Cholesterol and kids.  My 4 year old is asking for an egg alot lately. Does
any have some *GOOD* information (not conjecture) about whether kids can 
tolerate and process cholesterol better than adults.  I've read that in 
adults, strenuous exercise helps to process out cholesterol, but as much as
they run around, it's not really *strenuous*.

26 responses total.

I don't know the source, but I've heard of fairly recent findings in which
eggs were shown to help the body produce "good" cholesterol which reduced
deposites of "bad" cholesterol. Or something like that. 
I just know that scrambled eggs is a quick, healthy meal my boys will eat
without dawdling or complaining.  They eat at least 2 each at least once
a week.

Strenuous exercize helps almost everything...
Sometimes kids need almost the opposite of a healthy adult diet: more
fat and protein, less fiber, etc.

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The worst part of eggs as a food comes from the fat they are fried in.
Eggs can be cooked with minimal added fat (or none, if you have a teflon
pan and don't mind taking a little extra time to clean it.)

Strive for balance, with what most people forget -- fruits and
vegetables as a regular part of the diet.

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And there's always Eggbeaters (TM).

I spoke with someone tonight who said that "up to 3 yrs and probably longer
cholesterol is actually desirable in a kid's diet.  It is used to build 
nerve and brain tissue.  She also said that she had heard just recently on a 
CBC produced program "Quirks & Quarks," a science series, that a study done
by a hospital in Southampton, Eng found that maternial diet is very important.
Women who do not eat properly when pregnant have babies with small livers.
The liver is the largest organ in a newborn.  All through life heart diseases
were associated with small liver at birth / malnourishment in the womb. I 
believe she said that the liver produces high density lipo-proteins, the 
desirable kind.  It's low density l-p that causes trouble."

Fascinating.  re #3 -- eggs can be cooked without frying; I ate them
soft-boiled for years, and recently have been poaching them in the
microwave.

re #8:  Certainly; but fried eggs are very popular.  Frying in fat
        isn't healthy, no matter what the type of food.

        Any "unhealthy" food can be eaten, with no harm, as part of
        a balanced diet.  But when the diet isn't balanced....

I've been hearing many disturbing things about my kid's (8th grade)
school lunch program.  I'm not sure if he's exaggerating or not, but
if you believe what he says, they have greasy Domino's pizza three
days a week, and greasy cheese burgers or cardboard chicken sandwiches
the rest of the time.  Not only that, but the "snack bar" in the
lunch room sells all manner of candies and other sweets.  I'm a bit
dismayed at the eating habits this leads kids into.  Fortunately,
my kid doesn't like Domino's pizza.  Unfortunately, he thought what
was left was so inedible that he was skipping lunch 3 days a week!
(Now that we've found out about this situation, we are of course
trying to give him better alternatives, such as a sack lunch).  What
the hell happened to school lunches?  It sounds like a McDonald's
Cholesterol Diet From Hell...

 Stop by the skool sometime around their lunch hour (about 15 min. prior)
& ask to speak with the principal/assistant principal.  Express your
concerns, & oh gee, it is lunchtime!  Wait to see if the p/ap invites you
to take a look in the cafeteria. If not, you suggest it.   Also find out
what the staff does for lunch (do they eat the same phood Junior does?).


        Also, bring up the issue at the next PTA meeting, which I assume
you regularly attend, being the concerned parent that you obviously
are.

Heh.  Yeah.  I'm planning to go there for lunch one of these days...
I did talk to my kid's advisor and found out that she *doesn't* eat
lunch in the lunchroom "so she wouldn't know about the food" (this
in response to essentially the same comments as in :10 above).  I
imagine most of the other teachers skip the lunch line, too.
 
Good ideas, Tim.  We're just finding out about this problem so
the investigation is continuing...

Bringing fast food into schools is an increasing trend.  The kids eat it,
and the school isn't responsible for any leftovers.

I recently heard about a principal who defended an elementary lunch
program that consisted of 5 types of fast food, delivered straight
from local fast food restaurants, depending on the day of the week.
He insisted that the American Heart Ass'n had approved the menu.  (It
hadn't, but you already knew that.)

  With all the BS laww/rules/regulations that some skools & skool
districts are placing on the students, I think the skooladministrators
ought to be required to eat in the cafeteria.

What tnt said.
<davel faints in astonishment>

I pretty uch have to agree with tnt also, excapt that I would rather have
the students be allowed to eat in other places.  As for bringing in the
food from outside vendors, one must only have suffered through school
lunches while they were still provided by the school system to see the
reasoning there.  For those who don't know, they may have had all the
appropriate food groups, but they tasted awful.  In fact, many of the kids
would go through the lunch line so their parents wouldn't find out they
weren't eating lunch, and then walk straight to the garbage and throw the
lunch out.  They would be hungry for the rest of the day, but at least
they wouldn't have had to eat that stuff.  Although I find it hard to
believe, the "fast food" *may* not be as healthy as the stuff they served
in the Ann Arbor elementary schools seven years ago, but unhealthy food is
certainly better than no food.

they ought to serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches some day

My daughe!r's school actually has "Pizza with French Fries' for their
Monday menu item.  Can you imagine?
e

My daugh!
My daughter's school actually has pizza with french fries as their
Monday menu item.  Can you imagine?

how's the amount of wasteage for that day look?  I believe someone decided
that it would be better for kids to eat something than to throw away gobs
of supposedly healthy food and sneak off to MacD.'s.  You can't teach
good eating habits with over-steamed mushed veggies and the like in a 20
minute lunch hour.  Sigh.

Back to cholesterol, I never realized it was an issue for kids til a friend 
of mine told me how high her kids cholesterol was, from genetic causes.
She cooks very low chol food.  I'd suggest having kids tested if you 
are concerned.  

and have a   lipid profile   done so you know the ratio 
of HDL/LDL chlorestoral - from recent readings, the ratio
is much more important than the total chloerestoral count.

Cafeteria food in junior high and high school is notoriously unhealthy. 
Usually results in everyone going home for lunch by senior year.

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<slinkie wonders what difference the physical location of someone on grex
makes, since these days not all grexers are from wherever grex is physically
located anyhow and as long as you have a modem you can get to grex from just
about anywhere...>

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I wish him luck but I have a feeling his dream may go
up in smoke.

(I'm so sorry, couldn't help it.)

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