In which "healthy eating" articles are like baby books. In a bad way.

[commodorified]

It is not actually the sole and only goal of parenting to get your child to go to sleep. I admit, it can feel like it when they're very small [1], but there is actually a whole lot of stuff you can and want to do with babies: feed them! Wash them! Play with them! Dress them in cute outfits and take them places! Teach them to walk, talk, and play the accordion!

You could, however, be forgiven for getting confused about this if you just scanned the titles at the bookstore.

Similarly:

Ok, look: first of all prescriptivist language about food is mostly[2] total bullshit.

But even were I prepared to stipulate the contrary: if your headline is "X food: not The Healthy Choice After All", is it too much to expect your thesis to be more like: "the iron in dark green leaf vegetables isn't very bioavailable, don't try to use spinach as a main source", not just "omg, X actually has A LOT OF CALORIES!!!"

Because, you know what?

Food is supposed to contain food. It's like we're supposed to believe that our single overriding goal when we buy food is the maximum number of chews with the minimum actual results.

And, um, no. Food is supposed to be made of food. Take your zero-fat fake-sugar flavoured gelatin mislabelled as yoghurt and stuff it up your jumper and give me some gods-damned breakfast.

I have shit to DO today.

ETA: I can tell the outside temp has gone up; the X-ray TV tonight at the nurses' station is all lungs and skulls instead of hips and arms and ankles



[1] it's not that all these tricks for getting kids to sleep don't work; trust me, by the time your kid is, say, 15, they'll sleep right through, no problem, and often well into the next day as well.

[2] And when I say "mostly" instead of "completely" it's to allow exceptions like "don't leave raw poultry at room temp, especially if it's stuffed, ok?"

Comments

[niqaeli]

Unless your kid has a sleep disorder in which case all the tricks in the world aren't going to fix the kid's issues when they assume fundamentally diurnal body rhythyms. Mind, teaching your kid coping mechanisms and ways to manage their sleep disorder would be good. But rarely have I ever seen people allow as how maybe the kid might actually have a sleep disorder and it's nobody's fucking fault or bad choices that are causing it.

(I have a sleep disorder. It apparently started manifesting noticeably when I was a toddler. I certainly don't remember ever not having it.)

[commodorified]

Yeah, ok, I do too actually. Have lifelong sleep problems. But, you know, the riff off of "when they're sixteen months old it's all about getting them to sleep, when they're sixteen years old it's all about getting them up" was just too much for my scarred old step parental soul to resist

However, I did not mean and do not wish to make fun of the very real sleep problems babies and toddlers can have, only of the rash of parenting books that make it sound as though the ultimately desireable state of a baby is Comatose With Occasional Cooing.

[legionseagle]

It is not actually the sole and only goal of parenting to get your child to go to sleep.

Indeed, it can set up problems going into later life. I've always thought I had an easier time than my sister because as a baby she was a difficult sleeper and I had the ability, as my mother put it, "to sleep on a clothes-line". Which, I think, was reflected in relative perceptions of us as "a problem child" and "a good child" (which isn't unmitigated bliss for the bearer of either label, btw).

[mme_hardy]

I made a point of referring to my children as "an easy baby" and "not always an easy baby" to avoid just that label. I mean, not being fussy at six months is not so much a symptom of being a good human being.

[legionseagle]

Food is supposed to contain food. It's like we're supposed to believe that our single overriding goal when we buy food is the maximum number of chews with the minimum actual results.

I nearly walked out of Finding Nemo when I encountered the 12-step sharks. I certainly spent the remainder of the film muttering, "Food isn't an addiction! Not having a swim-bladder uses a lot of energy! Energy comes from food! Sharks are not morally culpable or weak-willed for acting in accordance with their metabolism! Fuck you, Pixar!"

[commodorified]

Oh God Yeah. I also considered walking out. Then I remembered that I was 25 000 m over Northern Saskatchewan... :)

[ilanikhan]

"I have shit to DO today."

Amen to that! Good luck on your quest to fuel your day.

Hugs for when you need them.

[rydra_wong]

SHOCK NEWS: IS FOOD GOOD FOR YOU?

Groundbreaking new research released today suggests that under some circumstances, food may be not be as harmful as it's traditionally been thought.

"Of course, this is a small-scale preliminary study," said lead scientist Totally Made Up Name, "but it indicates that the human body may actually need a certain number of calories to function properly. However, it's possible that these results only apply to people who engage in intense activities like moving, talking or thinking."

Speaking on behalf of the National Association For Nutrition And Dieting But Mostly Dieting, J. Also Made Up Name cautioned that this research shouldn't lead people to adopt fad diets that are high in protein, fat or carbohydrates. "It's important for people to remember that food is still fundamentally evil."

[commodorified]

[kerrypolka]

:D

[tei]

Can this please be published somwehere

Possibly in the same section of the The Globe and Mail that once ran an article about how fruit is bad for you

[cereta]

I will happily lend my Ph.D. to this message.

You don't have to tell anyone it's a Ph.D. in English.

[nonethefewer]

May I please quote this to metaquotes?

[meri]

THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER. ♥

[afuna]

I love this comment. SO. MUCH.

(Especially right after the end of the year.)

Again: So. MUCH.

[tree_and_leaf]

"X food: not The Healthy Choice After All"

Have you seen that spoof piece about the dangers of dihydrogen oxide?

[ironphoenix]

A cow-orker on the Health and Safety committee got pissy with me for sending them the MSDS for dihydrogen monoxide.

(Dihydrogen dioxide, by the way, is indeed something to take seriously.)

[commodorified]

Annually, I think :)

[zillah975]

"the iron in dark green leaf vegetables isn't very bioavailable


It isn't?! D:


Crap. I need a nutritionist or something, it's amazing I've lived to adulthood.

(That is totally not sarcastic, btw, I know basically zip about food.)

[zingerella]

Or, you know, the fact that you've lived to adulthood could be presented as evidence that one can, in fact, live to adulthood while knowing "basically zip" about food, and that maybe the societal preoccupation with the alleged virtues of various foods might be a wee tad unnecessary.

By which I mean, had you been being sarcastic, I think the sarcasm might have been totally warranted.

[jae]

I love this analogy!

-J

[muccamukk]

I refuse to keep track of healthy eating BS. They change it every year anyway. One year you're supposed to eat mushrooms, the year before they give you cancer. Who decides this shit?

I'm going with fruits and vegetables = good for you, highly processes food = not so good for you, but often really yummy. I see no reason for it to be more complicated.

[rydra_wong]

I'm going with fruits and vegetables = good for you, highly processes food = not so good for you

And even that's contextual. For example, there are some people who have fructose intolerance, for whom a lot of fruits are very much not their friends. And there are situations where highly-processed sugary fatty foods are exactly what will best meet someone's nutritional needs -- for example, if someone's got cachexia, dietary recs will probably include as much ice cream as humanly possible.

So IMHO there aren't really "bad foods" which are bad for everyone under all circumstances (unless they actually contain arsenic or something).

[tea]

Reading "nutrition" stuff is rage making for me, too. Especially if I ever go to the trouble of following through on the scientific papers the latest advice comes from - there is never anything significant for the amounts of anything people eat. I just live by the real food premise, listening to my body, and moderation and variety. How could any diet crafted by our terribly weak understanding of nutrition do a better job?

[tea]

ALSO OH. Skud = damned_colonial! I am moderately less confused now! *g*

[brownbetty]

I still remember very fondly the answer to a question about dietary conditions: "If I don't eat, I die." (Said in a very portentous voice.)

I don't mean to make light of people with substantially more complex and difficult to manage dietary conditions, but the above is a dietary condition everyone has (I guess, excluding breatharians, and let's) and food supports life. It's not the enemy.

[afuna]

Food is supposed to contain food

Yes <3

[malka]

If you haven't already seen Joy Nash's rant that's related to this, I think you'd enjoy it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dm5VpYGH4&feature=related (I can't actually describe it without weakening the snark, so *flails* it's spiffy.)