As a tween, teen and young adult I was overweight. Yes, so were my parents. My mother served us home-cooked meals prepared with love - and lots of extra calories! When I moved out on my own I went to a weight loss program and learned about the food pyramid, proper portion control and balanced meals. I'm proud to say that I lost weight and have kept it off for almost twenty years. Now I am a busy mother of three, and I try very hard to serve healthy home-cooked meals prepared with love but still balanced between food groups. I was so excited to present my family with things like Mini Trees (broccoli standing up). But call it whatever silly, fun name you want - sometimes kids just won't eat what you put in front of them. Then there are outside influences; I packed my son ideal lunches, only to unpack it untouched while I heard about the birthday cupcakes that were served at school. I journey to specialty stores to buy unprocessed, preservative and hormone-free snacks, and my brood approved - hurray! A victory! But kids already lack impulse-control, so if a snack is deemed yummy then before you know it the entire box is gone.

A major component to good health and healthy weight is exercise, but today I am unable to send my kids outside to play unsupervised. I can't let them ride their bikes to the playground as I did when I was young - it's just not safe. The roads are busier and the dangers of being hurt, abducted or bullied by a local gang or unleashed pet loom large in my maternal consciousness. This means that if I want my son to go on a bike ride after school at his age I must go with him. So who cooks dinner while I'm out? Who watches his younger siblings, who can't possibly keep up on their tricycles? So I seek safer alternatives - he's in karate, next month he starts gymnastics - and now I must worry that I am over-scheduling him.

How can we win this struggle? I think we must all strive for some sort of balance, just as we do with our meals. Some structure, some down time. Mostly fresh fruit, with the occasional processed snack. Everything in moderation - isn't that one of the best lessons we can teach our children?

Learn more about this author, Rosie Reeves.
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