I have gotten a lot of emails from you concerning the state fair, especially in light of my earlier posts on obesity. So let me state the obvious – no, I don’t eat like that every day. Nor does my wife. Nor do my children. In fact, I would wager that the way we are eating now is the healthiest we have ever eaten.
But we made a conscious decision, long ago, not to make food an issue in our house. And, although I have no scientific data, my anecdotal case series of three children has produced two of the best eaters (in terms of variety) that I have ever encountered. Noah is the outlier. If it was socially acceptable, he would eat chicken nuggets and fries, three meals a day, seven days a week. In fact, he is a proponent of the “beige” diet, in which all foods are brown.
We’re working on him.
But not making a big deal out of food means that we relax the rules periodically. And so, on State Fair day, all bets are off. Noah got his elephant ear. Sydney got a big bag of cotton candy. Jacob would have eaten a whole steak if he’d had room. If they had fought for the deep fried butter, I might have even let them try it.
They have more sense than that, though. Even children draw the line somewhere.
