GIVE PEAS A CHANCE : The Nutrition Magician Turns Lessons Into a Taste for Healthful Eating

Most parents would rather try to pull a rabbit out of their hat than try to persuade their kids to eat an apple instead of that never-ending supply of holiday sweets.

But Donna Weihofen can do both.

She’s the Nutrition Magician, and for 10 years she has entertained children with magic tricks while teaching them a thing or two about nutrition. She will work her magic in Southern California during a three-week tour that includes a visit Saturday at the Children’s Museum at La Habra. The 45-minute program is geared to children from kindergarten to fourth grades, but all ages are welcome.

“I think if we develop good food habits as children, we won’t have as many nutritional problems as adults,” says Weihofen, a nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison and a lecturer at the university’s School of Nursing.

But because most children find nutrition a topic that is less than riveting, Weihofen created a program that is “fun and memorable,” she says.

That means no boring food charts and no white clinician’s coat. Instead, the Nutrition Magician wears a wide-brimmed hat stacked with colorful fake fruit in a program that is big on pupil participation. Virtually every magic trick involves a volunteer from the audience.

For example, Weihofen turns a can of raw eggs upside-down on a piece of cardboard on top of a child’s head. Everyone’s certain that when she pulls away the cardboard, the kid will get slimed. But magically, the eggs turn into Cheerios.

The tricks don’t work unless the children sing the magic words. For instance, in another trick, the kids chant, “Fruit juice, fruit juice every day, helps my body run and play.” Then, Weihofen pours a pitcher of orange juice into a funnel made out of the Sunday comics. The juice disappears, with nary a drop spilled anywhere. What happened? “Garfield drank it,” Weihofen explains.

The Nutrition Magician also turns an empty box into one that is suddenly full of tempting healthful snacks, such as apples, yogurt, cheese and crackers, whole-wheat bread sandwiches and raisins.

Weihofen likes to talk about snacks because, while youngsters may not have much say about their main meals, they “control their snacks,” she says. “So I want to help them make good decisions about them.”

Weihofen sees the show’s impact on her audience. She says children “leave the room singing the magic words, and they ask questions. They actually seem to want more information.” And the kids, especially the ones who volunteer to help with the tricks, remember her years later.

“One child came up to me a couple years after a show and asked if I remembered him,” Weihofen says. “I didn’t recall him, so he said, ‘Remember, I was the boy with the red-and-white striped shirt.’ He even remembered what clothes he was wearing that day!”

Weihofen created her program in Madison, where she lives, for her son’s classroom about 10 years ago. The show was a hit and kept expanding. Today the Nutrition Magician, mother to three teens, travels all over the country. She is amazed that so many of those she meets, children and adults alike, know so little about nutrition.

“I ask children the simplest questions about nutrition,” Weihofen says, “and they have no idea. For example, I hold up a pitcher of orange juice and a can of orange drink, and ask them what the difference is. They say there is no difference.”

Obviously, the Nutrition Magician is battling not only nutritional ignorance, but also nutritional misinformation, often perpetuated by advertisers. And she’s fighting myths.

“One myth is that sugar causes hyperactivity,” she says. “It doesn’t. And I tell the children this and that they have to be responsible for their own behavior. They can’t be bad and then say, ‘The sugar made me do it.’

“I had one boy who said he thought sugar could cause AIDS. Sugar doesn’t cause disease, but it doesn’t have nutrients” and can lead to cavities, so people shouldn’t overeat sugar, she says.

Weihofen also visits prisons and gives nutritional consultations to inmates, may of whom have high cholesterol or diabetes and, therefore, special dietary needs. She advises cancer patients, who need to eat well so they are strong enough to withstand treatment--and to heal.

Young or old, “we all need to learn to eat healthy,” Weihofen says. “If we didn’t think about it at all, we’d probably eat all fat--potato chips and fried foods--because it’s easy. But we need to eat well over a lifetime. And those food habits start at home.”

That’s why the Nutrition Magician sends her young audience members home with a letter for their parents containing information about nutrition and the food-guide pyramid.

But Weihofen, who also performs her show for adults interested in teaching nutrition to children, says eating healthy doesn’t mean you can’t eat leftover holiday candy; it simply means you should practice moderation.

“You don’t have to deprive yourself,” she says. “If you’re too strict, you’ll fail. I’m well-known for going to the bakery and eating doughnuts. But that’s OK because I budget them into my diet.”

* Who: Donna Weihofen, the Nutrition Magician.

* When: Saturday, Jan. 7, at noon.

* Where: Children’s Museum at La Habra, 301 S. Euclid St., La Habra.

* Whereabouts: Take the Orange (57) Freeway. Exit on Lambert Road and go west. Turn right on Euclid Street. The museum is between Lambert and La Habra Boulevard.

* Wherewithal: Included with museum admission: $4, children under 2 get in free.

* Where to call: (310) 905-9793.