It is said — you are what you eat.
It’s hard enough getting the message through to yourself, but getting kids to eat right, can be even trickier. So, to make this concept easier for my two boys to understand, I explain:
If you want to swim like a fish, jump like a chicken, grow tall and strong like a carrot, vibrant like a strawberry and wholesome like yogurt, that’s what you need to stuff in your face.
My boys literally eat me out of house and home. They are quite skilled at jumping, climbing, reaching and sneaking for food. The boys eat and eat and eat — everything and anything they can get their hands on. I’ve never seen anything like it. I refer to this time as: the feeding stage, because they are quite like The Very Hungry Caterpillar on his quest for food. And as caterpillars, we know they go about mindlessly eating whatever is in front of them.
Knowing how they crawl and scavenge, I try to make the foods I want them to eat more easily accessible in the kitchen.
That way my very hungry caterpillars will be more likely to make healthy food choices.
After all, we remember what happened to The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Saturday when he ate all that junk food. He never got full, and that night he had a stomachache!
I try to make my kids think about that story. The caterpillar was very happy when he ate the fruit and the nice, green leaves.
And, I tell my boys, if you want to keep growing big and strong, you will eat healthy food too.
I’ve thought about it, and when they become teenagers, they will continue the life cycle of the caterpillar, and then be in the transition stage. While they won’t be spending time in a cocoon, they will be coming into their own so to speak, (and while it may look like nothing much is going on in there), big changes are happening inside.
And it all circulates around what you put into it, is what you get out of it. Your body needs proper fuel so it can do great things. Things nobody thought the caterpillar was capable of in the first place.
So, for my kids, I tell them to think of who they want to be, and to not let anything hold them back. You are what you eat, and you are only capable of what you see yourself as doing. Know that you are more than just a caterpillar; you have the potential to grow wings and take flight.
