Friday, June 3, 2011

Book Review: The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood

As a suggestion from another blog I follow I checked out from the library Dr. Sear's The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood.
I am a Dr Sear's fan so I really hoped to enjoy this book.
While I found it very informative, it was also very repetitive. His book is great for someone who doesn't know much about nutrition, about eating more whole foods and eating organic and clean. Since I keep up on lots of this I found some of the stuff very obvious. But he did have some things in there that I have never heard of (possible link of nitrates to leukemia)For someone who does not know any of the studies out there they might find it eye opening. For parents who keep up with nutrition it is not that informative.
The cover says recipes included, there are a few at the end but not many. I was hoping for more.
I was also hoping for more about behavior linked to different foods and food additives. He briefly touches on this, but its very brief.
There are great suggestions on snacks and lunch box meals for kids, but I was hoping for more about meals and meal planning. Maybe suggestions for family meals, sample meals for different ages. Having a toddler it is often hard to plan meals. They can not eat all foods yet so it takes more creativity to feed them healthy. I would of maybe likes more on toddler eating and introduction of solids to babies. While he says how important it is to start off right he does not go into details on how.
There is a decent section on how much of certain nutrients children should be getting daily. Menu plans supporting this section would of been great.
Overall unless you have little or no nutrition knowledge I would say this is a check out of the library book. I would not spend the money since the book is full of repetition and lacks in practical advice.

2 comments:

  1. I also like dr. sears a lot, his books are very readable...but I know what you mean about them being somewhat obvious. I am also interested in the food additive/behavior link. Do you have a book recommendation for this? xoxoxo.

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  2. I haven't read any books that discuss it too much. I am pretty sure I read a bunch about it in Marilu Henner's Book Healthy Kids. She has a different approach then most. Not a bad read.
    Mostly I just see studies about it.

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