Is Friday night pizza night?
Weekend choices can undermine our children’s healthy eating habits
Weekdays can be exhausting for parents. You get your kids out of bed, take them where they need to go and help with homework. You make sure they have the proper food to fuel their brains and bodies. By the time the weekend comes, everyone is exhausted and ready for fun. Out comes the frozen pizza for dinner, the pop and popcorn with a movie and the Jujubes for dessert, because it feels like it’s time to unwind and indulge.
If this is your habit — to generally enforce dietary rules on weekdays and get a little lax on weekends — you’re not alone.
Sibylle Kranz, a registered dietitian nutritionist and nutrition expert at the University of Virginia, says that for both kids and adults, “weekend dietary intake is very different from weekday. On weekend days, we seem to have more of what we call celebration food. It’s birthday parties, or going to the pool and getting something from the vendors there, or families getting together and having big meals.”
A recent survey of 192 moms of kids ages seven to 11, who were recruited by Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, backs this assertion up. “On weekends, kids are eating less healthy foods and beverages more often, and having larger portions of them,” says Debra Hoffmann, a clinical health psychologist at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University and the lead author of the study based on that survey.
The study looked at the eating habits of children, including their consumption of healthy foods, specifically fruit, vegetables, whole grains and water; and unhealthy foods, specifically chips, fast food, fried food, pizza, sweet snacks, desserts and soft drinks. The kids in the study ate bigger portions of unhealthy foods and beverages, more often — while their consumption of healthy foods dipped.
“I think it’s possible that parents view weekends as a time to let loose and relax,” Hoffmann says. “Children may be eating out more often. And the concern there is that foods at restaurants are generally high in calories and low in nutrients, and often have large portion sizes.”
Hollie Raynor, a professor of public health nutrition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and a registered dietitian and clinical psychologist, co-authored a 2011 study on weekday/weekend differences in overweight and obese children. She too believes the difference is caused by the lack of structure on weekends. “Rather than the day being more planned out, it sort of happens as it goes,” she says. “And then potentially thoughtful decisions are not happening about foods and beverages being consumed.”
But does a little thoughtlessness matter? According to nutrition experts, yes, these weekend slides can be problematic for kids.
Hoffmann points out the big concern: “What’s this going to mean for children’s weight?” She notes that, in the U.S., nearly one in three elementary-school-age children is overweight or obese.
Raynor’s study also found that children watched twice as much TV on weekends, while other studies have shown children get less exercise on weekends. So if weekends mean more calories and less movement, many of the health benefits kids get on weekdays could be offset by poor weekend choices.
That’s not to say parents are doing a horrible job. “It is indeed very promising that during weekdays, mothers may be telling their children, ‘You need to have your vegetables and eat these healthier (foods),’” Hoffmann says. However, “even a couple hundred extra calories a day on the weekend can still significantly add up over the course of a year.”
For reference, two servings of chips equal about 300 calories.
While Hoffmann’s study only looked at mothers — for consistency and because, she says, “research does suggest that mothers still are predominantly the primary caregiver when it comes to feeding their child” — studies such as Raynor’s, and others from Europe, involving both parents have shown similar results. Raynor suggests that all adult caregivers need to be aware of how weekday/ weekend differences “can create challenges for kids, especially if they’re working toward healthier eating goals or being more active.”
As a parent, then, how can you keep your child healthy all week, and all year? To help kids establish healthy long-term practices while watching calories and nutrition in the short term, Hoffmann suggests promoting sparkling water instead of caffeinated soft drinks, or aim for fresh fruit instead of cake. In restaurants, keep in mind that children need much smaller portions than adults, so try cutting your child’s portion in half.
“It’s about finding a balance, because the key really is moderation,” Hoffman says.