Lady with young daughter at schnucks

[tothebeach08]

I sat next to a 9 year old Parisian girl on a one hour flight from Paris to Geneva who continued to pull snack after snack out of her bookbag. In one hour she ate:

- The ring pop, the thing you put on your finger and suck on. She had a bag of like pixie stick sugar that she would dip the ring in for even more sugar.
- A complete dispenser of PEZ.
- Bag of potato chips.
- Several pieces of hard candy
- Juice
- Pretzels and Coke (from the airline)

I was a little surprised by this junk, maybe Europeans are starting to become more Americanized.

I don't know, I think a 9 year old should be able to self-entertain for a 1 hour flight without having to eat snacks non-stop. Little guys are harder to keep under control and maybe a bag of goldfish crackers will do the trick, but not a bunch of sugar snacks and then expect them to sit on a plane and not bug everyone else. 9 years old, read a book or play a game.

[ghostrunner]

Did any of your parents ask you to pick out groceries for them? My Mom bought it and told me what I was going to eat.

I don't see anything wrong with it. There's a school of thought out there that says you should try to give your kid choices, so they feel they have some control. If you provide them the choice, you'll be in control of the choices, but they still get to pick. We've done that on some things, and it does often lead to confusion and constant changing of their mind. But he's a great kid on the whole, and I'm not going to discount his preference entirely.




I'm not sure Europeans eat better on the whole. Less fast food perhaps, but they like their sweets. It always seemed to me that they eat too much bread. Mostly I think they just get more daily exercise than Americans.

EDIT - Thinking about it some more, I imagine we do eat more processed and artificially preserved food. Which means more sodium, and therefore more water retained. But I'm not even positive about that. You think about buying food in Europe, it conjures up images of people going to a market and buying fresh produce and baguettes. Not sure how true that is outside the major cities.

[lukethedrifter]

I totally agree that juice is one step on the way to our Type 2 Diabetes epidemic.

I have my struggles with making sure my brat eats well (yet trying not to make it a struggle) but fortunately her favorite drink is water.

True story: At her half brother's 8th grade graduation dinner, she had a soda but asked her Mom to get her a water. Aggravated, my ex-wife snapped, "You always want water!"

[cards2468]

I sat next to a 9 year old Parisian girl on a one hour flight from Paris to Geneva who continued to pull snack after snack out of her bookbag. In one hour she ate:

- The ring pop, the thing you put on your finger and suck on. She had a bag of like pixie stick sugar that she would dip the ring in for even more sugar.
- A complete dispenser of PEZ.
- Bag of potato chips.
- Several pieces of hard candy
- Juice
- Pretzels and Coke (from the airline)

I was a little surprised by this junk, maybe Europeans are starting to become more Americanized.

I've read that the obesity epidemic has spread all over the world. Many countries are starting to really get into the fast food craze.

Snacking is a good thing, snacking on junk food is not. I have a friend here at college that lives off a diet similar to that list you provided. She is healthy in terms of body fat, but her crazed sugar obsession is doing some serious damage. Occasionally when she goes a short period of time now without a sugar snack, she'll pass out. I think she said it's a diagnosed condition, which I can't remember, but I don't think it ONLY affects physical health. She's constantly stressed out and has some serious anxiety issues. I know plenty of healthy-eating-people have these issues, but I bet there's a correlation between her mental issues and her poor eating.

Best advice I've heard about grocery shopping: buy primarily from the outer perimeter of the store. The outer perimeter typically consists of fresh produce, deli, and some dairy. Inner isles typically have a juice isle, potato chip isle, food packed with preservatives isle, and plenty of corn syrup and artificial sweetener. Even "healthy" food you have to watch, it's amazing how many yogurts out there that are labeled as "health food" are packed with corn syrup.

[jim]

Did any of your parents ask you to pick out groceries for them? My Mom bought it and told me what I was going to eat.

Same here Richie.

[jim]

Did any of your parents ask you to pick out groceries for them? My Mom bought it and told me what I was going to eat.

I don't see anything wrong with it. There's a school of thought out there that says you should try to give your kid choices, so they feel they have some control. If you provide them the choice, you'll be in control of the choices, but they still get to pick. We've done that on some things, and it does often lead to confusion and constant changing of their mind. But he's a great kid on the whole, and I'm not going to discount his preference entirely.




I'm not sure Europeans eat better on the whole. Less fast food perhaps, but they like their sweets. It always seemed to me that they eat too much bread. Mostly I think they just get more daily exercise than Americans.

EDIT - Thinking about it some more, I imagine we do eat more processed and artificially preserved food. Which means more sodium, and therefore more water retained. But I'm not even positive about that. You think about buying food in Europe, it conjures up images of people going to a market and buying fresh produce and baguettes. Not sure how true that is outside the major cities.

From my experience your edit is pretty spot on. Portion sizes are way more reasonable and the quality of food is higher. They have no problem spending more money on food as well to get higher quality.

[lukethedrifter]

Best advice I've heard about grocery shopping: buy primarily from the outer perimeter of the store. The outer perimeter typically consists of fresh produce, deli, and some dairy. Inner isles typically have a juice isle, potato chip isle, food packed with preservatives isle, and plenty of corn syrup and artificial sweetener. Even "healthy" food you have to watch, it's amazing how many yogurts out there that are labeled as "health food" are packed with corn syrup.

Maybe you read it here.

[jim]

I sat next to a 9 year old Parisian girl on a one hour flight from Paris to Geneva who continued to pull snack after snack out of her bookbag. In one hour she ate:

- The ring pop, the thing you put on your finger and suck on. She had a bag of like pixie stick sugar that she would dip the ring in for even more sugar.
- A complete dispenser of PEZ.
- Bag of potato chips.
- Several pieces of hard candy
- Juice
- Pretzels and Coke (from the airline)

I was a little surprised by this junk, maybe Europeans are starting to become more Americanized.

I've read that the obesity epidemic has spread all over the world. Many countries are starting to really get into the fast food craze.

Snacking is a good thing, snacking on junk food is not. I have a friend here at college that lives off a diet similar to that list you provided. She is healthy in terms of body fat, but her crazed sugar obsession is doing some serious damage. Occasionally when she goes a short period of time now without a sugar snack, she'll pass out. I think she said it's a diagnosed condition, which I can't remember, but I don't think it ONLY affects physical health. She's constantly stressed out and has some serious anxiety issues. I know plenty of healthy-eating-people have these issues, but I bet there's a correlation between her mental issues and her poor eating.

Best advice I've heard about grocery shopping: buy primarily from the outer perimeter of the store. The outer perimeter typically consists of fresh produce, deli, and some dairy. Inner isles typically have a juice isle, potato chip isle, food packed with preservatives isle, and plenty of corn syrup and artificial sweetener. Even "healthy" food you have to watch, it's amazing how many yogurts out there that are labeled as "health food" are packed with corn syrup.

Interesting, I never thought how a grocery store is laid out but you are right.

I'm sure obesity is increasing all over the world, but it's nowhere close to what we are. It didn't really hit me how fat Americans are until I went to Europe.

[JCShutout]

LOL! I mean, that's terrible, and if I was there I would probably drop my jaw in shock, but for whatever reason I'm laughing now.

[thrill]

I'm sure obesity is increasing all over the world, but it's nowhere close to what we are. It didn't really hit me how fat Americans are until I went to Europe.

As of this year, Australia and Japan have higher bmi's than us.