As a parent it is
your duty to your children to ensure they have all of the essentials they need
to function properly in their everyday lives. This includes drinks, food,
clothes and shelter. One of the hardest factors to control for your children is
the food they eat as they can easily refuse to eat certain foods, or they can
attempt to charm their way past having to eat food they do not want or like
when you tell them to. Knowing what is healthy and what will help your children
grow into strong young adults can give you good insight and ideas into what
will make them want to eat more healthily.
There are four steps that you can take as a
parent towards ensuring your child eats more of the correct food, allowing them
to be healthy and support their developing bodies and immune systems as much as possible. These four steps
include; eating more fruit and vegetables, consuming less fat and sugar,
watching portion sizes and eating healthier daily snacks.
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Eating More Fruits
and Vegetables
It must be something about the way fruits
and vegetables look that make children not want to eat them as so many children
attempt to avoid these items like the plague. Convincing your children to
eat these foods can be tough, but there are some good tips
and tricks here to help your child reach their five daily fruit and vegetables
goal. Firstly, try serving pure juice that is not from concentrate to your
children; a glass of this counts as one of the daily five and is something that
most children enjoy and do not consider as fruit or vegetables – this can also
be a good opportunity to include any dietary supplements that can be mixed with water or
juice into the diet. Next it is important to remember that all variations of
fruit and vegetables count, this includes frozen, canned and fresh items, so
experiment serving frozen fruit with yogurt as dessert and see how your
children enjoy this.
Lowering Daily Intake of Fat and Sugar
Consuming foods that are high in fat and
sugar is an easy mistake to make for people of any age and children are no
exception to this rule, especially as these kinds of food are usually very
tasty and therefore requested by children. To attempt to lower these fatty and
sugary foods, try buying low-fat and sugar-free alternatives wherever possible.
Choose cuts of meat that are leaner, such as skinless chicken or extra lean
ground beef to lower fat consumption. Another excellent rule to remember here
is to bake or grill food rather than frying as this is a much healthier, less
fat-filled option.
Be Aware of Portion Sizes
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Overloading plates with food is never the
right choice. Although your child is growing and needs energy to be able to
grow to their full potential, over-feeding them is not going to help this
process. Children need children-sized portions, so give them smaller plates
with less food than an adult would consume. Using the smaller plates gives the
illusion of the same amount of food when in fact they have less; however it
should quell any complaints they may have about portion size. Another rule here
is to give small portions with the option of seconds. This ensures your child
only eats the amount they want to eat, rather than eating everything on the
plate simply because it is there.
Try Introducing
Healthier Snacks
Many children get hungry during the day and
will request a snack for a little energy boost at some stage between meals.
Snacking can become a terrible habit, so offer them something healthy like
fresh or dried fruit, or vegetable sticks such as carrot, celery or cucumber.
These types of snack allow your child to gain some energy without ruining the
healthy balance of their diet. It also allows you to worry less about their
snacking habits as you can relax knowing you have given them healthy choices.
Of course, cookies and similar snacks can be offered as occasional treats, but
they should not be everyday snacking foods.
Helping your family to be healthy ensures
they grow strong and have good immune systems for when they are older. It also
sets a good example as they progress into young adults and allows them to make
healthier choices later in life. Doing everything in your power to let them be
healthy when they are younger is one of the best ways to avoid any possible
health issues, and allows them to enjoy life to the fullest.
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