After all, it’s the combining of foods from the food pyramid that creates the energy we need to get us through the day.

Miniature carrot sticks and broccoli are not healthy when served with a dip that has 13 grams of fat per serving even though it’s better than 35 grams of fat in the most popular after school snacks companies pay millions of dollars to advertise all over the place.

I was talking with a friend of mine this evening about snacks. She runs a program for children at a school in the Midwest. As part of the national effort to combat childhood obesity, some changes are being made.

She told me that in her school, they will not be allowed to give the children certain snacks that were formerly acceptable. Birthday cakes will no longer be allowed. I didn’t even want to ask about ice cream.

Chocolate milk can now be served only one day a week, and the same with juice. Popcorn can be served but with no butter or seasoning of any kind. She says the kids refuse to eat it. Gee, I wonder why.

As a former trainer of child care providers in Family Child Care Homes and Day Care Centers, I was surprised. Why the drastic changes?

And what’s this about serving only skim milk or 1% milk? Milk that has a 1% or 2% fat content should be adequate. And no cereal except shredded wheat and similar cereals?

I forgot to ask her about Cheerios, long recommended for little ones yet very high in sugar as healthy snacks go. Why not include puffed rice? It’s sweet enough without all that added sugar.

It seems like regulations go from one extreme to another. For decades, schools pushed sodas and vending machine snacks, even had contracts with the soft drink companies, and now juices are condemned as if they were in the same category.

Vegetables are healthy when prepared in healthy ways, but they aren’t the only healthy foods. There are fruits like plums and bananas; apples with peanut butter make a great snack–if peanut butter’s still allowed.

And what about mini-smoothies? Mix equal parts of apple juice, pineapple juice, orange juice and water. You can use two juices but apple juice should be in the mix.

A scoop of whey protein powder, add a banana and it’s better than a milk shake. It’s healthier too, even if you leave out the protein powder.

An amazing number of children like yogurt and their digestive systems would certainly benefit from all that friendly bacteria.

Celery sticks are very good with peanut butter or a cheese spread. Frozen peaches are a great snack as are melon cubes. There are all sorts of healthy and delicious crackers on supermarket shelves.

The truth is, with some imagination and initiative, plus a little input from your audience, you can come up with some very delicious, nutritious, and economical snacks.

Recommended for children of all ages.

It’s a simple word that means excess in eating or drinking, according to Webster, yet somehow it doesn’t fit with the other words in the food addiction lexicon.

There is an article in the current issue of The Week about Foodies and gluttony. Talk about excess! And I thought I had it bad!

Of course, there are different kinds of foodies just like there are different kinds of food addicts so I’ll keep that in mind and try not to be too judgmental.

Somehow the idea of “spending 36 hours cooking for a single dinner party” or “extolling the virtues of poached bat and roasted guinea pig” makes me feel like a food addiction is not the worst problem I could have.

There is excess and there is excess. Overeating, emotional eating, compulsive eating–they are all examples of excess, and yet they are not vulgar.

That’s an important distinction if you’re thinking about how your food addiction is affecting your life and how you feel about yourself.

I believe that it comes down to who you are spiritually when you do the things you do, and that includes eating.

Somehow, gluttony seems vulgar and food addiction does not.

Go figure.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

1. Look them in the eye. Food addicts are invisible to those around them. Even if they have grown larger in size and take up more space, to most of society, they are invisible.Being acknowledged is important to everyone.

2. Listen when they speak. When a person speaks to you, don’t mentally plan your monologue so you’ll be ready when it’s your turn to talk. Active listening is a form of respect, and we all want that, don’t we?

3. Be courteous. Hold the door, offer to carry something when the person’s arms are full. Demonstrate kindness. Your actions tell people who you are.

4. Ask questions if you have them. Be honest. Listen to the answers without passing judgment.

5. Send a card or a flower on a special occasion like a birthday or at a sad time. There are cards for everything, physical cards, not e-cards. Physical cards which can be purchased for as little as 99 cents say you care without overstating your intentions and embarrassing you both.

You might think, “Well, how the heck does that help?”. It’s an easy question to answer.

Self-worth, self-esteem–however you want to label it–is so important. No matter how high an opinion we have of ourselves, or how many times we find the hero in ourselves, it is vital to be acknowledged by others.

Not for fame or acceptance, but for validation that we matter, that someone cared enough to be kind, that we are valued. Acts of kindness have become acts of convenience.

Sending a card through snail mail is expensive and a waste of time, right? Wrong, In fact, it is quite the opposite. Those few moments, collected and pieced together in an effort to tell someone they are not alone are precious.

I cannot count the many times I have revisited cards I received decades ago. I remember the time and place and all the wonderful feelings those words ignited in my heart.

Help need not be delivered in the form of advice. Food addicts get plenty of that.

The inspiration that comes from being acknowledged fills your heart so completely that, even if only for a brief time, you don’t feel like you’re starving anymore.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!

Growing up, I hardly remember hearing about stress. In fact, women were thought to have it so easy that for decades we were not even considered to be at risk for things like heart attack. What did we have to be stressed about? What, indeed?

The cost of going to a doctor has risen to the point that many will not seek medical help unless they believe they are dying. Fear is a big motivator.

And why should they go to the doctor when they can go to a local drugstore and get pills for just about anything? They take the pills and if the symptoms subside, they’re happy.

Food addicts self-medicate too. When you are lonely or feeling depressed, the stress of that loneliness or depression might send you off frantically in the direction of the refrigerator or a nearby store.

While food addicts sometimes have a stash, it’s not like the person who hides the bottle of Scotch in the clothes hamper.

Sometimes we have only healthy food in the house. When stress strikes, we might have to go out and buy something less healthy.

The stress of the moment and the use of food as a coping mechanism are joined but not in a planned way.

Like other addictions, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “I think I’ll be an addict today”. Stress makes it happen.

Unbridled, uncontrollable stress–even if it’s just for a short time–is the driving force behind self-medicating with food. You self-medicate long enough and you become an addict.

You break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you stress, you eat. The experience causes you to recall similar emotional predicaments and you feel like a real loser. You eat some more.

“Why does this always happen to me”? More crying, more stress, more eating. Sometimes you have to eat a lot before the feelings of loss, anger, failure, worthlessness, depression, and so on, disappear. They do eventually disappear and you stop eating.

That’s how it is for the person with a food addiction. It’s better than some things, or so we tell ourselves, but it isn’t really.

Eventually, it would be nice if our hearts would heal and the symptoms would go away.

“Self-medicating” is a label that somehow makes stuffing down our feelings with food okay because it has a name and therefore a legitimacy.

Unfortunately, it’s just a mental stopover on the journey to uncovering the source of the problem that put you on the path to food addiction in the first place.

Once you can identify that starting point, you can embrace self-discovery and learn to let things be what they are.

You will be able to release yourself from the stress of the past and there will be no further reason to self-medicate with food.

It’s Never Too Late to Be Great!