Start Your Child With Healthy Breakfast
Improving your kids’ health through nutrition and not vitamin supplements is vital to their healthy growth in the years ahead.
In the past thirty-five years, kids have gained access to an unmatched variety and quantity of foods. This is not necessarily a bad thing if they are eating more whole grains, nuts, fruits, and veggies. However, the trouble is that kids eat too much unhealthy stuff such as butter, margarine, chocolate, chips, and cookies. Equally, more than two-thirds eat in excess of the recommended amount of saturated fat. While only one-third eat enough fruits and vegetables
Therefore, as a parent, you should be concerned if your kids don’t seem to be eating a balanced diet. The reality is that kids are what they eat even if their height is less than four feet. Hence, your concern about your children’s nutritional intake is simply hitting the bull’s eye. But you are wrong if you think you can’t do much to make your kids’ eating habits healthier. There is a lot you can do to balance ‘healthily” what your kids consume at home. So improving your kids’ health through nutrition is critical. Read on to know more about what you need to do.
Encourage Healthy Eating, Not Vitamin Supplements
Most kids drink too many soft drinks and eat too many salty or sugary snacks. Such eating increases their risks for a number of chronic health conditions like diabetes, childhood obesity, hypertension, and heart disease. So you should be concerned if your kids eat like other kids their age. As a result, think critically about how to improve their health through good nutrition, and not through vitamin supplements. This is because current eating habits, if unchecked, can affect the outcome of their health in the future.
The key phrase here is healthy eating. Hence, if you are worried about your children’s diet, give them the nutrients they need through real food, not encased capsules. You should offer a variety of foods at each meal that meets their unique nutritional needs. This includes the fiber of whole grains and bread. A wide range of vegetables and fruits to make sure that they get a variety of antioxidants and other nutrients. Bone-building calcium from low-fat dairy, enriched tofu, and soy products. And tissue-making protein from lean meats and beans.
Be A Good Role Model For Your Kids
Offering wholesome foods is just one side of the equation. But being a champion of healthy eating habits in your home tends to rub off on your kids. As such, one important thing that you must keep in mind is that whether the children are at school, at home, or with you, their primary cues about what to eat come from adults. So ensure that you are modeling good eating behaviors by offering and eating a variety of wholesome foods in their presence.
Also, you have to maintain a low-stress feeding environment by easing the way for pleasant conversation. As well as encouraging them to try different foods. Don’t force them to eat when they have said that they are full. Also, you must change your expectations for quick or shortcut health. This means you have to include giving kids real wholesome foods to meet their nutritional needs.
Serve Food Everyone Enjoys
Aside from making healthy eating a family affair, try to serve foods that everyone can enjoy. For instance, do not keep sweetened fruit yogurt in the refrigerator if one child is not allowed to eat it. It will be very unfair and very difficult for the child to resist eating the prohibited food.
Likewise, resist the temptation to prepare separate meals of fried chips and chicken wings for the kids, when the rest of the family is having spaghetti and minced meat sauce with a green salad for dinner. Just because your kids are craving fried chips and chicken wings. Persuade them to eat the same spaghetti and minced meat sauce with a green salad that adults are eating.
Teach Healthy Lifestyle Activities
Don’t leave it to healthy eating alone, teach your kids also about good exercise. Regardless of your child’s weight, this should be part of daily practice. For instance, if your child is overweight, the goal doesn’t have to be limited to weight loss alone. The focus can really be to eat healthier and increase physical activity, which has long-term benefits for a kid and the family.
So teach healthy activities in childhood, because it becomes difficult to alter their health habits as they grow older. This is the time to encourage good nutrition and physical activity with your kids. These are activities that can help prevent childhood obesity.
Bottom Line
Improving your kids’ health through nutrition without depending on vitamin supplements will help your child grow up healthy. Therefore whether your kid is a toddler or a teen, you can take steps to improve nutrition and encourage smart eating habits as follows: 1. Having consistent family meals. 2. Serving a variety of healthy foods and snacks. 3. Being a good role model of healthy eating. 4. Avoid fighting over food by serving the same meals to everyone.
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https://www.parents.com/kids/nutrition/healthy-eating/must-eat-nutrients/
