I’m still digging through the book case and I came across Fat Land, by Greg Critser. It’s a great read. Did you know that in 2001 a group of epidemiologists from the University of Minnesota broke with conventional wisdom and published an in-depth report on the association between fast food use and caloric intake. Studying almost 5000 adolescent students in thirty-one urban secondary schools, the researchers tracked their use of fast food restaurants through daily dietary. The results were striking. A boy who never ate at a fast food restaurant during the school week averaged a daily calorie count of 1952; one who ate fast food one o two times a week (as did more than half of all the children in the study) consumed an average of 2192 calories a day. “Fast food restaurant use was positively associate with intake of total energy, percent energy from fat, daily servings of soft drinks . . . and was inversely associated with daily servings of fruit, vegetables, and milk,” the researchers concluded. Worse, they added, “eating habits established in adolescence, including preference for and reliance on fast food, may place them at future risk for higher fat and energy intake as they move into young adulthood, a developmental period that is high risk for increased sedentary behaviors and excess weight gain.”

I’ve been harping on childhood obesity and one sure way of reducing calorie intake and providing opportunities for healthy food is for families to eat at home, at the table together. I remember as a child on the farm that a trip to McDonald’s happened once or twice a year – it was a rare, special event, not the norm.

If you have a child who is over weight or obese, consider hypnosis. Hypnotherapy is a safe and powerful tool to decrease desires for junk food and increase desires for vegetables and whole grains. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis – it is safe, fun and easy for your children (and you too) to use.