Kid's Pyramid

Would you be surprised to learn that children actually choose real food when asked to design their own food pyramids?

I posted the photo above on our Facebook page and asked if this is true of our reader’s children?  Many answered no!  See the comments. They asserted that their children would fill the pyramid with real, whole, nutrient dense foods.  So I asked parents to have their children design their own food pyramids.

Instructions were to print out this pyramid that I created and to simply ask their children to illustrate and/or write the foods they most like to eat at the bottom. The second tier represents foods they like a bit less, and the foods they like the least will be at the top. I recommended  that parents let them do so without their influence.

Below are the results.  Click on each pyramid to enlarge it.

Luiza Zlatovic, mother explains, “All the food that they have drawn, the girls do like. The food is placed on the pyramid by no particular order. This is especially true for the 4 years old Aria. It was hard to explain to her to segregate her favorite foods by liking. She was simply drawing all the food that she likes in any spots available on the pyramid.”

Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen explains that her son Solas, 6 years of age, wanted to put the chicken livers on the bottom but, ran out of room.

Kelly (mom) who has a blog The Dynamic Uno – Life With An Only Child and Emma (7 year old daughter): This past week at our local county fair she was so exasperated because there were no healty choices for lunch … she settled on a corn dog. This was fun. Emma wants me to make sure you know what she likes most: carrots, blueberries, broccoli, peas and green beans. Not so much: lemonade and tomato juice and she really doesn’t like: tomatoes.

Alexandra Saceanu explains about her 3 year old daughter: “Lia’s food pyramid. I asked, she answered, I drew, she colored.”

Following are pyramids created by twins Jacob and Noah. Interesting for me to see cod liver oil make an appearance on their lists!

Heather of Mommypotamus writes, “Katie [4.5 years of age] and I loved making this pyramid together! Because she’s just beginning to learn to read and write, we began by making a list of all her favorite foods. I then printed words/images of those foods plus photos of some I make often for her to organize by preference on the pyramid, and here are the results! You may notice that the top is pretty sparse. I’m thrilled to say she couldn’t think of much she didn’t like! The liver chili way up top was telling, though. I make it about once a week and I think she’s sick of it!”

Laura Waldo writes, “Devon was required to learn about the food pyramid as part of his Science program last year, but thankfully since we home school we have lots of wiggle room.  I seized the opportunity to allow Devon to use the computer to research the “new” food pyramid and challenged him to create his own.  The photo is what Devon created, keep in mind he can not eat any grains (even those that have been soaked or sprouted) due to being Celiac.  While this pyramid may not be right for everyone, I was very proud of Devon for really showing an understanding of the foods we eat and wanted to share it with you.”

What would your children create?