海角大神

In the marketing aftermath of Taco Bell announcing聽Thursday聽that breakfast is now on the menu, parents face another obstacle to getting kids to make a healthy choice for 鈥渢he most important meal of the day.鈥�

Many kids love to skip meals, but are drawn to funny marketing campaigns for less healthy alternatives, such as those offered by fast food chains.

This leaves parents wringing their hands in a quandary over whether a less nutritional breakfast is better than none at all.

After spending years trying everything from holding a fork-full of eggs over a kid鈥檚 head while making airplane noises, to pouring pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse, I urge parents not to throw in the kitchen towel and head to an in-car breakfast.

I鈥檓 not talking about a bag of bakery doughnut, or a聽Sunday聽after-church trip to IHOP, but rather avoiding the choice of heavily processed folded food handed to you through a sliding window in the side of a building while the minivan motor is running.

I believe breakfast is a lot like parenting because it鈥檚 the work you put in early that pays off at the end of the day.

This issue hit my mommy radar because the Taco Bell ad campaign grabbed my kids鈥� attention by getting all those men named Ronald McDonald聽to approve of the new Mexican-ish morning menu.

I decided this weekend's breakfasts would be a family, home cookin鈥� event at our house.

Thanks to the new Taco Bell menu, I feel inspired to make breakfast burritos聽on Saturday聽and epic waffles聽on Sunday.

In case my sons need a side-dish of humor to go with breakfast, they will learn that聽I spent today calling all the women named Wendy I could find to get their favorite breakfast recipes.

Yup! I just did that.

I intend to tell the kids, 鈥淎ll those McDonalds like Taco Bell, but Wendys approve of breakfast at home with the kids.鈥�

All my sons have a 鈥渢hing鈥� for the actress who does the commercials for Wendy鈥檚. She is known in our house as, 鈥淗ot Wendy鈥� and is the reason nobody leaves the room during those commercial breaks.

I started close to home with Wendy Warrington Mezzenga, a friend I know from my charity work, who said her favorite family breakfast is stuffed French toast.

鈥淚t's worth getting up early for, even on a weekend when I could be sleeping in,鈥� says my Ms. Mezzenga. 鈥淧lus, it's a good way to get everyone to slow down and eat together!鈥�

Wendy made a good point, that there鈥檚 a social component to breakfast that sets the tone of the day and a family dynamic that you can鈥檛 get through a sliding window on the fly.

When I went looking for information on the value of breakfast for kids, I found a 2013 聽from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing聽that found that 鈥渃hildren who regularly have breakfast on a near-daily basis had significantly higher full scale, verbal, and performance IQ test scores.鈥�

"Because adequate nutrition in early childhood has been linked to increased IQ through childhood, which is related to decreased childhood behavioral disorders, better career satisfaction, and socioeconomic success in adults, breakfast consumption could ultimately benefit long-term physical and mental health outcomes as well a quality of life," wrote the study鈥檚 lead author Jianghong Liu, an associate professor at University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

For聽Chef Wendy J. Brodie of Carmel, Calif., who runs聽聽website and classes for families and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, color, texture, and shape play just as important a role as flavor in cooking.

鈥淢y father worked for CBS and Walter Cronkite and so our lives were not typical and there wasn鈥檛 always much time to spend together,鈥� says Ms. Brodie. 鈥淏ut my father believed in breakfast so we had breakfast together pretty regularly. We tried to make that our meal.鈥�

鈥淜ids can take cookie cutters and pour eggs into them to make them in shapes,鈥� Brodie adds. 鈥淭oast bread, cut it into shapes, use a healthy spread, and let kids decorate it with dried berries.鈥�

If any of this rings a bell with parents, I hope they will consider making a homemade family breakfast as part of their daily diet as often as possible.