Reply to Wait, so now sunbutter/ sunflower seeds and oils are an allergen?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A tip I recently heard with respect to kids struggling to gain weight: consider sometimes making sandwiches on Costco croissants instead of bread. It’s admittedly not the most nutritious, but each croissant is a calorie bomb.[/quote]

Yep we do this. Well, not sandwiches because my kid won't eat most sandwiches, but I'll stick a croissant or half croissant in her lunch and she'll actually eat it. We also do muffins a lot because it's easy to load them up with calories and protein.

To be honest I'm going to object to your statement that it's "not the most nutritious" and suggest trying to change that attitude. People consider a croissant lacking in nutrition because it's heavy in fat. But kids actually need fats in their diet and kids who are struggling to gain weight REALLY need fat in their diet. That's precisely why peanut butter is such a staple of a lot of kids' diets, because it has fat in it.

Also, fun fact: a croissant has about the same amount of protein as a single serving of hummus. Fat and protein tend to go together. So actually a croissant can be a very healthy option for some kids, and the perception that it is "not nutritious" comes from somewhat disordered ideas about foods that many adults have, which deems high fat foods as "bad."

Maybe it would be easier to deal with food restrictions from allergies if these same communities didn't often have disorders and highly judgmental attitudes about what kids should be eating, or what foods are healthy. Often the same parents who want allergen bans are also the ones criticizing foods for being "processed" or "unhealthy" because of fat or sugar content. But for a kid who is underweight or who might have a problem like ARFID, processed foods may be a healthy part of the solution because they can help overcome sensory issues to enable the kid to eat more. Foods high in fat often include protein these kids desperately need. And added sugar can be the difference between a kid consuming a high-calorie, nutrient-rich food or leaving it untouched (this is why my kid periodically gets a bit of chocolate sauce in her whole milk with dinner, because I know she's been avoiding food all day and it's a surefire way to get her fat, protein, Vitamin D, and calcium with her dinner and ensure she drinks the whole glass).

So a suggestion to the allergy moms: you might be able to make allies out of the moms with underweight kids if you encouraged a more expansive and tolerant attitude towards the idea that different kids need different diets, and not to be so judgmental or critical of how other families feed their kids. Maybe I'm an ally with you on the tree nuts if you will be an ally with me on not labeling a croissant "junk food" or "unhealthy" when it might be the best way for me to ensure my kid actually eats a lunch her body desperately needs to consume.

What if we all helped each other? Think how much better all of our lives could be.[/quote]

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