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How about an incredibly jolting fact to start off your Monday morning?

Our children may be headed toward life spans shorter than ours, according to Dr. David Katz, an internationally renowned nutrition expert connected to Yale University and Griffin Hospital in Derby.

Why, you ask? Food.

Our kids just don't get it. When they think "meal," they don't conjure up images of the well-balanced variety. They think of the "happy" option that comes with a cheap toy that will break within days.

Heck, a lot of us don't get it. And that's why Kimberly Porter Dowie calls herself "a mom on a mission."

Porter Dowie goes into schools armed with a lesson about "Traffic Light Eating," a concept created by Dr. William Sears. She brings a huge bag of food into classrooms and has the children divide the containers into three categories: red (bad), green (good) and yellow (somewhere in between).

"It is so important," says this mother of three from Essex. "There is an epidemic of obesity and illness right now." She finds the kids to be incredibly interested and enthusiastic: "They're smart. They get it."

Here is another staggering statistic: The government recommends your child eat at least 5 to 9 servings of fruit and vegetables every day. Five to nine! Every day!

I don't know about you, but I feel like a hero if I can cajole my picky eater into eating one fresh veggie with each meal.

Be vigilant, and don't give up, says Porter Dowie. Sometimes a child has to try a food 10 times before he develops a taste for it. And limit sugar consumption, because the less they eat, the less they'll crave.

"I'm not saying this is easy," says Porter Dowie. "It's very difficult."

My method? I bake zucchini muffins and pumpkin bread every chance I get. My guys gobble it up, no complaints, and that makes me feel good. Plant a garden. Or steal secrets for sneaking from Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook.

No matter what your tactic is, it's clear that we have to do a better job of feeding our kids. I know I do.

I really can't imagine how much of my life I spent schlepping my first child to the pediatrician to check for an ear infection and then hoping I looked pathetic enough for the CVS pharmacist to more quickly fill the prescription for antibiotics. If I had that extra time maybe I would have taught him sign language or could have made fabulous scrapbooks.

By the time the second child arrived on the scene, I wasn't messing around. He had surgery about five seconds after the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor uttered the words "Ear Tubes." And we did the same for child number three, when it became clear that he, too, would spend more than half of his babyhood and toddlerhood with painful earaches.

After a serious rise in the number of ear infections a few decades ago - generally attributed to more babies hanging out with sick babies while in day care - we're now seeing a pretty significant decline. Ear infections in children have dropped almost 30 percent in the last 15 years. The reason: Your guess is as good as mine. Theories include an increase in the number of mothers who breastfeed and a decrease in the number of people providing their babies with secondhand smoke.

Whatever the cause, I want to see today's new moms - unencumbered by frequent doctor visits and armed with loads of extra time - cranking out some high quality scrapbooks. With fancy stickers and stuff. Oh, and could you make a few for my kids, too?