Diets Are Dumb

5/18/2008

I don’t talk about diets to my patients with weight problems for four reasons:

1. I don’t want parents to focus on calorie counts to the neglect of nutrition—kids need a lot of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients in order to grow and develop properly. They may not need less food so much as more of the right foods.

2. I think it’s far more important to look at patterns of eating instead of creating a list of diet “do”s and “don’t”s. A meal should be a pleasure, not an exercise in deprivation.

3. I think that weight loss or weight maintenance plans should focus on the entire family not just on the individual. Feeling singled out for an overhaul can alienate a potentially cooperative child. An approach that improves the eating habits of the whole family has been proven in study after study to work the best.

4. I think it is more effective to help a child stay at his current weight as he grows taller than to force him to lose weight.

By far, the best dietary pattern for weight maintenance while growing is one that puts a lot of vegetables, fruits, healthy carbohydrates, and lean proteins on the plate. The most well-known and well-studied healthy pattern of eating is the traditional Mediterranean diet, common in Italy, Crete, Morocco, Turkey, and southern France.

A child following the Mediterranean pattern would eat each day:

• whole grain breads and pasta
• vegetables like spinach, tomatoes, and salad greens
• fruits like grapes, oranges, avocados and olives
• nuts like almonds and walnuts
• legumes like chickpeas, white beans, and lentils
• olive oil
• cheese and yogurt (low-fat if possible)
• 6-8 glasses of water

Some fish, chicken, eggs, and a few sweets could be added over the course of a week. Other meats would be indulged in once a month.

Did you notice what’s missing? Nearly all processed foods and empty calories. This is a nutrition-packed diet, and there’s no room in it for foods that can’t deliver the goods. It’s not only a healthy way to eat, but also one that ensures that the calories your child does take in will be full of the vitamins, minerals and other good things that are so important to his or her development.

Healthy Mediterranean, Asian, Latin American, and vegetarian food pyramids can be found at the Oldways Preservation Trust website www.oldwayspt.org/pyramids.html