Book Review: Healthy Eating, Healthy Weight for Kids and Teens by Jodie Shield and Mary Catherine Mullen

In our first 2014 Illinois Farm Families Field Mom tour, we had a workshop with Registered Dietician, Jodie Shield. She talked about family nutrition, how to read food labels, she gave us great tips for picky eaters, how to think about portion control, and suggestions for making our favorite recipes healthier. Jodie and her colleague, Mary Catherine Mullen, have recently published a book called Healthy Eating, Healthy Weight for Kids and Teens. I bought a copy of her book at the workshop and this is my review of that book.

Healthy Eating, Healthy Weight for Kids and Teens is a book written for the typical American family who is busy and always on the go, has a picky eater, eats fast food more often than we like, wishes our kids weren’t so wired to the electronics, has a family member with a health risk (like type 2 diabetes or obesity), or just plain wants to make some simple changes to make our family nutrition plan a little healthier.

Each chapter of the book discusses one of her eight strategies for Healthy Eating, Healthy Weight. They include Eat with a Plan!, Turn off the Tube and Move!, Pop the Soda Habit!, Practice Portion Control!, Fill Up on Fruits and Veggies!, Slow Down the Fast Food!, Sound the Alarm!, which is about eating a healthy breakfast, and Come Together!, which is about eating together as a family and including the kids in the preparation of the meal.

The book consistently references the USDA’s My Plate website, which was introduced in 2011. “My Plate” replaced the “Food Pyramid.” My Plate is much easier to use than the Food Pyramid; for example, just looking at the icon for My Plate, you see how the four food groups should appear, proportionally, on your plate. The website is full of information about healthy eating for healthy weight, healthy eating tips, as well as interactive tools.

Her writing style is very easy to read and makes sense. In fact, as you read, you will be familiar with most everything you are reading – we’ve heard it all before – but, she has organized the information in a way that makes sense, is easy to follow, and if you’re trying to revise your family’s nutrition plan, it seems very do-able. Knowing kids, she includes a lot of useful tips in every chapter.

In Eat with a Plan, she starts off talking about the four food groups. She explains and lists out “Go For It” foods and “Take It Easy” foods in each group. She spends six pages addressing “Snacks – An Important Part of Healthy Eating.” She answers who should snack, why should kids snack, when should kids snack, where should kids snack, and what should kids snack.

In Turn off the Tube and Move, she offers real suggestions for unplugging the electronics, age-appropriate activities to get them physically active, and explains how food fits into their activity level.

In Pop the Soda Habit, she explains, in detail, the importance of water, milk and juice – and explains what the sugary and caffeinated drinks are made of that is so bad for the kids.

Practice Portion Control. Portion size may be one of the biggest and easiest factors in our diet to change. You’ve heard that before, right? She basically says that when we eat out, the portions have become beyond too large; sometimes four times what we need. In the book, she brings in the My Plate information and organizes it in a very legible way. I can tab these pages and refer back to them when I make a weekly menu plan.

Fill Up on Fruits and Veggies. The fruits and veggies chapter was the most interesting to me. I know we need to eat more of them, but she explained in great detail the health benefits of different groups of veggies. Some have more protein, others more starch. She explained how to rotate and balance them in a menu plan. The most important part of this chapter, for me, was that more than half of the chapter is devoted to how to get kids to eat the fruits and veggies and manage the challenges of the picky eater. I have a picky eater, going on 6 years old. This was the main reason I bought her book and I am hoping we can overcome the bland white food. She writes, “Put a rainbow on your kids’ plates!,” and offers some tips that I will try.

Slow Down the Fast Food. I am as guilty as the next person for taking my kids to fast food for lunch too often. We are on the go, between activities, and I didn’t pack a “car picnic” lunch. Rather than simply write us off and say, “eat there less often” – she does say that – but, she lists out healthy alternatives to the items we might normally order. For example, at the burger chain, she offers two “Quick-Pick Menus for Kids” and they are the following: hamburger with bun, topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mustard; French fries (small – split them!); and a carton of low-fat (1%) milk – or – cheeseburger with bun, topped with ketchup and mustard; a side salad with fat-free dressing; a soft-serve ice cream cone (small); and water or diet soft drink.  Each menu contains less than 500 calories and at least three food groups. Not so tough, if we can get past wanting the Happy Meal! That darn toy.

At the end of the book, she lays out a three-week meal plan to get us started if we choose. She also includes some recipes for that meal plan. The recipes are easy and use common, every-day ingredients.

In my opinion, this is a book to read and then keep handy on the shelf with the cookbooks. It’s a starting point and a good reference for improving our family nutrition. I am going to tab the pages I know I will want to reference for portion size and nutrient content and I’d like to use it to make a better meal plan for our family. She lists several other websites that I can use to find even more information when I'm ready for it.

If you are interested in solving one of the food challenges she addresses, this book is easy to pick up and read what you need. It’s not necessary to read from cover-to-cover.

It is written for families with kids, but the nutrition information applies to adults. If you are trying to make a change in your own diet and want to navigate the My Plate website, this book would serve as a good point of departure. If you can find it through the library, it is a quick read to get yourself started.

I've added some online links to my blog sidebar that are from the book. They can provide sample menus, menu-planning ideas and strategies, and recipes.