Lock Your Refrigerators, Men, And Throw Away The Key!
by Wesley Steinberg

I think my kids are junk food junkies. I can tell by the way their eyes light up when they see a bag of Doritos, or the way they salivate when the scent of chocolate fills the air. Donuts? Don't get me started. Pop? They guzzle those sugary-sweet cans of pure love by the dozen! So, what's a health-conscious father to do?

"You kids better get out of that fridge or I'll lock it up and you'll never see the inside of it until you-know-what freezes over!"

My kids must love the inside of our refrigerator. They stand in the kitchen with the door open and look at it for hours. After awhile you can see their breaths as the cold air moves out of the fridge and into the kitchen. The lettuce starts to shrivel and the eggs begin to hatch. And still they look for that perfect something to satisfy that after-dinner hunger pang they've suffered with for all of thirty minutes. Finally, they settle on a few slices of cheese, a bit moist from it's exposure to the open air, but edible nonetheless. They reluctantly close the door and move on, with a sad backward glance at their one true friend as they head for the living room to gobble up their golden treasure.

Perhaps I'm overreacting. But isn't it odd that three young girls would each want to eat three or four bowls of cereal every day? I once thought of buying stock in the Kelloggs company. But maybe I should just buy a cow instead. It certainly would save a lot of trips to the supermarket to buy milk, and I wouldn't have to recycle the package! I know the big attraction to cereal is that it's quick to prepare and easy to eat. Why eat all that nasty broccoli when you can have Corn Pops coming out of your ears? "You made a casserole, Dad? Yuck! I hate that stuff! I'll have Frosted Flakes instead." And the beat goes on.

But what is it about junk food? What is the attraction? I used to be able to project myself back in time to when I was a kid more easily than I do now, to remember what it was like and why I ate the crap I did. In retrospect, I suppose I'm not being completely fair with my kids. I used to be a junk food junkie too. (I can only assume that my hellish desire for all those unwholesome foods when I was a boy has somehow seeped into my genes and infected my kids.) But I stopped! I remember pushing away those sweet bottles of Pepsi I used to drink three times a day and reaching for a glass of water instead. I remember putting down those multitudinous bags of Made-Right Green Onion Potato Chips and eating a few carrots instead. I just don't remember why!

I don't think I was too health-conscious when I was a teenager, not in the way I am now. I think I was more Girl-conscious. I noticed the girls going after the trim David Cassidy wanna-be's, not the plump Lou Costello's like me. Ironically, when it came to eating in those teen years, the slim guys could put a hell of a lot more food away in one day than I could ever hope to consume in a week! The girls thought that was...Oooh, so manly! When I did it they looked at me like Porky Pig. Ah, life!

So now we come down to it. How do I use those memories to teach my kids the value of eating right? The padlocks on the fridge idea didn't work. They broke into that easily after watching a lockpicking seminar on The Learning Channel. I tried telling them a cute little story about how I used to steal cookies out of our cookie jar--right in front of my Mom! And she never caught me. "But I was punished in the long run by all the weight I gained," I said. I knew that approach didn't work when I found two boxes of Pop Tarts missing from the cupboard while I was doing dishes. At last I tried the direct approach. "You know, girls, eating healthy foods is most important for proper growth. If you eat healthy, you'll stay healthy for the rest of your life. And you'll feel good, too. So, what do you think?" They didn't answer. I don't think they could hear me over the sound of all that crunching.

Now I just try to set a good example. I eat right. I excercise, and invite my children to join me sometimes. And I stay away from the junk food, the way I didn't do during those sweet-tasting, carbohydrate-crunching years of darkness I grew up in. I'm changed. I feel better. There is less of me than there used to be. But more importantly, I'm setting the proper example for my kids. And when they're not around, I do what any self-respecting parent would do--I sneak down to the bakery and buy an apple fritter and a nice toasted coconut persian to drink with my coffee. But don't tell my kids.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]