure diabetes so what moved me to actually hire do this book have been the studies that have shown dramatic increases in cholesterol level of children we're now seeing elevated cholesterol or to visit his age three in the nineties state i've looked at autopsy reports on fourteen fifteen year old killed in automobile accidents were fifty percent of a coronary artery was blocked with cholesterol we've never seen this stuff before so all what i'm trying to do how we have to separate your child is really a couple of things first is going to raise the issue or

services you so parents know that this is important that you cannot take for granted that our children are naturally activity well as we did in the sixties i in the sixties when there your teenager mow the lawn it was a push more when we rolled up the windows in the car it was an actual role when you type something out here paper in high school you had a carriage on the typewriter all that stuff is gone and also societies change too as a as a nine year old united come home from school jump on a bike and pedal to the park and play in unison a nine year old by herself to the party right now so so what we used to consider to be a natural way of doing things is changed the parents didn't understand at that there is a problem of be that there are solutions that there are some simple and easy things that can be done that will change the whole lifestyle free trial but will do a better job of having their child on the road to making good decisions and that physical

activity and diet and therefore have them on the road to good health what about the gene pool the gene pool was less important as we give credence to in this case in this country and it's been the same thing with heart disease which is a major factor but i can tell you that most of the problem is a culture problem i am equally do it this way you can tell from the spelling of my name my heritage is italian italians don't have heart attacks italian americans to africans to not have heart attacks african americans to japanese didn't have heart attacks japanese americans to know that our gene pool change we cross water or dinner physical activity and exercise everything is on prior to the nineteen sixties we didn't really care of our own our disease problem in the united states so again where we differ and genetically prior to the nineteen sixties or did our culture change and it's the same thing with a

weight we were always an overweight society are we that weighed less as children and today's children to do their genes changed now so what it shows it's a little bit like medals lot of gaps you know ten percent of the population would use heart disease here it ten percent of the population that gets up in the morning runs ten miles and has a heart attack another ten percent because of in the morning takes a bath in real cream and never has a heart attack but the other eighty percent of us really have some destiny in our hands depending upon the lifestyle we choose what you're dealing with heart disease with you dealing with breast cancer which is sweet life at that when you dealing with a weight situation and my concern is that too many children are experiencing a lifestyle that sets them up for overweight high cholesterol at an early age true there are some kids that have a genetic problem with wade justice are some kids that have a genetic problem with qwest raul existed there aren't very many of those kids i don't know that the curriculum in school is going to to

make a great deal a different not giving them the best position to make some changes well for years they have been in the best position and we recognize that and because kids' they spend so much time in school and be a basic tenet of american educational philosophy has been the mind body connection we believe in that through the years that is very subtly changed in the last few years i don't even know that parents were have been aware of it i mean you and i are both old enough to remember showing up for seventh grade and being told come back tomorrow with blue shorts a white t shirt and white sox we all had you know we have just what we called jim but you also have a good peach are they don't do the outcry in the sixties today they don't do it in the order in the sixties we had ninety percent of elementary school children he and physical education classes on a daily basis today we have less than thirty percent it's a lower in high school because today it is done on a lek it bases this and the

cost saving measure we just simply don't do any water on the second thing to consider is that where it is done the question parents and they asked is who's teaching the class is it somebody that actually knows me you would not have a math you would have the librarian command and teach math courses or we have a library in command and teach pee wee of the math teacher community tr they certified physical education professionals under equipped to teach these children lifestyle skills are they supervisors to let ed little kids in a gymnasium around and lost the molasses happening and continually get coaches taking over coaches tend to say who are the elite athletes as the guys we work with everybody else it's on the sidelines so i think that down one of the things i do in the book is there's a checklist a parent can go through and neither asked themselves a question or barry and asked the principal questions about the p programs at their school and whether or not they're teaching lifestyle skills

or is it just a time to blow off steam and then nothing really excellent what about the impressions of food in our culture if we just think for a moment that tunnel vision that a child what food is where troubled well it's true we we've done a number of things wrong one has been to use television as a babysitter so that some of the initial impressions about what serial do it come from cartoon characters that are selling and another thing is that in this society we do not honor who have whomever crux so people have decided not to cut this is a society that re heats it's not a society that cuts we've lost the color very tradition in an entire generation mean when you look at people today who are parents of young children you know there's a lot of them they can make pasta grilled chicken and it doesn't go way further than that and then because it's so

plentiful on the society our food is a form of entertainment and you don't even sit down to watch the cowboys on tv without some kind of food i think they're well we need to do is to refocus a bit and have parents understand that i'm not talking about let's throw away the contemporary american lifestyle because that won't happen what i'm saying is we can make them smarter choices as an example fast food permeates the way americans eat of all ages let's make smarter choices and to get shouted make smart choices so there's one whole section of the book that's about making fast food your friend i actually provide lists of fast foods that are perfectly acceptable another list for foods that you could have every so often in other ways for food you'd want a totally skip the comparison is this your child who wants a hammer and it's convenient you know fast food restaurants

though that the burger that comes with lettuce tomato and ketchup is fourteen or fifteen grams of fat virtually any child can metabolize added isn't going to be a problem the double burger with extra begun an extra cheese can be seventy or eighty grams of fat and that's before the french fries before the milkshake on a steady basis that is going to be a problem will either way the child has a fast food experience either way the child has to murder either way it's convenient for the parents but by helping their child make a smart choice you're helping to train through the habits and say it fast food when going out most of the time for the warfare choices why is there an aversion to vegetable places like i just don't see relying on fast food places for vegetables i think parents that's the part of what has to be provided at home and that's an important thing to really raise an issue in our society we get so keyed into cutting fat that we forget that the other side of the same court and dealing with a good healthy

eating is to increase the fruits and vegetables in complex carbohydrates so that we have kids today whose to many kids eat no fruits and vegetables and all in the course of a day on many kids the only vegetable leaders french fries so it it's actually it probably is worse than the kids at no vegetables but i think parents have an opportunity because kids like a snack and a parent have an opportunity to push fruits and vegetables to play with littler kids in this is we can train children have small stomachs so that is why the tab for their dinner and you're saying oh you can't leave until you finish well you got to realize that the child may be finished because the stomach is so small on the other hand are three hours later this child is ready for its they're not because it's a social event you and i you know watching something on tv and we want to but because his child is hungry so that's where the fruits and vegetables can be provided that you may have to be created

for example we found young children love frozen grapes grapes and putting in the freezer on a cookie sheet and him these kids will roam around in their mouths and they've been they really have to wait until either for us and that you want to do the same thing with slices of banana a good tipper the parents of younger children is har make sure the cut up fruits and vegetables are on the low a shelf or the refrigerator if the child can't reach it does no good but the child doesn't get free rein for what's on the slow shelf and its fruit and vegetables they actually hear she learned to eat growing up so you're right i think that we do have a problem that way we've got to look for ways to get it in many times it's something as simple as i'm forgetting that the name broccoli and using the name little trees kids will we are many times it's made perhaps dreaming some vegetables to add to god even stoop that you watch it's

out of a can but you can use you know you can do means and you can do things like bread you can carry those things in and then child isn't even know that and the child you know you don't really have to explain everything to children you just have to help raise him they really are at the mercy of whatever the cafeterias and be spring that's reassuring and there's their a lot a cafeteria that you know there is a mandate that the government has come down with it says school lunches must be under thirty percent fat on but it's not been followed in a lot of places and it's hard and just because you prepare it doesn't mean that the kids will eat that's been kind of the old arguments oh what i'm seeing is a disturbing trend in ah financially challenge school districts in particular really just thrown all their cafeteria side and instead they've hired in fast food people mcdonald's kfc taco bell to do the food service so when kids get there it's really like entering a mall with fast

food and dove that i think is a is an unhealthy saying and the kids tell me in the surveys that we've done with the kids tell me is how is that they were teaching good nutrition in the classroom there were the bell rings and then we go in the lunchroom and it's a festival environment and what they're saying is you just totally negated we taught in the question could you just proven it in real life that is important and it's the same thing we of the machines in the school you can talk about apple's a buyer what you've got are clearly machines i don't see a lot of apple an orange machines school districts are and it's all bottom line economic so i think parents need to ask schools some hard questions about physical activity as i mentioned before about the kind of lunches and parents may decide that were better off to send this child we is his lunch odd and maybe some things in the school and in school the minimum should have non fat milk and fruit

and salad so that the child can add to it but there's a lot of things you can even do producing your own launches me know luckily today there are low fat versions of pastrami and corned beef and saw me in that someone saw me but baloney get low fat versions of them that will be too much are you can also make a lower fare choices to turkey and chicken and ham and roast beef are not bad choices and what we found is if you vary the bread you can serve the same thing with the kids think it's a difference in age so for example i've got a recipe for a grilled turkey breast has a dinner a recipe in the book but evils a new sandwich is that we will if you change the bread you get two day's worth of sandwiches and they're the kids i think it's a different sandwich the other thing is parents it automatically put mayonnaise and cheese on a sandwich a tablespoon of mayonnaise and a slice of cheese it is like putting out an extra hamburger patty in this image to about

twenty grams of fat so if you look for a light mayonnaise and white cheese or better yet mustered instead a manet so no cheese use the lettuce tomatoes crowds all those kinds of things to then i'm you really have cut the fat considerably in that sandwich and i my goodness she can afford to give him one or two cookies to you know smooth a lunch out without hurting him from a calorie standpoint or from that standpoint something that doesn't sound too dangerous depending on how you manage the toppings as pizza pizza pizza can be great particularly if it's a vegetable pizza and it's a little bit later and the cheese in her ear on the sauce and you can often ask for that i mean it's it's something that can be done at home and kids can become involved in that critically when they're younger so that's the learn to like the taste of the homemade peach and

peaches a simple thing to do you can buy commercial doe foreign and whatnot but i mean you were i use a lot of vegetables on it and i'll let the kids if they're old enough to chop the vegetables if they're not there's other things they can do set the table whatever to get them apart be part of the process and then when you go out for pizza at a lot of places you can say to them do you know can we use a lighter amount of cheese and throws an extra vegetables on and that's the way we want it and a couple of slices of that are they're really very well balanced a lot of interest in nutrition is generated by an industry that provides vitamins and supplements how old ford we go with the herb do your kids and my feeling is if you eat a balanced diet aleen diet healthy diet a diet it's rich and complex carbohydrates that you have covered your bases and then if you want a supplement understanding that it may be a roll of

the dice that's up to you but when people on and you see this with teenage girls a skip the milk because they don't want the ninety calories that come from the compass skim milk and now they'll take calcium supplements debt you really are rolling the dice because we don't know that that can work is there any point with children whether it's elementary school or secondary school we're you can really get them to worry about different groups ethnic servings of this next irving so that if that doesn't work for them what other ways that i don't think it does work cause i don't see it working for adults i think that we need to move away i think from food as medicine to think more in terms of a nice balance to it and that i think works because people eating should be a meter counting food groups in

southern europe for example and they eat great food an unhealthy food and they're not you know they're just not doing i cannot i think you look at trying to do it quite naturally one of the things i found is that hewitt ways to eat a lean diet then you tend to get a nicer beyond through the other fruits and vegetables to compliment but i don't have any a prejudice against high fat foods what i have a prejudice against says too many high fat foods too many meals in a row so for example air if we're looking to identify you know a higher fat sandwich tunis salad would come to mind because it's mixed with mannix but if you have to know on a day that you had the gates for breakfast and prime rib for dinner you've got i said david don't blame the tune it's been the day on the other hand if you had to knit for one china daily you had oatmeal for breakfast and pasta mr in a more in our sauce for dinner you the high

fat want picture that all of that day so to me it's really a question of how we get some natural balance in there that we didn't have that in the past we used to eat our way in the days when the june cleaver still caught by june hung up or a brand and you know today the deal is so what you making for dinner and the answer's reservations i so things have changed and it's not happening is natural way so we've gotta do a little bit more work to create these kind of habits that have such a direct impact on our health and the health of our children but i think that what particular people start to eat a little bit less fat it did get to make a bit of a provision for when madonna kennedy in between so you actually get to eat more food when you eat a leaner diet but it it will penalize you from a cholesterol or or weight standpoint i think that's one of the first things i noticed as i began to know more more people who are vegetarians which was that they ate a lot and often now

that that's true and then that if you're looking at you know probably the best diet designed for people on it would be true for health would be a vegetarian diet to see not many people want to practice it r n some vegetarian cuisine is actually a pretty high in fat because of the use of seeds and nuts and cheese and guacamole and i kind of think so you would have to be i'm a little i'd be a little concerned about a vegetarian diet for children so i wouldn't recommended and one of the reasons is unless you're doing the correct balancing the rice in the beans together to get the complete protein then it doesn't work very well from a health standpoint and we've got a lot of young women are college age women and decorum a vegetarian and what they really mean is i wanna lose weight and to look like these the models on tv somebody's cheerios three times today as that really be a vegetarian diet i really like small pieces of animal protein i like a stir fry that have small pieces of chicken or fish

or or or even beef the cat particularly if you're looking at folks ago aerobics classes and there are you know are physically active i am then there's some repair the muscle tissue that comes from the animal protein cause it's a complete prude i hate to see people have a fear of food mean i think food should be a natural part of our life we should enjoy it's a love it's tradition it's family and social occasions i am i i think that on all foods can be acceptable and what i'm trying to do is to teach people how to happen to a little bit of a better balancing act and also china on a plan so that you can come together to actually eat a meal together and i think one of the big things that's lost in this fast food culture is not just the nutrition from what we're eating but the opportunity for the family sit down together all one time to say what you did today and how did you do it and it was a good day or was in a bad day and parents get to teach

values and they get to listen to their kids and while they're sharing a meal on this is one of the things that americans are missing today at a time when we talk about communication and of the fabric of families and our estimate and so i think that the earlier that get started with children you're you can soon around healthy meal but as a family that's going to pay off when this child is fourteen or fifteen and because you say it's white he says is black because uses black he says as white you know you have to that's not the point which you want to introduce you know they examined her as opposed to that for the seward i mean was this one of the reasons that that you've included menus at the end as i think in some families there might've been a disconnect food is not something that happens at all right i think that's true and that is why we did we want to make it if you'll notice in the recipes and her over on her government i mentioned before they're really kid friendly macaroni and cheese tuna noodle casserole

burrito spaghetti and meatballs was it that kind of stuff most of the recipes are prepared in twenty minutes or less so a we've we've kind of face that then there and then you said that tell you look make this and this and this gives you the complete man you make this in business digital grignon we've got holiday menus we've got and all kinds of things and the reason is to try to make it is easy as possible for people hiking in the society where the time is the is the commodity that were the most shorted and if you're on a time and it's five o'clock year it's five thirty and you've just gotten off a word dinners at six o'clock and you're standing in the food store with an empty car and you know you're going to end up with daily takeout or a pizza or something like that so it does take a little bit of planning and these menus in there in the testing that we've done of the book been with real people and we have done that i'm that they have come back and said that's one of the most valuable portions of the book are the menus you can use it what people find is that down and

this comes from the scientific data most american families for twelve recipes eighty percent of the time if he actually think about which and cooked the last two weeks we can predict the next to some by using chinese in my wife's belly as polish recipes together we've done in this is our sixth book and for them are cookbooks and i think she's got close to a thousand recipes in those books but i am she put all of these rescues together and bought by learning how she modified and wind up the recipes in this book you're going to be able to apply that same thinking to your grandmother's favorite chili recipe then you get the best of both worlds to grandma's recipe is still where it's a familiar foods a favorite film but you've made it lighter haven't gone to no fear which made it lighter which has a significant impact on caloric intake man did it

a male guest on forms of injustice could tell president of the institute for fitness and health incorporated in tacoma washington and author of fact proof your child published by workman publishing the views expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect the views of the university of texas austin or this station technical producer for formed cliff hargrove production assistant then ease on it and your producer and host olive green pieces is available and navy purchased by writing for and cassettes communication giving the ut austin austin texas seventy seventy one to that's for a cassettes communication at ut austin austin texas seventy seven wanted to this

exchange at the university of texas at austin this is the longhorn radio network this week on for an author just this could tell i'd have numbers of parents are very interested in the children that we're very interested in healthy eating and we're very tired of trying to tell me what to do that prove to trial this week on a forum or