There's nothing like a kid too neurotic to eat a cupcake

My family eats pretty healthy. We're big on fruits, vegetable and grains. I make brown rice instead of white rice -- or, even better, bulgur wheat (it's the awesome base for tabbouleh, among other things). We buy low-sugar cereals, lean meat ...

But pretty much the only protein my three-year-old will eat is whatever is found in hot dogs. So he eats lots of hot dogs (good ones). On a stick. Dipped in ketchup.

Whatever it takes. I'm not going to sweat it and I don't want him getting weird about food. And hell, they taste good.

But apparently not everybody shares my laid-back attitude toward good eats. From the New York Times:

SODIUM — that’s what worries Greye Dunn. He thinks about calories, too, and whether he’s getting enough vitamins. But it’s the sodium that really scares him.

“Sodium makes your heart beat faster, so it can create something really serious,” said Greye, who is 8 years old and lives in Mays Landing, N.J.

Greye’s mother, Beth Dunn, the president of a multimedia company, is proud of her son’s nutritional awareness and encourages it by serving organic food and helping Greye read labels on cereal boxes and cans.

“He wants to be healthy,” she says. ...

“We’re seeing a lot of anxiety in these kids,” said Cynthia Bulik, the director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “They go to birthday parties, and if it’s not a granola cake they feel like they can’t eat it. The culture has led both them and their parents to take the public health messages to an extreme.”

Nice going, folks. An eight-year-old obsessed about salt. That's the way to suck the joy from your kids' lives and turn them into neurotic freaks.

You know, it is possible to nudge your kid toward healthy food without making the process of picking up a fork a frightening task fraught with peril.

Here's a clue: There's no such thing as "bad" food. There are foods that are higher in fat than others, lower in fiber, have more sugar or more sodium -- foods that should probably be consumed in moderation. That doesn't mean a pulled-pork sandwich or a cupcake is going to kill you, just that you shouldn't indulge too often.

And conveying a laid-back attitude to your children along with some nutritional savvy will set them up for much happier lives than turning them into fearful little basket cases ever could.

Lisa Dorfman, a registered dietitian and the director of sports nutrition and performance at the University of Miami, says that she often sees children who are terrified of foods that are deemed “bad” by parents. “It’s almost a fear of dying, a fear of illness, like a delusional view of foods in general,” she said. “I see kids whose parents have hypnotized them. I have 5-year-olds that speak like 40-year-olds. They can’t eat an Oreo cookie without being concerned about trans fats.”

Terrified? Of food? That's weird and wrong. Hey folks, let the kids eat the damned Oreos. Then pry your overprotective talons off of them and send them out to play with their friends. They can run around and climb stuff and burn off the evil fat and sugar.

Now, excuse me while I go hunt up a corn dog for my son.