How to ensure a complete and balanced nutrition plan for children.

PARENTING these days is no longer as straightforward as it seems. Our lifestyles have changed so much with the arrival of fast food restaurants, satellite TV and computer games that it is often quite a challenge for parents to practise or even remember the golden rules of nutrition for their children.

As a reminder of how we can help our children receive the daily vitality they need for a good head-start in life, it is important that we keep up with our parental lessons in nutrition. This article, as the last in the series on nutrition, reprises some of the points that have been discussed so far.

The balancing act

The Food Guide Pyramid is still the best reference for planning balanced meals. It depicts four basic food groups along with how much to eat from each group.

Always top up on fruits and vegetables to ensure proper intake of dietary fibre and essential vitamins and minerals, and cut back on empty sugars and starches and hydrogenated fats (from deep fried foods).

Remember to fortify your healthy food intake by incorporating healthy eating habits through practising balance, moderation and variety for ample nutrient availability, a healthy weight maintenance and proper digestion. And follow that up with regular exercise as it is the all-important other component to optimal health.

Power up with breakfast

There is good reason why breakfast is called “break fast”. It is because your child has been “fasting” for the last eight hours or more the night before. Eating food in the morning breaks that fast, pumping in the fuel his body needs to power him on for tackling the day’s activities, whether they be school work or exams or sports and other play activities.

Well-nourished children go into class alert and better focused and they seldom fall sick due to immune system problems triggered by lifestyle stressors and of course, poor nutrition.

However, what is preached must also be practised. Children are influenced by role models. When they see their own parents eating breakfast, they are more likely to eat breakfast themselves and carry on the habit for life.

Happiness equals health

Mental stressors do cause immunodeficiency. Unhappy homes filled with fighting and quarrelling, an autocratic parent, constant criticisms and loneliness can bring on headaches, indigestion, diarrhoea, depression and eating problems, killing off or upping appetites that can start a vicious cycle of repetitive illness and malnutrition.

Children who manage stress well have good physical and mental health. They usually have a healthy self-esteem and a sense of humour, and have a consistent and cohesive family structure with open communication lines in the family.

Sense and sensibility

At the end of the day, ensuring a complete and balanced nutrition for our children comes with applying common sense.

Forbidding certain foods is almost guaranteed to send your children bingeing on these foods. Rather than taking the extreme measure of forbidding foods, allow for limited consumption and offer alternatives in the form of tasty but healthy snacks and desserts.

Eating together as a family provides quality family time for all as feelings of unity and belonging are fostered across the dinner table. It is also a chance for parents to lead by example, showing good attitudes towards food, and displaying appropriate table manners and social skills.

Furthermore, meals prepared and eaten at home are more nutritious as parents have control, ensuring the use of healthful ingredients without the need for deep frying and the over-use of salt. More fruits and vegetables can be served alongside complex carbohydrates and quality protein and food hygiene observed.

Finally, having a good night’s sleep is the round-up needed for total well being. No amount of nutrition will be of any good if the body is ravaged and worn out. Sleep gives the body the chance to repair, recoup and rebuild, affecting not just the physical but the emotional and spiritual levels as well. For this reason, sleep has been hailed as the silent healer.

Handling picky eating

Picky eating is usually an issue with parents of young children. Persistent picky eating may lead to limited or imbalanced nutrient intake.

However, the problem is transient as picky eating is a phase that occurs in about 25% of children aged from three to seven years of age. The habit rarely extends to adolescence or adulthood. Some ways to overcome picky eating are as follows: