Week 1: Understand Topic

My goal for the first week of researching my Genius Hour project was to spend a couple hours familiarizing myself with what would be considered healthy eating for children. Because all individuals are diverse and, thus, have different dietary needs, I thought I should research this topic in a general sense: what is considered to be healthy eating for most children in Canada. Furthermore, because I am trying to develop lifelong healthy eating habits, I also explored healthy eating for adolescence and adults.


There has been a lot of investigation on the topic of healthy eating for all populations. However, what is assumed to be healthy for children seems to have the least debate, compared to for teenagers and adults. After searching the topic online, there were many results on Google, ranging from parents’ opinion blogs to doctoral literary reviews. I am in the first 10 minutes of my Genius Hour project, and I already know that this will be a difficult subject to cover! Having said this, I noticed several patterns in the research. Among the most common themes, for instance, was the fact that children should be eating a balanced diet, consisting of three meals per day, plus 1-2 snacks each day (Caring for Kids, 2020). In addition, all three food groups should be incorporated in each meal: vegetables

Government of Canada (2019). Canada’s Food Guide. Retrieved from their website

and fruit, whole grain products, and protein foods (Canada’s Food Guide, 2019). Like anyone else, kids are recommended to limit their sugar and sodium intakes by making water the drink of choice (Patel & Hampton, 2011). Another significant finding that was widespread across literature was that children need to eat a variety of foods that are nutritious, interesting, and flavourful (Nicklaus, 2009). In fact, there is a great website developed by Harvard School of Public Health called the Kid's Healthy Eating Plate, which helps parents and teachers build a healthy and balanced meal for children (HSPH, 2020). This link illustrates a general strategy for how to build a plate of food for any child. I will likely be using this resource in future blogs to come.


As stated, the debate on what is healthy for older individuals sparked much more controversy. My proposition is that this is due mainly to the fact that the longer someone has lived, the more their body has been influenced by their environment. In other words, children are more impacted by “nature” (biological factors), while adults are more influenced by “nurture” (environmental factors). Therefore, there seems to be more agreement that children should eat the way people have evolved to eat; whereas adults are often advised to follow regimented diet routines that are not necessarily “normal”. Some of these diets that showed up consistently in my research were Keto, Intermittent Fasting (IT), Mediterranean, whole-food, vegan, Paleo, gluten-free, and more.

Freedhoff, Y. (2020). Dieting is often synonymous with suffering, so consider the reverse: 95 percent of diets fail people. US Health News. Retrieved from US Health

My introductory research on the topic confirmed the original hypothesis that developing healthy eating for children is crucial for their future relationships with food and healthy eating habits (Westenhoefer, 2001). Because research is constantly being updated and modern studies are coming out with new findings, it is essential that I use only current and relevant data for my project. One general conclusion that I can reach is that once eating patterns fluctuate and become “unhealthy”, this may lead to weight gain and other consequences for the body. This has been seen to be true for all citizens, whether it be athletes, couch potatoes, teenage girls, body builders, or the “everyday Joe” (Batzli, 1971; French, 1995). This frequently, in turn, leads to an unhealthy relationship with food, since individuals generally “blame” the food for these problems (Latner et al., 2014). The negative impact that this may have on one’s mental health and self-esteem often leads to them following strict dietary patterns that are difficult to sustain because they do not reflect how people are meant to eat (Dignon et al., 2006). Finally, 95% of the time (Freedhoff, US Health, 2020), the individual gives in, which leads to them gaining the weight back, and often even more weight than they had before the diet. This can also be known in food culture as “yo-yo dieting”, which means routinely cycling through restricting certain foods or amounts of food, followed by binging on the foods that were not allowed, trailed again by purging or restricting your food intake (Smith & Bible, 2020). This has been proven to have horrendous implications on one’s health (Jandacek et al., 2005). Therefore, it is imperative to develop proper eating habits and healthy relationships with food when we are young, so that we don’t end up on a downward spiral of abstaining from what out bodies need the most – food!

via GIPHY

References

Batzli, G. O., & Pitelka, F. A. (1971). Condition and diet of cycling populations of the California vole, Microtus californicus. Journal of Mammalogy, 52(1), 141-163.

Dignon, A., Beardsmore, A., Spain, S., & Kuan, A. (2006). ‘Why I Won’t Eat’ Patient Testimony from 15 Anorexics Concerning the Causes of Their Disorder. Journal of health psychology, 11(6), 942-956.

Freedhoff, Y. (2020). Dieting is often synonymous with suffering, so consider the reverse: 95 percent of diets fail people. US Health News. Retrieved from https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2014/11/17/no-95-percent-of-people-dont-fail-their-diets

French, S. A., Perry, C. L., Leon, G. R., & Fulkerson, J. A. (1995). Dieting behaviors and weight change history in female adolescents. Health Psychology, 14(6), 548.

Government of Canada (2019). Canada’s Food Guide. Retrieved from https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/healthy-food-choices/

Harvard School of Public Health (2020). Kid’s Healthy Eating Plate. Retrieved from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/kids-healthy-eating-plate/

Nicklaus, S. (2009). Development of food variety in children. Appetite, 52(1), 253-255.

Jandacek, R. J., Anderson, N., Liu, M., Zheng, S., Yang, Q., & Tso, P. (2005). Effects of yo-yo diet, caloric restriction, and olestra on tissue distribution of hexachlorobenzene. American journal of physiology-Gastrointestinal and liver physiology, 288(2), G292-G299.

Patel, A. I., & Hampton, K. E. (2011). Encouraging consumption of water in school and child care settings: access, challenges, and strategies for improvement. American journal of public health, 101(8), 1370-1379.

Smith, B. & Bible, A. (2020). Yo-yo Dieting: What It Is and How It Can Wreck Your Body. Men’s Journal Health & Fitness. Retrieved from https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/yo-yo-dieting-what-it-and-how-it-can-wreck-your-body/

Unknown (2020). Caring for Kids. Retrieved from https://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/healthy_eating_for_children

Westenhoefer, J. (2001). Establishing good dietary habits–capturing the minds of children. Public Health Nutrition, 4(1a), 125-129.