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Healthy Foods and Snacking

Denise Nero
Fitness and Kids

Try to encourage your children to eat healthy whenever possible. Below are some suggestions for some healthy meals ...

Breakfast

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for children and adults alike. Letting your child skip breakfast is one of the biggest nutritional mistakes we can make.

Skipping breakfast children miss a lot of vitamins and minerals, they will have a hard time concentrating in school and will tend to get very tired early in the day. Skipping breakfast will lead to overeating at night.

Numerous studies show that children that do not eat breakfast do not do as well in school. They can not concentrate as well and tend to be irritable and lack of energy as opposed to children who eat a healthy balanced breakfast. If your child plays any after school sports they will probably not have the energy to perform well. Eating things like pop tarts, donuts high sugary breakfast cereals will make children less alert during the day and will make them sleepier after the sugar wears off.

Children should eat 4-5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Try offering your child some type of fruit or vegetable at every meal. Orange juice can be counted as a fruit at breakfast. Children also need protein in the morning and a great way to get this is to offer scrambled eggs, peanut butter, yogurt.

Lunch

School lunches tend to be unhealthy for our children. Try to pack your child's lunch as often as you can, especially if they have a weight problem. You will be in control of what they eat by doing so.

When packing lunches, avoid the prepackaged lunchables, snack cakes or juice, these are all loaded with extra sugar our kids do not need. Low-fat chocolate milk is more nutritious than juices with extra sugar.

Try using different types of breads like pita bread, tortillas and wheat bread. You can spread peanut butter on tortillas and rice cakes. Freeze bananas, grapes and other fruits to keep them cold and fresh.

Instead of including bagged chips, make your own snack mix using cereals, tiny pretzels, raisins, graham crackers or animal crackers. Try to avoid packaged snack cakes, gummie bears, cookies, etc.

After-school snacks

I do not know about your child but when my children arrive home from school they are usually very hungry. After-school snacks are good, as long as you make it a small healthier snack. Do not let your child eat from the time they walk in the door until bed time. Offer your child some fruit, pretzels, yogurt, air popped popcorn, veggies and dip etc...Just limit how much they eat. If you do allow them to eat chips, pretzels or popcorn just make sure you pre portion them to baggie sized snack bags.

Dinner

It is much easier if we plan our meals for the week and even prepare a few meals ahead of time and freeze them for the week ahead. Chicken and pasta are one of my families favorites. Chicken can be prepared fairly quickly and add a little spaghetti sauce and noodles and you have a great fast meal.

Always choose lean cuts of meats and avoid deep frying your foods. Serve a fruit and a vegetable at every meal. If you child is picky about vegetables just keep trying different ones and prepare them many different ways.

Bedtime snacks

Bedtime snacks are ok for children as long as you limit what and how much you give them. Make sure you keep the bedtime snack on the smaller side. A lite snack such as graham crackers, a piece of fruit, slice of cheese make great snacks for kids before bed.

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