gk1.jpgWhen this book arrived in my mail a few weeks ago, I ripped open the package and then tossed it onto the table as if it were a live scorpion. A book called Good Kids, Bad Habits? It looked like nothing but a big fat guilt sandwich to me, and I was not going to take a bite. But somehow it made its way up to my bedside table, and one night I gingerly lifted the cover. It didn’t bite TOO hard.

After browsing through it, I thought that perhaps it wasn’t so scary after all. And maybe I could learn something valuable with it. I’m constantly fretting about my own kids’ (no, actually one particular kid’s) bad habits. My older daughter has turned into something of a health fanatic. She’s on an intense athletic team and exercises hard about twenty hours a week. I’m sure she eats way more vegetables than I do. My younger, though, is not concerned with such things. The only fruits and vegetables that pass her lips are broccoli and Granny Smith apples. She gags on whole grain anything. Her favorite activitie are Internet surfing and programming the TiVo. She has quit her soccer team, she hates to exert herself and the only class in which she received an “Unsatisfactory” was P.E.

I thought: this can be my tool! This will be how I can convince her to change her unhealthy ways. I’ll get her to take the Healthy Kids Test at the beginning of the book, which will reveal that when she’s eighteen she’ll feel like a fifty year old, and she’ll be so alarmed she’ll take a three- mile jog around the lake and come home to a big bowl of spinach.

Unlike the uber-healthy Berkeley mom who was convinced her kid was going to ace the test, I was convinced that mine was going to flunk. Interestingly, my kid scored a 7, which said she was doing Impressively! and was four years healthier than her chronological age. What?!? But she did score spectacularly in the Emotional Health section, and our house is apparently super healthy, and we do eat dinner together virtually seven nights a week, and her general health is quite good, so we got more of a pass on the food-and-exercise front than I’d expected (or hoped).

The book is divided into sections on General Health & Medical Conditions, Nutrition, Physical and Mental Exercise, Personal Care, Social and Emotional Health, and Safety Habits. Each section goes into goals and common pitfalls, in a very nonjudgmental and easy-does-it way. It also addresses how things are different for babies, small kids and teens. It was good to feel that I was able to breathe while reading this book, and not wanting to toss it out the window. It’s a fine balance, I think, for authors or other entities who want to promote healthy.

Do you all know those radio commercials by Kaiser Permanente? The woman who tells us, in her sanctimonious voice, to get off the couch and stop eating ice cream, and to start eating broccoli. Now I LIKE broccoli, and I like exercise, but this ad always made me want to go out and buy a quart of Ben & Jerry’s. I was afraid this book would backfire like this, but the message is so gentle and so reassuring that it did have me believing I could and would do better. It’s filled with fun-sounding do-able small steps, like taking the family to a berry farm or apple orchard. It addresses everything a parent could be concerned about (FYI: the 5-second rule about dropped food, is, alas, NOT healthy), from head lice to infections from piercings. It’s all there, in a very matter of fact and helpful tone.

When I told my daughter about her Impressive! score, she was not surprised. Hah! she exclaimed. “See? I am doing just fine.”

Er. I didn’t have much of a comeback for that one. So I’ll keep trying to coax her taking a little nibble of a blueberry, or a sweet potato or an asparagus spear. But Dr. Jennifer told her she was more than fine, and I guess I’m more inclined to believe it.