With Father’s Day weekend fast approaching, it’s a good time to consider the role that dads play in the health of their family. While more fathers play an active role in cooking than ever in our history, mothers still take on brunt of these daily chores.

But according to a recent survey of 1000 dads, the majority of fathers want to be more involved in the day-to-day kid stuff. Fifty-three percent said they would consider staying home if finances weren’t an issue. And fathers actually rated job security and flexible hours as more important than high income and advancement opportunities.

So dads, while you may not have as much time as you want to be involved in your kids’ lives, here are some things you can do to positively shape their current and future health.

1. Be there for meals as often as you can. Everyone knows family meals are important but late hours and demanding jobs can make this tough for fathers. What’s a dad to do?

Make a point to get off early once or twice a week or sit down with the family at other times like breakfast. Take advantage of weekends when there is usually less to do. When you show your kids that you value the family meal it makes a difference. In fact, two recent studies show that dads’ fast food habits, both with kids and without, negatively impact the eating habits of their children.

2. Try more foods: According to our 2010 survey, some of you complained that the dads in your lives are just as picky as your kids, making mealtime a challenge.

Dads, if this applies to you, show your kids that you are willing to try new foods and accept less-than-favorite meals. Don’t let previous experiences with foods, like vegetables, hold you back. Studies show that as we age our taste buds are more accepting of bitter tastes in many vegetables.  

Remember, it takes kids many years to learn to like a variety of foods and they look to both parents for guidance.

3. Be on the same page as mom: In two parent families it’s much more powerful if both parents feed in the same way.  If one parent follows the division of responsibility but the other exterts pressure or restricts the child, it sends mixed messages.  So when it comes to feeding, have a unified approach and stay consistent.

4. Make feeding yourself a priority: My experience as a dietitian and nutrition counselor tells me that men, in general, are not as good at planning meals for themselves as women. The trend I see is skipping breakfast or eating something quick, grabbing a quick lunch and coming home ravenous followed by eating all night.

Show your kids that eating and food are priorities for you by sitting down for breakfast and packing snacks and a balanced lunch if access to good food at work is limited. Do this enough and you’ll start liking it.

5. Deal with stress positively: Every dad deserves a late night of relaxation once in a while. But if staying up late, eating erratically and avoiding exercise are all ways you deal with the stress, your kids — and your stress — will take notice.

Stress only gets worse when we are sleep-deprived and not fed well. When things get rough at the office, it’s even more important to take care of yourself. Teach your kids this early and you will save them lots of hard lessons when they get older.

6. Give mom a feeding break: Okay, I’m adding this one in for selfish reasons. I know some of you dads already cook a lot. But for those of you who don’t, help out with a meal or two. If cooking seems too daunting, help with the feeding (especially kids under 2), set up and clean up. It’s great for kids to see dads active in the kitchen and playing a role in feeding.

Every Saturday morning in my home I go for a long workout while my husband feeds the kids. They enjoy the daddy time and I love the break.

7. Spend active time with kids: This article on The Motherlode discusses the importance of dads playing with their kids. According to the authors of The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old Fashion Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It:

“Physical fitness is an obvious benefit of roughhousing. A less obvious — but more important — benefit of roughhousing is the way it helps dads and children tune in to each other. When a father and child work together to master a complicated flip like the Houdini or the Red Tornado, they both gain a sense of accomplishment from paying close attention to each other’s emotions and cues. The result is a feeling of closeness that benefits both father and child.”

Other “active” father and child activities include hiking, throwing a ball, or going to the park. Let’s face it, physical activity makes everyone feel better and is a great way to spend quality time together

Benefiting the health of a child, for fathers, is really simple. Share balanced meals together, spend active quality time and be a positive role model when it comes to self care.

Since most of my readers are women, make sure to send this to the dads in your lives. Happy Father’s Day!

“I know what to do, I just don’t do it.”

As a dietitian of almost 15 years, this is what I’ve heard most often from clients. Many people feel guilty for not following the healthy eating advice that is virtually everywhere.

What most people don’t realize is that “what” they eat is the wrong place to start. It’s more important, in my opinion, to focus on “how” to eat first.

For those new to Raise Healthy Eaters, this is our parent tip series. The idea is to help parents become more positive role models for their kids — one of the three essentials for raising healthy eaters. For more details see Parent Tip #1.

How you eat is vital in helping you develop a healthy relationship with food, eat well and maintain a healthy weight. But as a parent you have the added advantage of having kids to learn from. Let me show you what I mean.

Do Parents or Kids Know Best?
In our society it is generally accepted that parents know what’s best when it comes to nutrition and eating. I believe this is only half right. Parents are better equipped than children to make value judgments for food choice meaning we consider nutrition, taste and variety.

But what young children do very well is eat the right amount of food that they need. Research shows that infants and toddlers are particularly good at regulating food intake. But as kids get older they tend to lose this skill. No one knows exactly why but it probably has to do with feeding practices, the environment and a whole slew of other factors that teach children to eat for external reasons (eat in the absence of hunger, finish what’s on the plate, visual cues etc.).

In a 2007 study published in Appetite, 85% of 142 families interviewed said they try to get their child to eat more at mealtime by using reasoning, praise and food rewards. The authors argue that parents may be teaching their kids to eat past their internal hunger and satiety cues.

A Case Study
I had the pleasure of talking to Katja Rowell, a physician whose mission is to help families bring peace and joy to the family table (see Family Feeding Dynamics). When her daughter was born almost ten-pounds, she was worried and wasn’t quite sure how best to prevent weight problems.

“I struggled with how best to feed her,” she says. “But once I understood the feeding process and got the right information it helped me relax and feed her from love, not worry. I learned what I had to do to support her internal skills. She knew how much she needed to eat so that she could grow in a healthy way.”

Rowell trained with Ellyn Satter and applied the Division of Responsibility of feeding. But she didn’t stop there. She took what she learned about feeding her daughter and applied it to herself.

Even though she wasn’t overweight, like a lot of adults she struggled with her favorite “forbidden” foods that she found hard to eat in a healthy way. She explains how, pre-kids, a bag of Tostitos wouldn’t last in her house for more than two days. She denied herself sodas as “empty” foods, only to crave them and drink more when she had the chance. Her vices: coke and salty foods.

But that changed when she saw her daughter intuitively eating and stopping when she was full – even with favorite foods.

“I’d watch her turn down food when she was full and leave cake unfinished,” she says. “I thought to myself, if she can do it why can’t I?”

So Rowell stopped denying herself salty foods and soda and allowed them back in her diet in a non-judgmental way. At first she often ate chips for lunch and drank a soda most days. It wasn’t long before she found that they could sit in her fridge or cupboards for weeks. She paid more attention to hunger and satiety cues, continued to eat regular meals and found herself more at peace with food.

“I’m a more comfortable and competent eater now,” she says, “and my daughter was the inspiration.”

What to do?
As Rowell demonstrates, learning how to focus inward may be as easy as using your kids for inspiration. Here are some tips and things to think about:

-Instead of zeroing in on what and how much your kid is eating, give your meal your full attention. Are you eating slow enough to enjoy every bite? Do you stop when you’re full or go past that signal?

-When your child goes too long without eating he or she might throw a tantrum. Recognize your own adult-like tantrums. Do you forget to feed yourself only to have hunger come back with a vengeance at night time?

-Notice how your kids enjoy foods like sweets without guilt and do the same. If you crave a non-nutritious food, have it without judgment but sit down and be present for each wonderful bite.

-Watch out for food associations that cause you to eat in the absence of hunger such as eating while watching TV, when bored or for comfort.

Has having kids changed the way you eat? Do you focus on your internal or external cues to tell you when you’re done eating? I’d love to hear from you.

References
Orrell-Valente et al. “Just three more bites”: an observational analysis of parents’ socialization of children’s eating at mealtime. Appetite. 2007;48 (1):37-45

On this blog I cover the three essential factors for raising healthy and happy eaters: providing children with good nutrition (the “what”), utilizing a positive feeding strategy (the “how”) and being a healthy role model (the example).

But no matter how much we know, intellectually, that we are role models for our kids, it’s still very tempting to put taking care of ourselves on the back burner.

I believe children are the best motivator. A parent’s love is so strong it can move mountains — and create change where it never seemed possible. So in order to help us all be better role models (yes, me too) I’m going to continually post time-saving health tip for parents.

The first one has to do with that precious resource many of us are lacking: a decent night’s sleep.

The reality
“Once you have kids your sleep is never the same,” a friend told me and my husband before we had children. And now I get it. It’s like as a parent you are always chasing sleep.

It’s amazing how easy it is for parents to become lured into the sleep-deprived cycle. After children get to bed, it’s finally “parent time” whether it’s watching a favorite show, doing work or even household chores. Unless you’re dealing with a newborn or sick child, you know you won’t be interrupted.

But what happens when that tired feeling takes over early in the evening? If you wait long enough your second wind comes thanks to adrenaline — allowing for more ”parent time.” And if you go to be late for long enough you seem to need less sleep or might even have trouble falling– or staying — asleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than half of adults experience insomnia a few nights a week.

It seems the less sleep you get the less you need. But is this a good thing? Research shows that insufficient sleep increases the risk for chronic diseases, causes individuals to be less productive and poses safety risks.

Sleep and weight loss
There is quite a bit of research showing that insufficient sleep increases appetite and is linked to higher weights. Scientists believe that a lack of shut eye causes the secretion of more hunger-inducing hormones, making people eat more than they would otherwise.

According to the a recent study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, mothers who got less than 5 hours sleep 6 months postpartum weighed more (ten pounds plus) at one year than the moms who got more sleep.

This is why I’m addressing sleep first. If you are not getting enough shut-eye, exercising and eating are going to be compromised as well.

What to do?
I could make this tip “get more sleep” and end it there. I know from experience that just telling people to do something rarely does the trick. It’s much better for people to focus on “why” they want to do something.

So I say pick one week and go to bed earlier than usual. Tell yourself you can always go back to the old way later. So instead of fighting that early night tiredness simply give in and get some rest (unless you’re tired at 5pm, that’s a little too early). Note how more sleep makes you feel all day long. Do you get more or less stuff done? How does it affect your disposition? Does it make your life better, worse or the same?

If you decide that getting more sleep is worth it, devise some strategies. For example, two nights a week I stay up later to get a post up, but I make sure the next day isn’t a work day. The other nights I make an effort to get quality “me time” in until 9pm and start closing up shop then. On weekends I live dangerously and go to bed closer to 10pm unless we go out.

As you make the change, old thoughts will come back telling you staying up later is your reward for parenting. But you can challenge those thoughts by reminding yourself how much more rewarding life is with more sleep.

How much sleep is enough? According to the National Sleep Foundation, somewhere between 7 and 9 hours should do the trick but everyone is different. If you wake up feeling rested and good during the day, you probably are getting enough. But it might take you a while to pay off your sleep debt from before so you might feel tired initially.

Now I know there are some of you that are getting plenty of good, solid sleep. What are you doing? Did you always get good sleep? Leave a comment and let us know.

New to Raise Healthy Eaters? Subscribe to be alerted of new posts

References:
Patel SR. Reduced sleep as an obesity risk factor. Obes Rev. 2009 Nov;10 Suppl 2:61-8.

Gunderson EP, Rifas-Shiman SL, Oken E, Rich-Edwards JW, Kleinman KP, Taveras EM, Gillman MW. Association of fewer hours of sleep at 6 months postpartum with substantial weight retention at 1 year postpartum. Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Jan 15;167(2):178-87.