How not to get fat over the holidays

THEY say that half the children’s books are written for adults. When people say that kids will love this book, they (the adults) mean that they love it.

Understanding Your Child’s Health (Israel Book Shop) is, yes, about children’s health, but there’s one chapter (at least) that adults may well benefit from: how not to fatten up your kids on yontiv.

Or yourselves, either.

You know the drill. Jewish holidays are a time for spiritual celebration. In Judaism, the body and the spirit are intertwined. Part of Shabbos is eating well.

Same for Rosh Hashanah and Sukkos, just to pick the holidays we’re marking now.

So, it’s a mitzvah to eat well (and to cook well). Take Sukkos: Friday night meal, Saturday noon meal, Saturday night meal, Sunday noon meal — that’s four huge meals in a row (not even including shalosh seudos, snacks or light breakfasts).

Is it possible to fulfill the spirit of the holiday — to feast — and also to control one’s weight?

Must every holiday end with a depressing feeling that it’s time for that (never-to-be) diet?

In her wise book about children’s health, in the section, “Nutrition,” Dr. Susan K. Schulman says, pardon the pun, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Here’s her advice: Do not serve family-style with large platters of food on the table. Rather, serve an individual portion of each course to each person.

The reason for this is that people will continue to eat if there is more food on the table — and it is the extra portions that create the excess.

The way food is served at elegant weddings and in elegant restaurants: one portion of everything per person.

You can have the salad, and the soup, and the vegetables, and the meat and chicken, and the kugel, and the side dish, and the desert. What else is on the table? Nothing, except pickles or other relishes and condiments.

If a second portion is requested, serve it — one portion — from the kitchen.

Make all portions appropriate in size to satisfy the person who is getting that plate, advises Dr. Schulman.

Then, when the meal is over, put the food away. Don’t leave it in the kitchen, any more than you’ve left it on the table.

By starting with a salad, most people will eat it because it’s the only thing on the table, and people are hungry. That helps slow down the potential for “pigging out” as the meal progresses.

THANK you, Dr. Schulman.

But, the good doctor is a pediatrician. The real, intended audience is parents with small children. But, it’s not. Here’s another nugget for adults:

Jewish kids, by and large, as we all know, are not deprived. Diet. Nutrition. Sleep. Cleanliness. Coats. Sweaters. Raincoats. Private lessons. Music. Computers. Toys.

You name it, Jewish kids’ parents tend to provide it.

With one exception: exercise.

“A major ingredient in the formula of healthy body growth,” she calls it.

Of course, I’m wrong. Jewish parents provide this, too, to their children. Sports. Sports leagues. Sports equipment. But do these parents provide exercise to themselves?

Reading Dr. Schulman’s chapter on the importance of exercise to a healthy body, though couched in terms of childhood growth and development, is a strong message to even the most tone-deaf parent. You need this, too.

And so, we have a book that is readable on two levels, one, the intended: parents who are raising children. And two, the unintended: the rest of the population.

OK. Point made. Now, to the essence: This book is brimming with good ideas and valuable insights about children’s health. For example, everything one needs to know about buying children’s shoes.

Um, actually, unless a child is handicapped, one need know nothing. Shoes do not influence the way feet grow. “Support” is not important. The muscles in the foot develop strength when they are used.

So says Dr. Schulman. She advises: Buy inexpensive shoes. Just get the right size. Shoes, she quotes a pediatric orthopedist, “are meant to keep the socks clean.” And to protect the feet from cold and injury.

But that’s it. Walking without shoes actually strengthens the feet and ankles, she says.

And so she leads parents through the thicket of childraising: first two years, nutrition, exercise, safety, pediatric problems and solutions (fever, flu, bedwetting, toilet training, childhood phobias, etc. etc.).

It’s all very down-to-earth, completely free of jargon, and studded with insights.

There’s even a chapter on “Purim safety.”

If you have kids, and you’re Jewish, you’ll benefit from Understanding Your Child’s Health.