Child Nutrition & Wellness
It is important for children to establish healthy eating habits. This is an important part of growing up because it impacts the development of the entire body. The developing brain, muscles, bones, nervous system, and immune system are impacted tremendously by the nutrition a child receives through childhood.
It is a good idea to teach children that they need healthy foods and drinks to grow into the best versions of themselves and to stay strong.
In addition to good eating habits, there are many ways to take care of the body, including exercise, regular social interaction with peers, and getting enough sleep.
The earlier we introduce children to a variety of healthy foods, the better.
How Should We Teach Children About Nutrition & Healthy Eating Habits?
Begin by teaching children that our bodies need certain things to be in our food in order for our bodies to grow up healthy and strong, like vitamins and minerals.
We also need a balance of different types of food. We have many parts to our bodies, and the different parts all need many of the same things; however, our body parts benefit individually from different types of food.
For example, the brain benefits from healthy fats in the diet, like those that come from fish. On the other hand, our hearts don’t benefit in the same way from fat in our diet.
Teach your child that not all foods are created equal. Some foods are better than others, and some foods are less healthy and should be eaten less often.
What Foods Should Children Eat For a Healthy Body?
Most people are familiar with the five major food groups: fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy. A well-balanced plate of food should have half of the plate filled with vegetables and some fruit, that the other half with grains and proteins.
Examples of healthy vegetables include carrots, broccoli, green beans, peas, and potatoes.
A good vegetable garden is like a rainbow, with many different colored vegetables. When our diet includes vegetables from across the entire rainbow, our bodies will respond in health-positive ways.
Examples of good fruits include blueberries, blackberries, apples, bananas, avocados, and kiwis. There are certainly many more examples of healthy vegetables and fruits.
Grains include foods such as pasta, cereal, whole wheat, quinoa, bread, oatmeal, barley, and rice to name a few. We have to be more careful about which grains we eat and not eat too much.
Rounding out our dinner plate is the protein group, which includes meats (such as chicken, beef, pork, & fish), eggs, legumes (beans, lentils, tofu), and dairy (yogurt, milk, cheese) and tofu.
How We Cook Our Food Is Just as Important as What We Eat!
Teaching children about different ways to prepare food is also important. They need to understand that how we prepare our food is just as important as what we eat—for example, roasted red potatoes with a little bit of butter, rosemary, salt, and garlic = yummy and healthy.
A regular bag of potato chips, although an occasional delicious treat, is not at all the same.
One of the best ways to get children involved in adopting healthy eating behaviors is to get them involved in the kitchen. Teaching children how to cook is an incredibly valuable life skill.
Here are some fun books to inspire your youngster to get into the kitchen with you to learn how to cook healthy recipes:
- The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs: 100+ Recipes that You'll Love to Cook and Eat -Authors America’s Test Kitchen Kids
- The Forest Feast for Kids: Colorful Vegetarian Recipes That Are Simple to Make - by Erin Gleeson
- My Very First Cookbook: Joyful Recipes to Make Together! A Cookbook for Kids and Families with Fun and Easy Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, and More - by Danielle Kartes
What About Soda & Carbonated Beverages?
The truth is that soda is not a healthy drink option. In fact, it is one of the single biggest contributing factors to childhood obesity, and diabetes and is destructive to many parts of the body.
The fact that it has become such a normal part of life that many children consume it multiple times daily is quite sad.
It seems that our society often looks the other way when it comes to soda consumption in both children and adults. It is the classic example of something that can be very enjoyable, should be rarely consumed, and yet has become an everyday part of life for so many.
Soda contains a great deal of sugar and is very acidic. In regular soda drinkers, the negative impact on dental health and tooth enamel is immediate, significant, and often permanent.
The ultimate health beverage is undoubtedly water!
There really is no substitute and helping children to adopt a healthy appetite for drinking water regularly throughout the day is also one of the best health habits we can teach our children.
For parents who wish to read a more in-depth resource on the following subjects: