Good Nutrition for Kids & Teens
(http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/health_safety/nutrition.shtml) |
All
parents want their children to be healthy. As elementary school aged children
go through remarkable physical changes of all kinds, their food intake becomes
a critical aspect of this growth and development. Recent research shows that
nourishing food not only makes a child healthier, it makes him emotionally more
stable, and it improves school performance. It appears then that paying
attention to our children's diets pays high dividends. If only our children
thought so, too! Because children tend to rank their parents' views on food
along with their unpopular views on curfews, rock music, hair styles, etc., it
is up to the parents to, first of all, be clever about insinuating nutritious
foods into the family menus and, secondly, take a reasonable but hard line when
other approaches fail.
Breakfast
A
child in the classroom whose last meat was dinner the night before has gone
about sixteen hours without food, and that child is hungry, whether he knows it
or not. A nutritious breakfast will provide energy for several hours-until
lunch, in fact. Is any kind of breakfast better than no breakfast at all?
Unfortunately, no. A doughnut, for example, provides a quick rush of energy
that lasts about 40 minutes, about the length of time it takes the youngster to
get from the breakfast table to his classroom!
Traditionally,
teachers schedule "heavy" subjects, such as reading and arithmetic, during the
morning hours, and so it becomes even more important that the child's brain be
fueled. The following suggestions have proved helpful in sending youngsters off
to school ready to team.
Offer
options. "Here's what's for breakfast. You have two choices. Pick one of them."
Just be sure that both choices have high nutritive value.
Lunch
The
sack lunch! Does the child give, trade, or throw most of it away? (The clue is
if he comes home ready to eat anything and everything in the refrigerator!)
It's altogether possible that the youngster is jettisoning his sack lunch
because he is bored to tears with it, so it's time for the parents to get
creative. One clever parent inserts a smaller bag labeled "this is for trading"
into the larger bag, and it seems to work wonders! The following suggestions
may help.
After
School Snacks
Once
a child has entered the primary grades, it is no longer possible for him to eat
whenever he feels hungry, and it can be a long time between lunch and the final
bell. Most youngsters arrive home wanting and needing an immediate energy
boost. It's a great opportunity to add some "in nutrients to the youngster's
diet. To many youngsters a snack automatically means something sweet; however,
sugar should be removed from the diet as much as possible except for special
occasions.
Dinner
The
time-honored tradition of breakfast, lunch, and dinner seems the best way to
ensure a balanced diet, but the fact is that we may not need three meals a day.
A better solution for some families may be more frequent, lighter meals. And it
really isn't a matter of life and death if a family member misses dinner. No
child ever starved to death because he was playing softball and forgot to come
home for dinner. Common sense, flexibility, and creativity go a long way to
make the evening meat pleasant.
Junk
Food
Most
of the foods served in fast food restaurants have fat as their main source of
calories. Even milk shakes are often nude with highly saturated coconut oil. In
addition, their foods are usually low in iron, fiber, and vitamins, and
extremely high in sodium. Unfortunately, youngsters are exposed to virtually
thousands of junk food television commercials a year, and parents might as well
accept the fact that occasionally their children are going to head for a fast
food restaurant. However, they'll survive, especially if their daily diet is
nutritious.
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