Camp Junk Food
Okay, so I know the title here is rather harsh. Let’s be honest – I totally expected my 8-year-old daughter to eat junk food while away at her very first overnight camp last week. Both of my children (and my husband for that matter) have what I call a “stomach of steel.” They can eat and do just about anything with no ill effects whatsoever, so I knew there would be no immediate consequences (like a food sensitivity) for her to contend with. But just because one may feel fine after immediately eating highly processed junk food doesn’t mean it isn’t doing any damage. Just like you might feel fine while getting an x-ray, that doesn’t mean you aren’t being exposed to radiation because – believe me – it’s there.
So even though my daughter has no specific food-induced medical conditions to worry about, we still had a friendly little chat before she embarked upon her very first week away from home without a parent or grandparent by her side. As I’ve shared before, I absolutely do NOT want my two young girls to ever “worry” about food (or anything for that matter). But that doesn’t mean I won’t educate them along the way when it’s appropriate (just as I will with many other important topics in life). So I told her that there would be junk food at camp and eating it was totally fine, BUT my advice to her was to eat a lot of what she knew was good (i.e. for sure a whole food – straight from the earth) and just a little bit of what wasn’t. And what did she do in my absence? Eat Froot Loops for breakfast daily – “with pineapple on the side!”. As I mentioned she is a completely typical 8-year-old so this is what happened when she was left to her own devices 🙂 I guess I should be thankful for the serving of fruit? And truth be told – I was thankful for that and told her so. I was sure to reinforce the positive and not at all harp on any of the “negatives” of the week.