NO TIME FOR LUNCH

**An Encouraging Word, Vol. 17**

an occasional note from Jean Fain

 Harvard Medical School psychotherapist & hypnosis instructor

 Published April 5, 2008

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Read on if you’re interested in losing weight without the deprivation associated with dieting. Feel free to forward “An Encouraging Word” to a friend. If you didn’t receive this note directly from Jean Fain and you’d like to subscribe, send an email to the address above with the word “subscribe” in the subject field. If you’d rather not receive future announcements, send an email with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject field.

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Feeding Our Schoolchildren…

Recently, I had the good fortune of speaking at a conference sponsored by the School Nutrition Association, the folks who make it their business to feed America’s schoolchildren. In too many lunchrooms nationwide, there’s apparently too little time for kids to eat.  In our crazy/busy/competitive society, achievement often trumps nourishment. Which makes no sense, given that kids, adults too, need good nutrition – a sufficient quantity of quality snacks and meals -- to concentrate, to learn, to achieve.

I hear the same complaint in my private practice. One client’s daughter was encouraged by her school to take an advanced placement class in lieu of lunch. When the daughter was diagnosed with an eating disorder, the mom had to get special permission for her daughter to snack in the nurse’s office.  Parents and organizations, like the School Nutrition Association, are working hard to nourish our children, but given the rising rates of childhood obesity and eating disorders, there’s clearly more work to do. So what’s to be done?

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Naturally Thin Kids…

Happily, Jean Antonello, a Minneapolis-based nutritionist, tackles these tough issues in her latest book “Naturally Thin Kids: How to Protect Your Kids from Obesity and Eating Disorders for Life.” Antonello’s take on our nation’s nutrition deficit disorder: kids are set up to overeat and/or develop eating disorders when adults allow, if not encourage, them to under-eat. You read right, Antonello believes that kids are under-eating, especially between breakfast and lunch (particularly if they missed breakfast) and after school (when activities like sports interfere with eating).

When food availability is inadequate, she says, either quantitatively (not enough food) or qualitatively (not enough good quality food) or both, kids lose touch with their bodies’ natural cues for hunger and fullness. When children are forced to go hungry -- by their overbooked schedules, their diet-conscious parents, their fat-fearing peers -- they adapt: their metabolism decreases; their craving for and preoccupation with junk food increases; they become more irritable, and less interested in physical activity.

According to the good nutritionist, the common-wisdom solution – eat less, exercise more – actually exacerbates the problem.  Whenever kids are hungry, even if it’s 30 minutes before a meal, it behooves their adult caretakers to make available an array of high-quality, kid-tasty foods, such as “ants on a log” (celery filled with peanut butter and raisins), cut-up fruit, granola bars….

If this advice sounds right on, be sure to check out Antonello’s website: www.naturally-thin.com.

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Food For Thought…

“Experts who try to help overweight kids focus on low-fat diets with behavior modification, along with dramatically increased exercise regimens, fail most of the time. Research with adults who approach these problems with this formula has cast strong doubts on its lasting effectiveness…. How well do these approaches work in highly motivated adults without supervision? About 2% or 3% are considered successful, keeping off weight loss for five years. No statistics are available regarding children. But are they likely to do better than grown-ups?”

--Jean Antonello

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In addition to seeing clients in private practice, Jean Fain teaches hypnosis at Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and she writes for O, The Oprah Magazine, among other women's magazines. More information about Jean Fain’s services and weight-loss CDs is available on her website (www.jeanfain.com).

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