Kids and junk food: simple ways to break the habit

As adults, food shopping can be a minefield. But when it comes to feeding your kids, the stakes are even higher. Our food environment is rife with misinformation. Brightly coloured labels on packaged, often ultra-processed foods promise high protein, high fibre and low calories. The additives, emulsifiers and mountains of added sugar are hidden in the small print. 

So how can parents navigate this confusing landscape? Today, we hear from two of the UK’s most-trusted nutritionists (and both parents of small children) on how to keep your kids eating well. 

Rhiannon Lambert has authored four books, including the 2024’s Sunday Times bestseller The Science of Plant-Based Nutrition. Half a million people follow her for nutrition advice on Instagram. ZOE’s Head Nutritionist, Imperial College London lecturer and bestselling author of Every Body Should Know This, Dr. Federica Amati, joins Rhiannon for today’s conversation.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Jonathan Wolf: Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.

As adults, food shopping can be a challenge. But when it comes to feeding your kids, the stakes feel much higher. Our food environment is rife with misinformation. Brightly coloured labels on ultra-processed foods promise high protein, high fiber, low calories. The additives and the mountains of added sugar are hidden in the small print.

Making healthy food for your children shouldn't be a losing game. There are secrets to making food nutritious, appealing, and convenient. Because from one parent to another, I know you don't have the time. 

There's also evidence that childhood holds golden windows of opportunity, where nutrition makes a bigger impact. So nailing these tips could be a huge win for everyone.

Two of those experts are with us today. Rhiannon Lambert literally wrote the book on the art of building a healthy lunchbox. Rhiannon is one of the U.K 's leading nutritionists. She's known for her evidence-based approach to food, and her latest book, The Science of Plant Based Nutrition, is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Rhiannon is joined by Dr. Federica Amati. Federica is head nutritionist here at ZOE, a scientist at Imperial College London, and author of the best selling book Every Body Should Know This. You'll finish today's episode feeling confident to face the challenge of feeding your kids healthily.

Rhiannon and Federica, thank you for joining me today. 

[00:01:49] Dr. Federica Amati: Thank you for having us Jonathan, I'm so excited. 

[00:01:51] Rhiannon Lambert: Can't wait. 

[00:01:53] Jonathan Wolf: So we have a tradition here Rhiannon, which we always start with a quick-fire round of questions. 

[00:01:59] Rhiannon Lambert: Love it, bring it on. 

[00:02:00] Jonathan Wolf: Brilliant. So the rules are simple. Yes, or no, or if you absolutely have to, a one sentence answer, but there's a lot of penalties, so we like to see yes or no. Are you up for it? 

[00:02:10] Rhiannon Lambert: I am. 

[00:02:11] Jonathan Wolf: Alright, I'm going to start with Rhiannon. Can I give my child food that's healthy and that they will eat? 

[00:02:19] Rhiannon Lambert: Yes. 

[00:02:20] Jonathan Wolf: For my kids meals to be healthy, do I need to prepare everything from scratch? 

[00:02:24] Rhiannon Lambert: No. 

[00:02:26] Jonathan Wolf: Federica, are children eating more ultra processed food than adults? 

[00:02:30] Dr. Federica Amati: Yes. 

[00:02:31] Jonathan Wolf: Is there an age during childhood when nutrition will have a larger impact?

[00:02:36] Dr. Federica Amati: Yes, ages. 

[00:02:37] Jonathan Wolf: Can I lower the risk of my child developing obesity? 

[00:02:40] Dr. Federica Amati: Yes. 

[00:02:41] Jonathan Wolf: And Rhiannon, you can have a whole sentence for this one. What's the biggest misconception about healthy eating for children? 

[00:02:48] Rhiannon Lambert: That it's simple and that it's laid out for parents to access. That is a huge misconception. It's far from simple, it's become complicated because of the mass media marketing around it. 

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[00:02:59] Jonathan Wolf: The answers to the questions are both quite positive, but also a little scary. And actually I was thinking about this podcast this morning. So I have a daughter who's five years old, and I have a son who's 16. 

And so a decade ago, my son was basically the same age as my daughter. I hadn't started ZOE. I hadn't met my co-founder, Professor Tim Spector. And as a result, I didn't really know anything about food, and I definitely wasn't spending any time thinking about food. 

And I now realize that I fed my son total junk while thinking in general I was doing quite a good job in giving him a good diet. So it's slightly terrifying as I think about that. 

Now I take my daughter's diet and health very seriously and I think about this impact on her gut microbiome. And honestly, I think it's a minefield. I think it's incredibly difficult I find to find this right balance of trying to get her to eat well, but also not making her really stressed about things and also just the challenge of getting her to eat anything that I think might be good to eat. 

And realizing that we’re basically surrounded by all this delicious ultra-processed food and so it's not surprising that this is what she wants to eat. So maybe we could sort of start at the beginning like what's the problem with children's food? 

[00:04:14] Dr. Federica Amati: Well, I think you've touched on a few things there, Jonathan. The first thing is that there is this relentless food advertising aimed at children that is of unhealthy foods. 

So there was a report that was recently published by Bite Back 2030, who are this charity trying to help reduce the amount of adverts aimed at children for unhealthy foods. 

And they found that on average, U.K. children are exposed to 15 billion junk food adverts per year. 

[00:04:39] Jonathan Wolf: And the U.S. is presumably even higher. 

[00:04:41] Dr. Federica Amati: Yes. And so the U.S., we haven't got the number, but it's presumably even higher. 

The issue here is that we are surrounded by foods that we know don't support children's health. So it's much easier to access those, but they're also being heavily advertised. And anyone who has kids, if you watch TV with adverts in it, they will want the thing. 

My kids the other day happened to find a channel that had an advert for a chicken roasting pot. And they're like, Mummy, can we have one of those? That is literally the example of advertising working its magic, right? 

So, the problem is that we're not protecting our kids in the U.K. and the U.S. And so they're exposed to these adverts, they're exposed to a lot of ultra-processed foods and frankly, junk food. And it's actually a really precious time in life, as we'll get into, where we can have a massive impact on their health and well being and happiness with their daily food choices.

So it's just not set up for us to succeed at the moment. 

[00:05:35] Rhiannon Lambert: I mean, it's also where parents are going to for the information. Because we're bombarded by this media storm of packaged goods, really, that are appealing. They're visual, they're bright, they're colorful. It's everything a child would want. Why would they not want something with a cartoon image?

I know there's some legislation now that's cracking down on sort of display and how you display foods to children. But let's be honest I think there's a statistic, 24% of adults now go to social media for health advice. They're going for their kids advice. How to build lunch boxes, how to tackle everything and less than 2% of nutrition information on TikTok for example is accurate.

[00:06:14] Jonathan Wolf: Less than 2%. 

[00:06:15] Rhiannon Lambert: Less than 2%. 

[00:06:16] Jonathan Wolf: That's rather terrifying. 

[00:06:17] Rhiannon Lambert: It is, isn't it? 

[00:06:18] Jonathan Wolf: And talk a little bit about ultra-processed food within this, because I think that's one of the things that we've touched on on a lot of podcasts here, about this sort of general growth in ultra-processed food.  

But we've always been talking about adults. What's been happening with children? 

[00:06:31] Dr. Federica Amati: Well, unfortunately, the numbers are a bit worse for children. We know that over half of calories in the U.K. and U.S. come from ultra-processed foods. 

It's really crept up, it's roughly about 65% for most adults now. And when we look at children, we see that it's up to 72%. What's really quite scary is that it's the very young infants, so under the age of 2, 3, and then teens who are bringing these numbers up. 

So, it's a really scary statistic, but it's also not hard to see why, when you go to the supermarket and the children's food aisles, the shelves are stacked with these ultra-processed pre-packaged snacks and foods, that as Rhiannon said, they're marketed as being ideal for weaning, ideal for learning how to feed yourself, contains a piece of kale, whatever.

The way they advertise actually makes them sound like they've been designed to help parents on the weaning journey with their children to create a healthy relationship with food, but they are actually just ultra-processed foods that have been nicely packaged for convenience.

We're living in a world right now where children are more used to opening a pouch or a packet of crisps than they are peeling a banana. That's where we are, and it's been really recent that this flood of ultra-processed foods has arrived for children. It's been in the past five to ten years, and we absolutely need to reverse that.

[00:07:53] Rhiannon Lambert: And there's a lot of nuance to add to even that conversation because if you look at the gender divide of roles in the household, if you look at the way that the workforce has changed, child care support systems, the time. 

Parents are time poor. I've got a two year old, a four year old, I'm a nutritionist and sometimes I struggle to find the time. And if I'm the educated person that struggles, how is somebody that does not have access to what is nutritionally correct, doesn't have the time, they're struggling, they're trying to work all hours because women are expected now. 

There's a huge, huge conversation and a almost overwhelming system that's in place now that isn't helping people make better choices.

[00:08:36] Jonathan Wolf: And what is this ultra-processed food doing to my daughter's body? 

[00:08:41] Dr. Federica Amati: So while we know, for example, there's a lot of interest at the moment around research in emulsifiers, right? So we know that about 95% of baked goods like buns and croissants and breads in supermarkets contain at least one emulsifier. Most of them contain two or more.

What we're starting to see is that emulsifiers eaten every day in various types of foods actually do disrupt the gut microbiome and they can potentially lead to higher levels of inflammation. All of these things contribute to a higher risk of basically being unwell, whether that's from the gastric symptoms so having IBS or suffering with symptoms of indigestion, things like this.

But further down the line, when you have increased inflammation in the gut for a long time, that's when you run into a higher risk of things like developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, and of developing autoimmune conditions, right? 

So we want to protect our children's gut health. Ultra-processed foods don't help us to do that. But also, what's really important, and I think this is a really big red flag for us, ultra-processed foods, especially for children, are very often very high in added sugars. 

The classic example of this is flavored children's yogurts. Some of them contain an unbelievable amount of sugar. When you look at the back of pack, these tiny pots contain like teaspoons and teaspoons of sugar.

What we can see in the U.K. and the U.S. is that there's this really massive rise in cavities. So children under the age of seven are having their teeth removed under general anesthesia because of the added sugar in their diet. 

[00:10:13] Jonathan Wolf: More now…

[00:10:14] Dr. Federica Amati: …than ever before.

[00:10:14] Jonathan Wolf: It's interesting because I feel though I'm in my late 40s, I feel like one of the things that shifted is we were all drinking full-fat Coca-Cola when I was eight or something, right? 

There was before really that shift was just starting away from full sugar drinks to all of these artificial sweeteners. So I'm rather shocked that 40 years later, we're actually getting worse cavities.

[00:10:38] Rhiannon Lambert: It's under five year olds as well. In the U.K. it's under five. There's a quarter of children that have problems with their teeth under five. 

[00:10:43] Jonathan Wolf: From the food they're eating.

[00:10:44] Rhiannon Lambert: From the food system. 

[00:10:45] Dr. Federica Amati: And this is the thing, it's a huge red flag. 

How can children this young have cavities so early? And it's exposure to constant added sugar. Coca-Cola, at least you know what you're getting with Coca-Cola, right? But so many children's foods have added sugar, including pasta sauces, including savory snacks. 

So there's foods that have added sugar to make them more palatable for children because at the end of the day, ultra-processed food companies want us to buy more and more of these snacks for our kids.

So we're now in a place where there's added sugar everywhere. It's directly affecting children's oral health before you see the longer term impacts on their health later in life. 

And there's also this really clear relationship between ultra-processed food consumption and high sugar consumption and how they're able to manage at school, for example. So behavioral issues, not being able to sit still, all these things are related, correlated with, have a relationship with the dietary quality that children have. 

Having a diet that's really high in ultra-processed food for children is just not supporting what they're supposed to be doing, which is growing and learning and socializing. So it's a dangerous spot to be in for the health of what will be future adults, right? 

Because another thing to note is that ultra-processed foods are a metabolic challenge for our bodies. Now, in adulthood, when we have these metabolic challenges, we're aware that we need to look after our metabolic health as adults. We're aware that we should really try not to become overweight. We're aware that we should keep an eye on our bloods, go to the GP and make sure our blood pressures are not rising, things like this. 

But for children, constant metabolic challenges is also disrupting their metabolic health. They also need us to feed them with foods that will help them to have a really healthy metabolism as they go into adulthood.

[00:12:32] Jonathan Wolf: Just before we move on, I'd love to talk about labels for a minute, Rhiannon, because I think that we see this across everything in the grocery store, but I think we see it even more for the kids food, where it says low sugar or high protein or all natural. What should we make of these labels?

[00:12:51] Rhiannon Lambert: Claims are often very deceptive. They're put there to sell a product. We have to remember that. 

If you buy an apple, for instance, you don't need it to have a claim that says, hey, this is great for you, this is a source of fiber. But if you're picking up a packet of cereal for your child and it's full of these claims, high in protein seems to be the trendy thing as well, still at the moment, high in fiber. Perhaps that product is high in fiber, but what type of fiber, what type of added protein? 

A lot of the time, companies put extra soy lecithin in, and different binders, and different ingredients to increase the capability of making a claim. And every country has its own unique way of displaying these claims. 

So it'd be different in the U.S. You'll have a different way of categorizing things. Voluntary labeling as well with the traffic light system, which we have over in the U.K. and I think some other countries have as well, where it could be red, that means, high in sugar, and orange, which is just on the cusp, probably not great all the time, and then green, which is obviously good.

That's voluntary. So you don't have to put it on every item. It's really deceptive and I actually advise clients in my clinic and my line of work not to just go by the claim on a packet and always to read the ingredient list on the back and check the salt, check the sugar, because high in fiber can still be high in sugar and high in salt.

[00:14:11] Dr. Federica Amati: I would add to that, that actually if a product has a health claim on the front, and especially when it's aimed at children, great for finger food, great to start learning how to wean, ideal for ages four to six months, don't buy it. Because do you know what? It's almost 100% going to be an ultra-processed food that your child doesn't need.

Because that marketing is put there to encourage people to buy something that they essentially just don't need. The best example for this is things like baby porridge, these baby rices that, for some reason, are so pervasive, oh, we have to start with that, that's the first weenie food. Literally said who?

[00:14:45] Rhiannon Lambert: But do you know why that? I think it's because parents are scared. I think there's such a vulnerability, like when you've just had a baby, I remember that feeling, it was lockdown, and I can completely see why people are pulled into that trap. It appears safe.

[00:14:57] Dr. Federica Amati:  It scares people, but I think that it's a double edged sword, because this kind of labelling, makes parents fearful of buying another product that doesn't have that safety mark on it.

[00:15:06] Rhiannon Lambert: And then they stick to the brand, if it's got an ‘organic’ in it or something, they then think it's superior and then they're loyal to that brand. 

[00:15:12] Jonathan Wolf: The other thing I'm struck by is how in the States and the U.K., we're sort of very adrift from a food culture where we just know what we're meant to do. 

I've been on holiday in Italy this summer and one of the things you see there is like, there's a very strong food culture, right? They're actually very intolerant to new food because they know exactly how it's meant to be and that's how their grandparents grandparents did it. Federica with her Italian heritage is smiling and nodding with me because she knows this is true. 

But I'm struck that as someone who both grew up in America and then here, you know, generally, we don't have any confidence. And I think, as you quite rightly said, with our children, we particularly worry about this. We particularly worry about them when they're younger, because when they're teenagers, you don't have that much control over what they do. So you worry, but there's nothing you can do about it.

So I feel that you are particularly vulnerable then to like, I don't really know what to do. This is quite complicated. complicated the first few years and then there is this enormous amount of commercial interest as you said with people selling a lot of products. 

[00:16:11] Rhiannon Lambert: Which is when the cycle starts, that's when parents get pulled into the ultra processed food system, because of that reason. 

[00:16:17] Dr. Federica Amati: I would go a step further and say that the food companies know this, and they have targeted that group because it's such a vulnerable group. It's that simple. 

It's so obvious how it's been machined when you look at it, when you really stand back and look at that food aisle and for the kids and it literally says safe for finger feeding, ideal for weaning, 4 to 6 months, 6 to 8 months, 12 months plus, a mixture of vegetables. 

Now, I've worked with people one-on-one where their children refuse to eat broccoli, for example, and it's because they've never actually touched or felt or eaten a whole broccoli.

And I've been at restaurants where I've seen couples or parents or caregivers who prefer to feed their child from a pouch from their bag than let them try what's on the plate at the restaurant. 

[00:16:57] Rhiannon Lambert: Yeah, it's fear of choking there as well, different things. I think there's no support for parents is there?

In the States, in the U.K., there's no one saying, right, you've just had a baby, you've come out of hospital, I'm going to show you what happens at six months when you start weaning. 

[00:17:13] Dr. Federica Amati: I would go as far as to say that we just all need to move back in with our grandmas. Basically, if Nonna's around, she will say, absolutely not. As families now, we do live in these smaller households. We often lose touch with the rest of our family. 

I think you're right, Jonathan. It's the way that we live socially, culturally, has impacted a loss of food culture here and in the U.S. And what we need to do is actually start to rebuild our own.

It doesn't have to be any particular type. I mean, of course, I'm Italian, so for me, that's the best. But it can be any food culture. It can be your own made up food culture. 

But it's really finding what works for you and your household and your family and letting you be the decider, you be the person who brings this food into the household as opposed to looking to advertising, essentially, and food marketing to make those decisions for you.

And I think if that's the first step people take, it's a very powerful one and it will quickly change your basket. 

[00:18:08] Rhiannon Lambert: Just one item a week. If they said it's small, like small challenges, but we're talking weaning. I mean, if you progress the conversation forwards and if you're listening now and, okay, you've already been there. You've done that. You've given your kids the pouches because you believe they were safe, convenient options. And I get it. Sometimes they are great convenient options.

But the majority of the time, the exposure is so key. And it's not actually too late. It's more difficult, but it's not too late to start when they're four, five, six, seven with food exposure. It's just going to take longer and you have to offer things alongside things they already enjoy.

So an element of you thinking, right, I'm a parent, I did raise my child in this way. They go to school with a lunchbox that is made up of packeted items like left, right and center. I've got a fruit-juicy drink in there, I've got one of those sugary yogurts. I've got a whole packet of chocolatey items here. 

I'm going to try and put in every day, even if it's rejected for a certain amount of time, I'm going to make the effort to put in a homemade whole meal pasta salad option instead of buying the packeted version I was putting in.

And it is going to be a bit painful, I'm not going to sugarcoat that. Excuse the pun, but you know, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. But it is possible, but it's going to take some grit. And as the parent and the caregiver, it is actually up to us because no one else is going to help us do it.

[00:19:25] Jonathan Wolf: I think it's a brilliant transition point and actually switch from this sort of horror show that you're sharing with us about this immense fraction, like three quarters of all the food they're eating is ultra-processed food, this sort of food that didn't even exist 50 years ago, right?

So this profound change to, okay, practically, what can we do to improve things? Could you start with where we are and what could people really do to start to make a change? 

[00:19:51] Rhiannon Lambert: So with two in a hundred lunch boxes being nutritionally incomplete, what that means with the stats we've got is that they're not hitting the, first of all, a protein, a carb, a fat, a vegetable, the food groups.

So, as a parent in your head mentally, every time you open that lunchbox, you have got to think, what is going to fuel my child for the day ahead? And this is where Federica's love of everything fiber would come in. But you want fiber, you want great quality carbs. 

That doesn't have to be expensive. That just means swapping your white pasta for your brown pasta, your white rice for your brown rice. And these are things that don't need fancy equipment to cook. 

Shove it in a saucepan the night before. Cook it, put it in your lunchbox for the next day, mix it in with a frozen sauce you've made before, the week before, you know, a tomato y sauce, a pesto sauce, whatever it may be. 

Sometimes that might be a shop bought version, but you know what? A whole lot better to put it with the whole grain pasta than the white pasta. And then you can work your way up to swapping out the sauces. Because as we said, that is a source of extra sugar and hidden additives that often come in different forms. You've got your carb, I hope everyone's visualizing their carbohydrate.

Then you move over to a palm-sized portion, so for a child, obviously slightly smaller of protein. That could be chicken strips, it could be canned, well fish is gonna smell in your child's lunchbox. But you know what? Some kids don't mind that. 

And if you do boil an egg, please don't do what I did and literally do it that morning because it stinks. And your child is not gonna be wanting to open up their lunchbox and have that eggy smell come out. So, prep it at least a few hours in advance, let it cool and then do it. package it up. 

Protein can be tofu, it can be a can of beans, you can roast beans the night before, turn them into crisps with olive oil or something. 

I know everyone's thinking, wow, this sounds a bit fancy, but once you get into the habit of visualizing the protein, the carb, the vegetables, which let's be honest, most kids don't want to just eat steamed broccoli at that age in their lunchbox when they're at school. Don't blame you, try and chuck that stuff into the pasta, add the peas into the pasta, add the sweetcorn, add the carrots into that main bit, or do some veggie sticks with hummus. It's a classic. You can't go wrong. 

And then the yogurts, try and go for the less sugary options. Go for the original state, and then give them a pot of something to add in. Even if it was an extra little bit of honey you put in a lunchbox, maple syrup, or a jam. That's less sugary to add that to the yoghurt than to buy a yoghurt that's already sweetened.

Let's go back to that 50 years ago. We used to make things with minimally processed stuff. We used to use butter, sugar, eggs, mix it in a bowl, make something nice. Nowadays, we've skipped that process and we've gone straight to the finished item, straight to this emulsified, artificially sweetened version of everything in a pot.

I think parents are scared of sugar yet they don't realize they're buying it. But if you actually put a bit of honey in and then mix it into the yogurt, a child would love that. Or a few dark chocolate chips, dark chocolate buttons. I'd rather your kid have a small handful of those to add in. Which is still better, and then they're still gonna go, Wow, I love my lunchbox. 

Not everyone's got time to make fancy homemade bars and energy balls. I mean, I love that kind of stuff, but that's an example of a lunchbox that doesn't take as much time to prep. And it's a lot of it's frozen. Frozen peas you add in, frozen carrots, sweet corn into the pasta. So it can be done. I hope that visual image has stayed with everyone for your lunchbox. 

[00:23:13] Jonathan Wolf: It sounds beautiful. It sounds like quite a lot more work than I bought a bunch of stuff from the grocery store and I threw it all in the box. I can imagine people listening and saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's part of like the dream life that I'd like to have, but I'm running around, I've got a full time job, I'm looking after the house, and I'm trying desperately to feed my children.

[00:23:35] Dr. Federica Amati: Well, I don't know, I've just come out of summer holidays when we're recording this, right. So I have been packing packed lunches a lot for all the various clubs, all the things the kids do in the summer holidays. And honestly, it takes such little time to put this lunchbox together. 

I actually timed myself doing it one day because I was like, this feels really good. I got into a groove, right? It took me seven minutes. 

Children do get to have favorites, right? So I find that, for example, for my kids, like my little one, she loves apples. So packing a whole apple in her lunchbox is always going to go. I mean, they love pasta, they're Italian, of course they do.

But they also love, you can get these really lovely flatbreads from the supermarket that aren't ultra-processed, or you can make them yourself at home in a pan very quickly by just whizzing a batter up together. 

Honestly, smoked salmon, bit of avocado, they love that. Sometimes it's cheese with a bit of tomato. So quick and easy, just toast it in the pan. 

So these things are often, once you get into the groove of it, and you have your natural yogurt, I couldn't agree more. It's so, so easy to make natural yogurt delicious for kids, however they prefer it. 

[00:24:44] Rhiannon Lambert: And dairy alternatives, you know, soy yogurt doesn't have to, obviously for people with lactose intolerance, so you're not eating dairy.

[00:24:50] Dr. Federica Amati: Always natural, it's just really a focus on buying the natural version of the yogurt, not the flavoured version.

And then just building these lunchboxes up, put something that they will love in there. Give variety of fruits and vegetables as well, like I always put veggie sticks because they, inevitably love them. And sometimes they'll eat all the cucumber and no carrot. Sometimes it's all the carrot, all the cucumber, and the celery. It depends. 

But if you give children variety and you expose them to foods, and they have a choice, then that day when they're at school, depending on how hungry they feel or on what they fancy, they then have a choice to eat from. But you know that what they're choosing from, it's good for them. 

[00:25:26] Rhiannon Lambert: I've always said to parents, do you know exactly what's in your freezer or in your cupboards? Because if they have one designated drawer at the top of their freezer, I think it's a quite useful hack for parents, and they fill it with those flatbreads they brought in the supermarket at the top.

So basically all the carbs in one shelf. The basis of all the meals they're about to chuck in the night before to save time. And then they can say, well, they can have a pita bread that day or a flatbread that day, then rice, then a pasta. And that kind of builds the foundation of everything they're going to chuck in.

[00:25:54] Dr. Federica Amati: Yes. And I think another really good tip is… I love that freezer hack. I love freezers, is actually sometimes children will eat really well if you just invest in a thermos. 

So this changed the game for my eldest because she's not a huge fan of cold food. Fair enough. And so a little thermos, and in that is where I would put the pasta with the peas. She just absolutely is so happy with a little bit of thermos food because it's warm. 

So that's another thing that for some children and for parents who just run out of ideas for things that taste nice when they're cold. 

[00:26:27] Rhiannon Lambert: I think we should definitely touch on the ham sandwich equation because I don't know what it's like in the States. Is it that a classic over there, a ham sandwich? 

[00:26:35] Jonathan Wolf: Cooked meats of various variety is a really important part of the diet. 

[00:26:40] Rhiannon Lambert: A staple. And I just think that's where so many parents don't realize the extra salt comes in. They don't realize that that type of meat in particular is completely ultra-processed. It's gone through so many stages to get to where it's at. 

And there are other options that don't cost as much money, superior options to put in, in replacement of that particular meat. 

[00:26:58] Jonathan Wolf: What would you be suggesting? 

[00:27:00] Rhiannon Lambert: You can get slices of chicken as well instead, or turkey if you're a meat eater. If not, then think outside the box for your lunchbox.

So it's also cheaper if you smash up chickpeas into a base on a sandwich, and you could add red pepper if your kid loves that, or some cheese, dairy free options as well, of course. And it's really just thinking, not every sandwich has to just be ham and cheese, because that's what they're used to, and they probably won't notice the difference of taste. 

But we have to be honest about the fact that consumption of that particular item of food and that food group is just not healthy. 

[00:27:36] Jonathan Wolf: And does smashed chickpeas is something you find that kids often are willing, I haven't tried that. 

[00:27:41] Rhiannon Lambert: You have to, it's almost like essentially putting hummus in a sandwich, right? I think that's where you should start and it saves you money because it's more cost effective than buying meat in the first place and if they love it, why not try it?

Give it a few days. Give or take. They might not like the texture. That's okay. But we've got to try these things. You could try it at dinner one night, test if they like it or not, and you could do like a hot toasty sandwich instead. 

[00:28:02] Jonathan Wolf: I suspect both of you have very well trained children who are used to eating really good diet and have been through this.

Lots of people will be listening, and I feel it's a bit similar to the situation with my son a few years ago, who'd been fed an excellent diet of ultra-processed food for a decade. And then I started to realize actually this food thing apparently is really important. And not only that, but I was thinking about the fact that even five years ago, I wasn't really thinking about ultra-processed food. So that's sort of been more quite recently in the ZOE journey. 

So if someone's listening to this and saying, well, that's fine. But my children basically are used to only these packeted food. They're used to white bread with a piece of processed meat. That's the only thing they're willing to eat. And if I give them any of this, they're just gonna starve and they won't be able to function at school. So I can't do this. 

[00:28:50] Dr. Federica Amati: I think this is a good place to say that it's different with different age groups. You're totally right, Jonathan. So I've worked with teenagers as well and it's trickier when it's been a longer time and also when obviously teenagers have way more autonomy than children who are younger. 

So, how do we help this change? I think Rhiannon's example of starting with one thing at a time is really good. 

But I like to take a different approach in the home. So, the way I think about it is, if we could be our own health architects, right? We can't really do anything quickly about our food environment. The U.K. and the U.S. both need to have massive overhaul of policy, of political will. There's a lot to do and that will take time, but let's keep doing it. 

In the meantime, what we do have control over is what we bring into our homes. So at a very simple level, children at some point will spend time in the home, before school, after school, on the weekends, in the evenings.

So I always encourage people to make their home, the best possible food environment. that it can be. But that includes a healthy relationship with food. So this does not mean that you'll catch me making my own homemade butter and banning all ultra-processed foods in my home. That is not healthy.

The other side of this coin is that I've seen some influencers online really create fear amongst children. You will never eat that because it contains XYZ, and there's one influencer who actually gets his child involved in the videos to say why she doesn't buy. I mean, it's awful, to be honest. That is a very fast track to disordered eating. 

We have to create a healthy food environment in the home, including understanding the difference between certain foods, and why we eat some foods more often, and why we eat some less often. 

[00:30:35] Jonathan Wolf: This is more about adding in more good things rather than demonizing the idea of any amount of bad things.

[00:30:40] Rhiannon Lambert: Saying what feeds the belly bugs. That's the book. I've got that as well. 

[00:30:45] Dr. Federica Amati: It's such a good book. So they literally say, Mummy, I'm going to have my chicken and that's going to make me strong. My muscles are going to be strong. And then I'll give them some ice cream and they'll be like, this ice cream is giving me energy and it tastes good.

[00:31:00] Rhiannon Lambert: But they know, no more than maybe one a day, or whatever, because they know it's a lot of sugar, because you've told them. 

[00:31:04] Dr. Federica Amati: You've told them the most important food is there for their belly bugs, their muscles, their growth, their happiness. Children understand from a very young age what food can do for them.

So for example, my youngest does love chocolate. In a way, it's hilarious because my eldest doesn't touch it. And so I was like, wow, I've really got away with that. And then the second one arrived and she was literally like, chocolate. 

So she will sometimes say to me, first thing in the morning, mummy, can I have some chocolate? And I say, darling, no. What do we need to have first? She's like, breakfast first. And she's only four. Right? 

They do understand. If you explain it to them with love and you don't demonize foods and say it's bad, they understand. But build that home environment where the majority of the food is especially at eye level. Children will open the fridge. 

Teenagers definitely will. They will open cupboards. They will open drawers. What is the easiest food to find in your home? Is it nuts and seeds? Is it fresh fruit? Is it a fruit bowl? Is it yogurt? Is it eggs? Or do you have drawers of snacks?

[00:32:05] Rhiannon Lambert: The treat cupboards, yeah. There's always a treat drawer. It's a huge psychological thing because people grew up with it. Every Friday night was their takeaway night, or every Saturday. These habitual habits. You have to reshape your home to combat those habitual habits.

And you could try half-half. If you've got a breakfast, particularly difficult child that will only have that white bread sandwich. One side is the brown bread, one side is the white bread. This is what you're getting today, this is what I've made, just look at the white side when you eat it. 

And it's going to take a little bit of tough love, but equally like you say, if there's nothing to grab, that chocolate bar they always have isn't in the drawer, and it's replaced with a healthier, well, still high in sugar, but cereal bar version. That's one switch that you've made, they will then start eating because you've brought it. 

[00:32:47] Jonathan Wolf: My personal experience has been, it's this understanding about their microbiome that has been by far the most transformational. And that's true for both my kids.

Also, my son is very grown up. He really controls what his diet is. He's got much more interested in his own physique. He's now bigger than me, he's going to the gym. And so I think he is now much more interested in food in a way that it supports him getting stronger and all the rest of it.

What's interesting is that both he and my little girl have really bought into this idea that I need to eat this food that is for my good bugs. And I think that is something that is totally different from the way that I thought about food as a child, because it has this idea that it'ss not just like what my parents are bothering me about. 

It's this idea, I've got all of these little things inside me and it's a bit like having a dog or something, right? I've got to feed it. That's been by far the strongest argument for eating things that matches up and that they seem to buy into. Rather than just it's yet another thing where your parents are forcing you to do something and you just want to resist.

[00:33:51] Dr. Federica Amati: And when we think about mealtimes, Jonathan, so creating that space to share a family meal, I know that now it’s much rarer. So when we look at research of how often people share family meals, it's like slightly falling off a cliff. 

[00:34:02] Rhiannon Lambert: I can't do it during the week. You know, there's no way with my husband's job, my job, and my family dynamic, we can do it in the week. So we make time at the weekend. 

[00:34:10] Dr. Federica Amati: So it's nice to create that time. If it's once a week, that's still better than nothing. 

But in that family meal setting. giving children the choice to pick what they want to put on their plate. So actually just saying, here's some vegetables, here's some chicken, or some whatever meat you're having, or fish.

So my household is a big salmon household. They love salmon, my kids, so do I. Put it out and let them serve themselves and just see what happens. Because quite often, what they do is dictated by us. You're wearing this, you're going to school, you're seeing this friend today. They don't have much choice in life.

And so often, their want for independence comes through their choices with their food. I work with people and they'll say, Oh, my child would never eat broccoli, or they would never eat sweet corn, or I've never seen them eat a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce before. 

But then you put them in a setting where they're sharing a meal with their friends, they've got a choice of what to eat, and they have a variety of foods to choose from, and they're eating everything. 

[00:35:08] Rhiannon Lambert: And you can pimp them up, right? Like pizzas. If you put them on the table, you can add extra toppings to a pizza. 

[00:35:13] Dr. Federica Amati: Oh, creating food together is wonderful. That's like the next layer, yeah.

[00:35:14] Rhiannon Lambert: I think you've listed chocolate as a good example, but crisps or potato chips or, you know, however you address it, you cannot say to a child, we're just not going to have those again. The psychology like you said of those particular items. 

But there are lesser of two evils in those camps when you look at the ingredient lists on the back. And actually you should say, right, well, we're going to have this particular brand, your favorite one, maybe once every week instead of having it in the house every day.

So you don't need to go cold turkey and be like, I'm never going to have this in the house ever again. Just be strategic. It's the weekend, you can have this, but actually for the rest of the week, this isn't going to be in our cupboards now this week. This is the option instead. 

And slowly, I think it's really empowering parents and giving them confidence, you know, really holding their hand and just saying like you just said, put it down on the table. They will come back because they will be hungry. 

[00:36:09] Dr. Federica Amati: I mean, our job is to provide the best food environment we can. And their job is to exercise their freedom to choose what to eat. But if we're creating a healthy food environment, then the choices they have are healthier. It's as simple as that. 

[00:36:23] Jonathan Wolf: Can I move us on to breakfast now?

[00:36:25] Dr. Federica Amati: Oh, yes, breakfast. 

[00:36:27] Jonathan Wolf: I was just thinking about an experience I had. So I took my kids away to something called Center Parcs. So it's a sort of place you go where it's very kids-oriented. You sort of stay in some accommodation. And I went to the little food shop. 

It was quite eye-opening to me because I'm in a different, grocery store from the normal ones. You don't know where you're going, and you pay attention. It's quite small, and what I was struck by is about half this store is basically full of breakfast cereal. And it's completely shocking. 

So basically, it's almost all for kids in this store. Row after row of cereals that have massive health claims across all of them. 

There's Cheerios, it's telling you about the whole grains it has, and these Kellogg's things with all the vitamins it has, and just generally, they look like health foods that I should be giving my kids, and I have listened to enough of these podcasts about ultra-processed foods to know that they are not.

[00:37:24] Rhiannon Lambert: The fortification thing is like a double-edged sword. Because it is so important for kids that aren't getting those home-cooked meals, that aren't getting parents that are nourishing or thinking because they just haven't had the opportunity or they're not educated, to get a source of calcium in or iron in particular is so important if you're looking at iron requirements.

So, when you see those on the packets, I wouldn't say that's the worst thing in the world. I actually, I'm pro fortifying foods that I think children consume for a beneficial growth and development. 

But as you said, which one you pick, you can have a fortified Frosties cereal that's full of so much sugar, but it doesn't, it disguises, it kind of detracts from what the actual problem with the packet, which is the sugar and the salt and the additives.

So it's so deceptive. It tricks you, it tricks the consumer into thinking, oh, iron, oh, calcium. Whereas there's actually a blander version of that cereal, probably further down the aisle, it still has that fortification. That's one point to discuss. 

[00:38:26] Dr. Federica Amati: Yeah and I think it is a bit of a shocker when you look at children's breakfast generally.

Quite a lot of people find that giving children cereal first thing in the morning and then going to school is quick, it's easy, you don't have to cook. But there's a really a few things to consider. 

I think first of all it's very unlikely that your child will be satiated and actually have enough nutrition from that bowl. It's interesting if you look at the packets themselves, the cereal companies have to put on that it's part of a breakfast. 

They'll have like a bowl of cereal plus an egg plus a piece of fruit. Then you're looking at something that's a bit more like a meal. So I think the first thing to say is I don't think demonizing breakfast cereals is necessarily the way to go, but certainly, don't consider them a full meal.

Also, choose one that is blander. Choose one that doesn't have the Golden Honey nut, crunchy, crisp, because it's just, 

[00:39:17] Rhiannon Lambert:and the cartoon on the front. 

[00:39:18] Dr. Federica Amati: It's just honestly like not helping at all. 

So things like Weetabix, like the Shredded Wheats, things like Bran Flakes. They're much more boring, a hundred percent. But they actually, when you look at the ingredient system, when you think about them in terms of what they're offering nutritionally, it's a much better picture than your Honey Loops and your Fruit Loops and your Frosties. 

[00:39:40] Jonathan Wolf: I was brought up to believe that you are meant to eat cereal for breakfast. I think growing up in the States, it's almost like a nutritional law that you have to eat milk and cereal. 

[00:39:52] Dr. Federica Amati: Breakfast cereal should not be your breakfast every day. So even on the days where Shreddies do feature on your breakfast. It's that, plus a piece of fruit, some yogurt, or an egg.

It cannot be just that, and it really shouldn't be every day. So breakfast, Jonathan, as you know, I'm very passionate about breakfast, because it's the meal of the day where we usually have the most control. 

Why not make them something that you can both enjoy together, whether that is like a yogurt bowl with fruits, with nuts, with seeds. You maybe sprinkle some Cheerios as a topper to that if you really have to. 

[00:40:24] Rhiannon Lambert: Wraps? What about savory things like sandwiches? Think outside the box, we're just ingrained. 

[00:40:27] Dr. Federica Amati: Eggs as well are a wonderful food for breakfast. So dippy your eggs and an apple and you're good to go. 

But also, I love making, especially on the weekends, my children love pancakes. All children do. There are so many ways that you can make pancakes. Absolute nutritional powerhouses. 

I know we have one on our ZOE Instagram, there's a really great recipe for pancakes, but I personally just love putting banana, some oats, some eggs, blend them together. Sometimes I'll put in a bit of cinnamon, sometimes I'll put a bit of pear in.

[00:40:56] Rhiannon Lambert: I do the green veg because I can get away with it. I'm just saying to parents listening that mine are only four and two, so I can still hide vegetables in pancakes. You probably can't do that, but I make green ones. 

[00:41:07] Dr. Federica Amati: Well, I've made pink ones with beetroot. That went down an absolute storm. And also, this is the age where smoothies actually can offer a real solution, especially for parents, if you're really struggling to get your child to have a diversity of fruits at this age, or vegetables.

Smoothies can offer a really good addition to a breakfast. But the really important thing with smoothies is to remember what you're putting in. So, have some kefir, have some yogurt as a base in there. 

[00:41:31] Rhiannon Lambert: Carbohydrate. 

[00:41:32] Dr. Federica Amati: Have some nuts. in there. And it can't just all be super sweet fruits, because then you're just making a fruit juice. 

So really think of it exactly as you mentioned earlier, when you're building a meal, are there carbohydrates, are there healthy fats in there? Putting avocado in your smoothie is one of the simplest hacks ever. It's creamy, it's quite bland, it doesn't change the taste. 

So there are lots of other foods for breakfast for children. 

[00:41:54] Rhiannon Lambert: Parents don't need to fear carbs either. I think there's two messages out there, like, they're like, well, I want to give them cereal, but I've heard that now I shouldn't give my children any carbohydrates in the morning to start the day.

But actually, it's our brain's preferred source of fuel. And if it's the correct type of carb, I always say quantity and quality, the two Qs. That's what you need to think of. 

Every time you go in the shop and you see bread or you see cereal, quality, quantity, that means whole grain, how much? 

[00:42:18] Dr. Federica Amati: And children are growing, Jonathan. So when parents are like, Oh, I'm really worried about giving my child too much carbohydrate, right? 

Where your child is growing normally and actually you don't have any cause for concern at the moment, it's absolutely important for them to have enough carbohydrate to fuel their growth and their activity. Children are way more active than we are.

[00:42:35] Rhiannon Lambert: Their energy requirements, they burn more than we do as adults at a certain stage of life. So we actually, have to give them so much. 

[00:42:43] Dr. Federica Amati: They do need to eat carbohydrates, please. 

[00:42:46] Jonathan Wolf: Funny, I see this with my son over the last year who's basically grown about six inches. And he basically eats twice as much as me. Enormous amount of carbs. 

There's not an ounce of body fat on him at this point. Because he's just burning this and growing so fast. I totally see what you're talking about. Which is what he clearly needs. 

[00:43:03] Dr. Federica Amati: But it's so important, Jonathan, because there are voices online that are telling people to not feed their children carbs in the morning and give them bacon. Please don't give your children processed meat. 

[00:43:12] Rhiannon Lambert: And saturated fats first thing in the morning. 

[00:43:15] Dr. Federica Amati: Instead of carbohydrates. It's wild.

[00:43:16] Jonathan Wolf: I would love to switch now to trying to answer some more of our audience questions. We had a very long list, and this has been so fascinating that I feel bad that I've let it run on longer than I should and we're not going to answer all of them. 

So let's try and see if we can be quite punchy because otherwise I'm going to be in trouble with all the listeners whose questions we don't answer. 

Maybe starting with Rhiannon. If my child needs to lose weight, should I put them on a diet? 

[00:43:41] Rhiannon Lambert: Not a diet, no, but you should start looking at the quality of their nutrition.

You started with a really complex question with so much nuance. Relationships of food are everything for children growing up and you do not want to impact that. But equally, if you've noticed your child needs to be looking at their weight, start looking at the quality of their diet, the fiber content.

Look at that and seek advice and help and support one to one. 

[00:44:06] Dr. Federica Amati: From a nutrition professional? 

[00:44:07] Rhiannon Lambert: Yes, from someone that's registered. 

[00:44:09] Jonathan Wolf: The answer is no, but think about the quality of the food because you do need to address it. 

The flip side, if my child tells me she's not hungry, should I force her to eat? And maybe I can just extend that. I mean, I definitely remember grandparents where I was like, well, you need to finish what's on your plate and you're not allowed to get down unless it's all finished. 

[00:44:27] Dr. Federica Amati: No, learning to honor your child's cues for hunger and for satiety is really important. When we deny that child's hunger or satiety, they learn that their body signaling isn't correct.

So if a child says they are hungry, believe that they are hungry and offer them healthy food. If they say they're full up, believe them and tell them, that's fine. If you are hungry again, this is the food that is going to be available for you. 

So that way we know that they are not using that signaling to try and switch the food necessarily. It's really important that we honor those signals because children are very honest and transparent with how they feel. 

[00:45:06] Jonathan Wolf: So recognize it, but don't just rush in and say, okay, here's this other meal. 

Rhiannon, should my child have a cup of milk every day? 

[00:45:13] Rhiannon Lambert: No, over the age of two, no, no need.

And actually marketing played a huge role with this in the dairy industry, dare I say. No, there's plenty of other nutrition sources of calcium and things that you think you'd be getting just from that food item alone. 

[00:45:31] Jonathan Wolf: My child craves sweet ultra-processed food. Should I try to curb their craving? How so? 

[00:45:39] Dr. Federica Amati: I think what we mentioned, so really building a home environment where the choice of food for them is as healthy as possible. 

Knowing that they'll probably be able to access the sweeter, ultra-processed foods outside the home. Start at home, give them lots of variety.

This is where baking at home could really come in handy as well. Make some cupcakes in 10 minutes at home and see how they prefer those. So try and find ways to offer foods that are enjoyable, but that aren't harmful for their health, basically. 

[00:46:09] Jonathan Wolf: And I think I've got a related one, which I definitely feel and think about. Rhiannon, should I get my child an ice cream when we're out?

[00:46:17] Rhiannon Lambert: So it depends on how frequently you go to this one place where the ice cream van is. Let's say if you're going to this same park every single day or every weekend, it becomes a habit. And therefore you need to embrace, hey, that's where they're getting their ice cream that week. And you go with it and you let them enjoy that moment.

However, if you go to this park every day and this ice cream van is there every single day, that's a problem. And that's going to be a really difficult one for your child because they won't understand, why am I not allowed it on this day, but I can have it on this day? So you need to be very careful where your boundaries lie from the outset.

Having an ice cream a week is totally fine, one or two, but daily ice cream, is not a good idea. 

[00:46:59] Jonathan Wolf: Is anyone in your family struggling with getting their kids to eat healthily? Why not share this episode with them, right now? You can empower them with the latest scientific advice. I'm sure they'll thank you. 

I think this is a very live one. I think one of the things anyone who has children knows is, as soon as you do something twice, it's basically a routine and three times it's like, well now that has to happen forever more, right? 

[00:47:22] Rhiannon Lambert: And you've got the music on the ice cream. I mean, come on. They're so enticing.

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[00:47:26] Dr. Federica Amati: They're very smart, the ice cream men. Actually, I make ice cream at home, but not complicated, it tastes great, and I also make ice lollies just by putting the smoothie into a mold. And then, that way, it's not about ice cream isn't allowed, it's the quality of this ice cream isn't as good as the quality of the one we have at home, so we're going to have it at home.

So again, the conversation spins to ice cream isn't this golden food that you can never have, and it's more about quality. I think teaching children about quality is really important. 

[00:47:51] Rhiannon Lambert: It is, because they'll know the difference. 

[00:47:53] Jonathan Wolf: What about grandparents? Does it matter if they indulge my kids and break all the rules that I set at my house?

[00:48:01] Dr. Federica Amati: There's a theory that grandmothers hold massive power. I would highly recommend laying the ground rules with grandparents early on. 

So it's going to happen that your mother-in-law or your mother or grandparent will come in with a tray of ultra-processed something. I love my mother-in-law, she's amazing.

[00:48:21] Rhiannon Lambert: My mother-in-law does the same though, she won't mind me saying, she's like, why haven't you given him chocolate yet? Why haven't you given him this? And I’m like, he’s two. 

[00:48:25] Dr. Federica Amati: She came in with this tray of the most ultra-processed cupcakes I have ever seen in my life. You know the ones?

[00:48:31] Rhiannon Lambert: Oh, I know. Yes, yes. 

[00:48:34] Dr. Federica Amati: Thank you so much. And then, not in front of the children, in private, just be like, thank you so much it's really thoughtful. In the future, it would be great if you could bring XYZ. 

And listen, some people don't have a great relationship with their grandparents and their family. Some people do. So if you have a good relationship, talk to them with love. And just explain, this is what I'm trying to do with the nutrition. I've heard this isn't great, so I would love if you could do this. 

Next time, could you bring X, Y, Z? And actually, you know, since then, she's been bringing berries. My kids love berries.  

[00:49:01] Rhiannon Lambert: Well, there you go. That's a nice conversation. 

[00:49:03] Dr. Federica Amati: What if you don't get on with the grandparents? 

[00:49:04] Rhiannon Lambert: And I hear this all the time. And it is a dreaded thing, isn't it? Where your friend's kids go to the grandparent's house and they plow them with Haribo. 

[00:49:12] Dr. Federica Amati: Or with barbecue-flavored crisps. 

So if that's the case, remember that once in a while isn't going to be problematic. If that grandparent is looking after your child regularly, then there's going to have to be a conversation about providing food.

And in some cases with some of my clients, they end up sending the food in for the child to take to the grandparent so that there's at least a good nutritional base. 

But really communication is key here. So if you can just establish some ground rules about the kinds of foods that you're feeding your child and why. Not putting any shame on their choices or on their knowledge and education, but just bring that with love.And most of the time, grandparents also want the best for the children.

[00:49:52] Rhiannon Lambert: It's the same as nursery settings though, don't we? I know we don't have time, but childcare settings, it's so hard because the kids are exposed at ages naught to three. Tons of sugar when other parents bring it in. 

[00:50:04] Dr. Federica Amati: And there aren't regulations for nurseries, for food. So it's a wild west out there.  

[00:50:09] Jonathan Wolf: Thank you both so much. I'm going to try and do a quick summary and keep me honest. 

I think we started with just this shocking statistic that three-quarters of the food that our children are eating is ultra-processed food. This is completely different from the food that any of us were eating 50 years ago.

That not just is it ultra-processed, but there's an enormous amount of sugar that is hiding in all of this food. And I think I heard you say there are 12 teaspoons of sugar in a lunchbox, which is sort of terrifying, right? You would never add that if you're making it yourself and it's all hidden.

And the other thing you said is it tends to be hidden in the food that makes the biggest health claims. So you're saying you're walking down the aisle of the grocery store, you've seen all this food that says high in protein or this thing that's great for five-year-olds, whatever. And those are the things that have the most sugar added into it as opposed to the food where we know about it. 

But, it's okay, there are things you can do, and we talked a bit about lunch. I think this idea that you can make one change at a time to steadily improve it I think is wonderful, rather than saying you've got to fix it all at once. 

Some very practical advice, like swapping to brown pasta or brown rice is quite easy. Mixing the veg into the main meal, I thought it was really smart, hiding it in the pasta. It's a bit like what I used to do at school to hide the food before you threw it away, but you're saying actually get it to eat them.

And I thought this brilliant hack that I hadn't heard of before, which is give them natural yogurt, with no ultra-processed food in it, and then just allow them to put something really sweet and sugary in. 

It's actually going to be much better than the yogurt you were probably buying last week. You thought was really good for them and was healthy but actually wasn't and this is as Rihanna just adds, fun as well. 

For breakfast, your children do not need to eat cereal. It is okay for them to eat something else and indeed I think it fascinating, Federica was saying they may well not be getting enough energy just from the cereal and the milk. So think about what else you can put around that is actually going to be more like a regular meal and fill them up. 

And then we talked about the challenges of getting your children to end up with a healthy relationship with food and be able to manage these challenges around us. And therefore you shouldn't be trying to ban the things that are fun, right?

Absolutely. It's totally fine to have ice cream, but you don't want to be in a situation where they're having ice cream every single day and you definitely don't want them to be having a terrible ultra-processed ice cream every day because you created this habit. So you're trying to find that middle ground.

And I think the last thing that stuck in my mind was trying to give your children choices about what to eat. It feels like that's come up in lots of things you said. That they have so little control in life and actually this pushing against food is partly just trying to have more control and so if you can give them more choices.

So it's a bit like getting to pick at the buffet, isn't it? It's like, okay, maybe I'm quite happy to eat some of these things rather than saying you've only got this one thing. This is all you can have and making it into a huge fight. 

[00:53:06] Rhiannon Lambert: Yeah, brilliant summary.  

[00:53:08] Dr. Federica Amati: Very good. 

[00:53:09] Jonathan Wolf: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think that was fascinating. I know we will have many follow-up questions, so I hope we can tempt you back for a follow-up.

[00:53:16] Dr. Federica Amati: Part two. 

[00:53:17] Rhiannon Lambert: Can't wait. Teenagers next. 

[00:53:18] Dr. Federica Amati: Yeah, I can't wait for that, actually. We haven't even talked about menstruation. 

[00:53:22] Rhiannon Lambert: No, we haven't. We didn't do iron enough as well. I know. So many things. 

[00:53:24] Jonathan Wolf: Thank you so much. 

[00:53:25] Rhiannon Lambert: Thanks, Jonathan. 

[00:53:26] Jonathan Wolf: Thank you. I really enjoyed having Rhiannon and Federica on the podcast today. I hope you learned something new.

My biggest takeaway is that school lunch can really empower my children to grow their own relationship to food. 

Now if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat can transform your health. But you can only do so much with general advice from a weekly podcast. 

If you want to feel much better now and be on the path to live many more healthy years, You need something more, and that's why more than 100,000 members trust ZOE each day to help them make the smartest food choices.

Combining our world-leading science with your ZOE test results, ZOE is your daily companion to better health for life. So how does it work? ZOE membership starts with at-home testing to understand your unique body. Then ZOE's app is your health coach, using weekly check-ins and daily guidance to help you shift your food choices to steadily improve your health.

I rely on ZOE's advice every day. And truly, it has transformed how I feel. Will you give ZOE a try? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz to find out what ZOE membership could do for you. Simply go to zoe.com/podcast, where as a podcast listener, you'll get 10% off. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolf.

ZOE Science and Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham, and Richard Willan. The ZOE Science and Nutrition podcast is not medical advice, and if you have any medical concerns, please consult your doctor. See you next time.