Camp Cuisine Reality Check
Alright, I’ll admit the heading above sounds a bit judgmental. But let’s be real—I fully anticipated my 8-year-old daughter would load up on junk food during her very first week at sleepaway camp. Both my kids (and my husband, too) possess what I like to call an “iron stomach.” They can chow down on just about anything without suffering any immediate consequences, so I knew there wouldn’t be any sudden food reactions to deal with. However, feeling fine right after eating heavily processed snacks doesn’t mean there’s no hidden cost. It’s similar to how you might feel nothing during an X-ray, yet you’re still absorbing radiation—trust me, it’s happening.
So even though my daughter doesn’t have any food-related medical issues to stress over, we still had a gentle conversation before she set off on her first week away without a parent or grandparent nearby. As I’ve mentioned before, I absolutely do NOT want my two young girls to ever feel anxious about food (or anything else, for that matter). But that doesn’t stop me from educating them when the moment is right (just as I will with many other important life topics). So I told her that camp would have junk food, and it was perfectly okay to eat it—BUT my suggestion was to fill up on what she knew was healthy (meaning real, whole foods straight from nature) and only have a small amount of the less nutritious stuff. And what did she do while I wasn’t there? She had Froot Loops for breakfast every single day—"with pineapple on the side!" As I said, she’s a totally normal 8-year-old, so this is exactly what happened when she was in charge of her own choices 🙂 I suppose I should be grateful for the fruit serving? And honestly, I was—and I told her so. I made sure to praise the positive and didn’t dwell on any of the week’s so-called "negatives."
