Making it Fun To Eat for Children

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FUN TO EAT

Parents, like me, are always trying to come up with ways to get their children to eat more, or eat healthier. What better way than to make food fun. Food in the shape of faces and animals is one way. The other is to make the environment surrounding the eating experience fun.

Recently, for my two year old daughter’s birthday, I bought a Dora 3-piece folding table and chair set. The box does a good job at selling “fun” with its bright colors, huge Nick Jr. logos, and characters from one of my daughter’s favorite shows, Dora. There is also information on the box that is appealing to me as well, “NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED”, “tubular steel construction”, and “chairs have been fitted with an improved locking mechanism”.

I have a Fisher-Price children’s picnic table that is made in a one piece plastic table and bench design. This table has endured a lot of years of use. So, for sure, steel would also endure as well. My children have had a lot of “their size” tables and chairs.

Getting the contents out of the box was not very hard. The table popped right open, and so did the chairs. To, my curiosity I looked for the improved locking mechanism on the chairs. It was great! Instead of having to push in a button, or slide a plastic lock up on the leg (usually pinching my fingers), there was a spring reinforced pull pin. The padded vinyl seat and back to the chairs looked puffy, and comfortable. Each chair is able to sustain 120 pounds. This is not a chair I could sit in with my daughter. The hollow plastic Fisher-Price table can easily hold the weight of a large adult. Unlike, other folds up chairs, these chairs don’t have arm rests, which can limit the width of a child even if they are within the weight recommendations.

The table surprising also had padded vinyl. I was expecting hard plastic, or something else. I don’t think that was a good idea. If you put the table outside in the summer, it might melt. If the kids get something pokey or sharp, it rip or tear. The top of the table isn’t flat because of the padding. All of the other children’s tables I have ever seen have had a solid flat top. I looked all over the box to see if it said the table was padded, and in a small list on the back it said so.

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