Make eating healthy food a family affair, and be sure not to single out one child. You can still allow snacks as long as they’re healthy, just don’t have anything that’s bad for you available.
However, one of the most important things that school offers for their learning environment and physical development may be completely out of your realm of thought: school lunches. While you try to keep a balanced menu at home, as much as a third of your child’s nutritional needs may be met in the school environment, so knowing what they are eating and working to ensure that it is healthy is extremely important for parents.
Your child not only forms the groundwork for a healthy life in childhood, his eating patterns affect his health in later years. Too often school lunch programs offer junk food because the food is popular and cheap. However, the price of healthy food doesn’t have to be exorbitant and it is far cheaper when you consider the health of your child in later decades of his life.
Green smoothies are a blended mix of 60% ripe fruit, 40% green vegetables and some water. You can use baby spinach, bok choy, silverbeet, parsley or beetroot leaves. Start with a smaller percentage of green vegetables (about 20%) and gradually work the level up.
If you do not know what this game is, it basically goes like this. You hand someone a football and he runs away from everyone playing. This ball carrier, however, does not run to an end zone. He/she simply avoids everyone trying to tackle them.
You may have heard that more and more children are gaining weight to the point of obesity, and that it seems the problem gets worse and worse as time goes on. There are many reasons for this, but thankfully, there are also many great weight loss approaches for children.
The struggle to develop good eating habits among toddlers, preschoolers and older children seems never-ending, but encouraging children to eat appropriately does not require confrontations and battles. What may be needed instead may just require some discipline and patience.
Childhood now we should be quite familiar with the term “childhood obesity”. It’s a severe medical diagnosis interferes with the process of raising health children. A child is considered to be obese when they are well over their normal weight based upon age and height.
The idea of psychological impacts on an obese child was unheard of until recently as the issue has been receiving quite a bit of worldwide attention. With all this attention, we all wonder what is going on with them mentally and emotionally. For parents, it’s difficult to understand what their child is thinking or feeling as they cannot be with them all day to partake in their daily routine.
Children need daily activity year round, so it’s never too early to instill a positive healthy attitude towards exercise. Preschoolers can run, jump and dance. Older kids can participate in school or community sports leagues. Parents should encourage physical activity for their child, regardless of weight.
The general public finds it difficult to decipher healthy food choices from non-healthy food choices. Shouldn’t we be concerned about this? Eating a cupcake, a scoop of ice cream in moderation is normal and to be expected, but when people are trying to make healthy choices and the packaging, marketing and advertising tell them it’s healthy, can the companies be trusted? Not always.
There are many theories as to why children do not tend to want to eat lunch at school. The main one, which is common sense really, is that they want to play with their friends at lunchtime and this takes priority. This is especially the case with boys. They have been sitting down for a few hours, they have lots of energy to expend and the opportunity to run around and throw or kick a ball with their friends takes their mind off food.
Participating in sports is a fun and practical way to learn about goal setting. Sit down with your child and help him/her write down each goal. By doing this, you are developing your child’s goal setting skills and giving him/her a better chance at succeeding in life.
For instance, dinner can be started earlier even before Dad and Mom get home, because the kids are them choose the menu and also make an effort to take them grocery shopping so that they learn the process. It is also a learning experience for parents.