Giving your child the best nutrition is quite a daunting task. But encouraging your child with healthy eating habits will make a huge impact on their long-term relationship with food. Providing good nutrition to your children is not only limited to supporting long-term eating habits but also prevents chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity.
Tips to Promote Healthy Childhood Eating
Parents should not allow bad eating habits to reign. They need to eliminate the unhealthy foods out of your home especially when they have become comfortable routines.
Maintain regular family meals. Looking forward for a family dinner is really comforting and enhances appetite. Some people find their appetite increases when they share a meal with others. Breakfast is yet another way to spend a family meal.
Start cooking at home. Cooking for your family does not only save you money, but also allows you to offer a balanced meal. You are free to create your own set of meals with balanced protein, carbohydrates and fat, needed for the optimal development of children.
Get kids involved. Allowing your kids to help you prepare their meals is a fun way to teach them about the nutritional content of different foods, how it affects their growth, and how to read food labels.
Keep a variety of healthy snacks on hand. Store different kinds of fruits and vegetables, whole grain snacks, and healthy drinks so that kids become used to reaching these foods.
Best Superfoods for Your Children
Oatmeal – Unlike other breakfast option, oatmeal is typically low in sugar, high in fiber, and no added artificial ingredient. It contains beta glucan, a class of soluble fiber that helps lower bad cholesterols and prevents heart diseases and cancer.
Beans and lentils – Most often, kids don’t get a lot of fiber in their diet, which makes beans as a good addition to their diet. Beans and lentils are rich in fiber that aids in stabilizing mood and energy.
Blueberries – The mild tarty taste of blueberries can easily be added in your kid’s meal. They can be incorporated with their favorite breakfast option, salads and desserts. Blueberries contain overflowing antioxidants that help fight damaging free radicals in the body. Also, it protects against heart disease and diabetes, and improves brain functioning.
Edamame – Kids will surely have fun popping these seeds out of the shells. Edamame is a fancy name for boiled green soybeans. It is rich in protein, fiber and other essential nutrients and low in fat and calories.
Tomatoes – It contains high amounts of lycopene, an antioxidant that helps prevents cancer and heart diseases. Research studies that lycopene plays a role in bone health. It is a rich source of vitamin A,C,K, folate and potassium. It is naturally low in sodium, saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories.
Conclusion
Introducing children to eat more fruits and vegetables is quite tricky. To make it a little bit easy for you, adding fun and creative ways to their diet is a must.
