European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 18, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                This Corn dog tastes mighty Good but it s also High in cholesterol. Parents need to plan healthy menus for their children and encourage them to develop healthy eating habits. Not healthy eating habits for children by Marianne and Stephen w. Garber and Robyn Freedman Spizman Cox news service Reader s letter we Are concerned about How to handle a potential weight problem in our youngest child. My husband and i and two of our daughters Are very slim and always have been. Consequently our family diet includes butter cheeses and whole milk in whatever amounts we desire. We eat no meat grow All our own vegetables and i bake everything from scratch. All our food including snacks is very healthy but not Low in calories. Lately however we have All noticed our youngest age 10, getting  she is very Active in sports and always hungry. She is at 50 percent on the height and weight Chart so i am not terribly concerned yet. She is anxious about her weight and she can see she is a different build from the rest of us. My husband is the Only one in his family of five children who is not obese so we want to head off any tendency to obesity our child May have inherited. Concerned mom dear concerned mom according to your description your daughter is far from obese and in fact appears to be of average weight for her height. By reviewing past Heights and weights your family doctor would be Able to determine not Only if this is the appropriate weight for your child s body Structure but also whether these figures reflect the stature she has maintained throughout her growth. As Young girls approach puberty their body shape As you Are Well aware will change drastically. You Are right not to place undue emphasis on weight at this time. Growing up is complicated enough. Being Overly concerned with weight and looks especially if it is promoted by parents who stress perfection and family interdependence can affect a Young girl s emerging self concept. Some children growing up in such an environment May develop a skewed View of the importance of weight and body shape and As a result May adopt unhealthy eating patterns. Since your daughter is already sensitive to her size you must be careful to accept her difference and help her As you would any family member develop healthy eating habits. Parents eating style definitely influences a child. With the new awareness of the role of fat and cholesterol in the diet your family might do Well to Survey its eating habits. While your diet is certainly nutritious and the calorie total not an Issue cholesterol and fat Levels Are something All of us need to know about. Have you and your husband had your blood cholesterol Levels checked recently Many very slender people Are very surprised to find their level is above the 200 Mark designated by the Federal government and Many health organizations As the upper limit for serum cholesterol level for All individuals. Here Are some Points to keep in mind that will help anyone including your 10-year-old, grow into healthy eating habits and an appropriate body weight and shape keep a food and activity diary for one week. Include along with exercise a record of what she eats where she eats it and what she is doing at the time. Determine an appropriate weight Range rather than an Ideal weight for the individual. Rather than a magic weight help your child consider a Range that would be acceptable. Plan a healthy menu based on the child s preferences a healthy combination of foods and the appropriate calories. Develop an eating plan. Examine eating and activity patterns. Is the child a nibbler or does she Only eat at meals is she As Active As you thought review the diary to determine if there should be changes in her eating patterns. Target the changes to be made. After reviewing the diary talking with your doctor and gathering nutritional information develop a plan your child can live with. Remember your intentions Are to help your family establish a healthy lifestyle. Don t expect All changes to be immediate. Rather aim for them to come slowly but steadily. Chart the Progress and Reward goals met. By Gary Libman los Angeles times in a class that tries to help children develop creativity by encouraging them to fantasize Michael,3, decides to open a restaurant dictates a menu an makes play Money with his teachers who hang sign Michael s restaurant. At a los Angeles Hospital an Ortho Peist puts a cast on a Teddy Bear and tells its Young owner that he will Wear a similar dressing after surgery. The child relieved takes the toy into the operating room and adjusts easily to surgery and to his cast. In a new Jersey psychiatrist s office a troubled child narrates a Story about figures he places on a picture to earn chips As part of a new game whose mildly competitive nature the psychiatrist says helps children to reveal secrets. Therapists throughout the United states Are expanding the uses of play to learn More about children and to help them overcome their problems. Although experts have studied children s play for decades they say that they now Are solving youngsters problems faster and More thoroughly by using toys Art and other such objects. They Are exploring techniques that go far beyond aspects of therapy and children s play that have become familiar to the Public practices like the controversial use of dolls in sexual molestation trials. We Are reshaping Well known play methods to new areas said Judith Wallerstein a clinical psychologist who specializes in children of divorce. Charles e. Schaefer a clinical psychologist and co founder and director of the association for play therapy in Yonkers n.y., agreed saying we Are setting the stage so the child can go right to what s bothering  Spencer eth a psychiatrist at the University of Southern California and the University of California los Angeles medical schools said that one prominent Advance in treatment employs techniques of play therapy to help children involved in traumatic incidents including wars earthquakes kidnappings car accidents incest or rape. In the past he said someone might have said that what s Best is to help a child forget the trauma. We now know that the most important thing is not forgetting it s helping a child master his fears. That requires working it through with play repeatedly until a child feels More in control of his memories about the  much of the initial research on play and childhood trauma was conducted relatively recently by Lenore Terr a psychiatrist at the University of California san Francisco. Terr studied 26 students kidnapped from a Chowchilla calif., bus in 1976 and buried alive in a truck trailer for 16 hours. Terr interviewed the students five months after the kidnapping and again four to five years later. She decided that play was the key to diagnosing and treating their trauma. Children play an Impromptu game of tug of War with a Blanket. Using play therapy to help youngsters let s say a Little girl is bitten by a dog and takes the toy dog in my office and says it is going to bite this toy child she said. Then i say to the girl that this toy child is very scared. The Little girl tells me that the bite was the toy child s fault. And i say How could it be her fault we discuss it and i find out that this Little girl feels guilty that she was bitten by the dog and has taken responsibility for it. Then i have two choices i can stay inside the play and say that Little toy girl is making herself feel bad for what the toy dog did. Or i can say directly to her that you made yourself feel bad for what Bowser did to you. Both of those options Are  Terr said that in merely stressful situations such As when youngsters receive a bad Grade at school or must visit the doctor children under 12 tend to work the situation through by mimicking it in play about three or four  but when they Are traumatized their play differs notably it s grim monotonous and repetitive and it does t happen a handful of times. It happens myriad times. It can be dangerous because it repeats an aspect of a horrible event. It can also involve other youngsters. The anxiety behind it is extreme and other children respond to that kind of anxiety just the Way they respond to Nightmare on Elm Street. So they join the game and therefore it s  sometimes Terr added children reach a stage where they Are not traumatized but feel helpless. That was the situation that developed among Whittier calif., children after a 1987 earthquake one observer noted. Mental health professionals watching children play in the City realized that they were suffering and needed help said Judith Wagner coordinator of child development programs at Whittier College. Play Long has been considered a Mirror of a child s internal psychological development and an essential part of healthy growth. Children Are Able to express in play what they Are too Young too frightened or too pained to express in words Wallerstein said. Children acquire language and ability to express things quite late much later than they Are Able to differentiate feelings. A child can be Happy embarrassed or terrified but not Able to convey those distinctions except in  play is so Universal it sometimes burst Forth spontaneously and uncontrollably on roads leading to Gas Chambers in nazi death Camps according to children and play in the holocaust a recent Book by anthropologist George Eisen of California state polytechnic University Pomona. Because play is Universal a perceptive Parent can get clues about his child s Well being by watching for themes los Angeles child psychologist Don Fleming says noting a child who has serious problems May consistently break smash or throw toys. If a child is feeling out of control play becomes chaotic Fleming said. He May flit from one thing to another and not be Able to stay with anything because he is so anxious and nervous. Children feeling Overly needy May regress to play from an earlier stage. A child who is 7 May need to be Given a bottle or want to be held like a baby. Kids who normally enjoy play May withdraw from it he added. Play is a child s life. If a child withdraws a great Deal it is Likely that there is some  other experts said that parents should not Only watch their children at play but join in. When parents have an inner spontaneous empathy with the very special meaning play has for their child this in itself does a great Deal for the child and their relationship psychiatrist Bruno Bettelheim said. What the child needs most is the parents emotional commitment to the importance of his play so that it can be fully significant to  play also can be important to parents. Our lives can Only be played out in a limited number of official roles we can not pull off becoming both a fireman and a brain surgeon says Louisville child psychiatrist Adam Blatner co author of the Art of  yet we can also play Many More unofficial roles which can be expressed in fantasy and make believe play. Children do this naturally. The role playing shifts us from passive activities such As watching to to a greater involvement in imaginative endeavours. There Are Many Levels of imaginative involvement. By playing the roles you increase your capacity to observe How you play the role and to choose which roles you play and the exercise of All these functions helps you get in touch with your natural creative  children climb on playground equipment Why some children Are Picky eaters by Lawrence Kutner new York times Lexandra Logue was the sort of finicky eater who drives parents to distraction. At 1 year of age she would t touch anything except bread and milk. Fifteen years later she could t stand such teen age Staples As Spaghetti or Coke. She still refuses to eat fish. I m what s known As a super taster,1 " said or. Logue an experimental psychologist at the state University of new York at Stony Brook and author of the psychology of eating and drinking . Freeman 1986. Logue s genetic ability to taste flavors that most other people can t taste led to her interest in Why children and adults have very different responses to certain foods. People say very finicky children Are doing it for attention she said but they May actually be tasting different things than we  food is an emotionally Laden topic. It is a tool with which we celebrate and console ourselves. It is a Symbol of Prosperity and Friendship. There is a tendency for parents to assume that their children imbue foods with those same cultural values. But when children especially very Young children refuse to eat their spinach it May be More a matter of physiology than fractious Ness. Food preferences begin at birth. Newborns consistently choose sugar solutions Over Plain water. This preference for sweets continues through adolescence and declines in Early adulthood. It is an attraction that is also found in the Young of other animals. One of the factors influencing a preference for sweets is that it is often a signal for nutrient Rich and calorie Rich foods said or. Gary Beauchamp a Bio psychologist at the Monell chemical senses Center a smell and taste research Institute affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. He and other researchers believe that this Sweet tooth is related to the need for extra calories when a child is growing. Babies also develop a taste for Salt starting at around 4 months of age. Young children will prefer mild solutions of Saltwater to fresh water until they Are 2 to 3 years old at which time they Start liking Salty foods and unsalted liquids. As with sugar the preference for Salt usually abates by Early adulthood. The first signs of finicky eating typically appear around the time most babies Are weaned around 18 months. Usually they Don t want to try new foods and will reject some foods they used to like especially Green vegetables. One reason is their increased sensitivity to certain tastes and smells. Young children May be overwhelmed by the taste of some foods that adults might not consider spicy. Many of the foods that children seem to be finicky about have bitter tastes to them Beauchamp said. That May be adaptive. Most toxic things Are  there Are often other reasons for a toddler s changing appetite As Well. Most children decrease the amount they eat when they Are about 2 years old. They Aren t growing As rapidly As they once were and simply Don t need As Many calories for a while. Other changes Are triggered by the child s psychological development. Toddlers learn to use both ends of their gastrointestinal tract to assert their Independence. Children who were finicky eaters were also More difficult to toilet train and to put to bed said or. Marci Pelchat an associate professor of psychology at Washington College in Chestertown md., who has been studying the families of such children. Other important factors in How children respond to a new food include How the children around them respond to it. Experiments have shown that if a child s siblings or classmates enjoy a particular food the child is Likely to enjoy it. Conversely As any elementary school dietitian will Tell you if one child declares a food Yucky those around him Are Likely to Echo the sentiment. If the parents clearly enjoy their spinach Logue said it will help the child learn to like  Page 14 the stars and stripes saturday february 18,1989 the stars and stripes Page 15