Healthy Food for Kids

Easy Tips to Help Your Children and Teens Eat Healthier

Peer pressure and TV commercials for junk food can make getting your kids to eat well an uphill struggle. Factor in your own hectic schedule and it’s no wonder so many kids’ diets are built around convenience and takeout food. But switching to a healthy diet can have a profound effect on children’s health, helping to stabilize their energy, sharpen their minds, and even out their moods. And it can be simpler and less time-consuming than you imagine. With these tips, you can instill healthy eating habits without turning mealtimes into a battle zone and give your kids the best opportunity to grow into healthy, confident adults.

How does healthy food benefit kids?

Healthy eating can help children maintain a healthy weight, avoid certain health problems, stabilize their energy, and sharpen their minds. A healthy diet can also have a profound effect on a child’s sense of mental and emotional wellbeing, helping to prevent conditions such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and ADHD. Eating well can support a child’s healthy growth and development into adulthood and may even play a role in lowering the risk of suicide in young people. If your child has already been diagnosed with a mental health problem, a healthy diet can help your child to manage the symptoms and regain control of their health.
It’s important to remember that your kids aren’t born with a craving for French fries and pizza and an aversion to broccoli and carrots. This conditioning happens over time as kids are exposed to more and more unhealthy food choices. However, it is possible to reprogram your children’s food cravings so that they crave healthier foods instead. The sooner you introduce wholesome, nutritious choices into your kids’ diets, the easier they’ll be able to develop a healthy relationship with food that can last them a lifetime.

Encourage healthy eating habits

Whether they’re toddlers or in their teens, children develop a natural preference for the foods they enjoy the most. To encourage healthy eating habits, the challenge is to make nutritious choices appealing.
Focus on overall diet rather than specific foods. Kids should be eating more whole, minimally processed food—food that is as close to its natural form as possible—and less packaged and processed food.
Be a role model. The childhood impulse to imitate is strong so don’t ask your child to eat vegetables while you gorge on potato chips.
Disguise the taste of healthier foods. Add vegetables to a beef stew, for example, or mash carrots up with mashed potato, or add a sweet dip to slices of apple.
Cook more meals at home. Restaurant and takeout meals have more added sugar and unhealthy fat so cooking at home can have a huge impact on your kids’ health. If you make large batches, cooking just a few times can be enough to feed your family for the whole week.
Get kids involved in shopping for groceries and preparing meals. You can teach them about different foods and how to read food labels.
Make healthy snacks available. Keep plenty of fruit, vegetables, and healthy beverages (water, milk, pure fruit juice) on hand so kids avoid unhealthy snacks like soda, chips, and cookies.
Limit portion sizes. Don’t insist your child cleans the plate, and never use food as a reward or bribe.

Healthy food for kids starts with breakfast

Kids who enjoy breakfast every day have better memories, more stable moods and energy, and score higher on tests. Eating a breakfast high in quality protein—from enriched cereal, yoghurt, milk, cheese, eggs, meat, or fish—can even help teenagers lose weight.

• Breakfast needn’t be time consuming. Boil some eggs at the beginning of the week and offer them to your kids each morning along with a low-sugar, high-protein cereal, and an apple to go.
• Make breakfast burritos filled with scrambled eggs, cheese, chicken, or beef on a Sunday and freeze them.
• An egg sandwich, a pot of Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese, and peanut butter on wholegrain toast can all be eaten on the way to school.

Make mealtimes about more than just healthy food

Making time to sit down as a family to eat a home-cooked meal not only sets a great example for kids about the importance of healthy food, it can bring a family together—even moody teenagers love to eat tasty, home-cooked meals!
Regular family meals provide comfort. Knowing the whole family will sit down to eat dinner (or breakfast) together at approximately the same time every day can be very comforting for kids and enhance appetite.
Family meals offer opportunity to catch up on your kids’ daily lives. Gathering the family around a table for a meal is an ideal opportunity to talk and listen to your kids without the distraction of TV, phones, or computers.
Social interaction is vital for your child. The simple act of talking to a parent over the dinner table about how they feel can play a big role in relieving stress and boosting your child’s mood and self-esteem. And it gives you chance to identify problems in your child’s life and deal with them early.
Mealtimes enable you to “teach by example.” Eating together lets your kids see you eating healthy food while keeping your portions in check and limiting junk food.  Refrain from obsessive calorie counting or commenting on your own weight, though, so that your kids don’t adopt negative associations with food.
Mealtimes let you monitor your kids’ eating habits. This can be important for older kids and teens who spend a lot of time eating at school or friends’ houses. If your teen’s choices are less than ideal, the best way to make changes is to emphasize short-term consequences of a poor diet, such as physical appearance or athletic ability. These are more important to teens than long-term health. For example, “Calcium will help you grow taller.” “Iron will help you do better on tests.”

Limit sugar and refined carbs in your child's diet

Simple or refined carbohydrates are sugars and refined grains that have been stripped of all bran, fiber, and nutrients—such as white bread, pizza dough, pasta, pastries, white flour, white rice, and many breakfast cereals. They cause dangerous spikes in blood sugar and fluctuations in mood and energy. Complex carbs, on the other hand, are usually high in nutrients and fiber and are digested slowly, providing longer-lasting energy. They include whole wheat or multigrain bread, high-fiber cereals, brown rice, beans, nuts, fruit, and non-starchy vegetables.
A child’s body gets all the sugar it needs from that naturally occurring in food. Added sugar just means a lot of empty calories that contribute to hyperactivity, mood disorders, and increase the risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even suicidal behaviors in teenagers.

How to cut down on sugar

The American Heart Association recommends that sugar intake for children is limited to 3 teaspoons (12 grams) a day. A 12-ounce soda contains up to 10 teaspoons or 40g of added sugar, shakes and sweetened coffee drinks even more. Large amounts of added sugar can also be hidden in foods such as bread, canned soups and vegetables, frozen dinners, and fast food. In fact, about 75% of packaged food in the U.S. contains added sugar.
Don’t ban sweets entirely. Having a no sweets rule is an invitation for cravings and overindulging when given the chance.
Give recipes a makeover. Many recipes taste just as good with less sugar.
Avoid sugary drinks. Instead, try adding a splash of fruit juice to sparkling water or blending whole milk with a banana or berries for a delicious smoothie.
Create your own popsicles and frozen treats. Freeze 100% fruit juice in an ice-cube tray with plastic spoons as popsicle handles. Or make frozen fruit kabobs using pineapple chunks, bananas, grapes, and berries.

Avoid foods that impair your child’s mood

• A diet high in processed foods, such as fried food, sweet desserts, sugary snacks, refined flour and cereals can increase the risk for anxiety and depression in kids.
• Kids who drink four or more cups of soda or sweetened fruit drinks a day—including diet versions—have a higher risk for depression.
• Caffeine from soda, energy drinks, or coffee drinks can trigger anxiety in kids and aggravate feelings of depression.

Fit kids=Fit Adults

 

Fit Kids = Fit Adults

Sometimes it seems that today's children are far more motivated to give their fingers a workout playing video games or using the remote control than they are to move bigger muscles in their bodies. In fact, research shows that 50 percent of 12- to 20-year-olds are not getting the exercise they need. And 34 percent of those kids would fail an eight-minute treadmill test.
"Children watch an average of 3 to 5 hours of television a day", according to Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD, author of Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children (Harper Collins, 2007). "That really doesn't leave much time to shape up their bodies and their brains."
According to Dr. Trachtenberg, children who enjoy doing physical activity are more likely to exercise as adults. "It's much easier to keep a good habit than it is to break a bad habit," she says.
So the question is, how do you get the good exercising habits started? Here, Dr. Trachtenberg shares her tips for making exercise entertaining for even the most confirmed couch potato kid.

1. Let them play video games.

If your kids love video games, use them as a reward for doing something active. Encourage your children to do their homework and play with their friends (ideally outside engaging in physical activity) after school. If they perform these tasks, let them indulge in some downtime playing video games after dinner.

2. Take out the TVs.

Minimize the temptation to just plop in front of the tube by limiting the number of televisions in your house. Take it a step further limit the amount of time they're allowed to watch TV — an hour a day is plenty. You might also limit their options: Get rid of the DVD collection and subscribe to a more basic cable package. If there's nothing to watch, vegging in front of the TV becomes a lot less attractive.

3. Expect them to say no.

Transitioning from one activity to another is difficult for some kids, according to Dr. Trachtenberg. So instead of demanding that they immediately put down the video game and go outside to play ball, for example, give them a five-minute warning. Consider using an egg timer if you are met with resistance.

4. Be a cheerleader.

It's all about positive encouragement. If you want your child to play sports, be there on the sidelines to cheer them on. That means showing lots of energy and enthusiasm, especially at the beginning of the activity, even if you would rather plop down in front of the television yourself. For example, when asking your child to join you for a walk or a game of basketball say, "Come on, get your shoes on. I've already got mine on. I'm really excited to play!"

5. Sneak in exercise.

Ask your child to perform chores that require physical activity but that are still fun. For example, washing a car, gardening, or raking leaves will get their hearts pumping. Keep it fun by having a water fight after cleaning the car or having a race to see who can make the biggest heap of leaves. Then jump in the winning pile. Though the chore may end up taking twice as long to complete, the results will be worth it.

6. Walk the walk.

Walking is terrific exercise at any age. If you child is old enough, put him in charge of walking the dog. Or take a stroll together after dinner to catch up on the day's events.
Find a walking workout your kid will love

7. Get the gift of fitness.

Ask for gift certificates to a rock climbing center and other recreational facilities for your child's birthday

8. Involve older children in sports and exercise.

Invite them on a bike ride, a hike in the woods, or even a trip to the gym. Ask a trainer to offer some age-appropriate exercises, but only if your child seems interested in participating.

Why Are Well-Child Visits Important?

Well-child visits let us monitor your child’s general health and development. During your child’s well-child visit, we assess their growth and development, test their vision and hearing (for ages 4 and up), perform any immunizations that are recommended for your child’s particular age, and more because we believe early detection gives us the best chance to properly and successfully treat your child. This is also a time when we can offer advice about any concerns you may have with your child whether it is family history concerns or regarding safety and emotional issues.

All well-child visit components play an integral part to promoting a healthy childhood and some of the key benefits include:

…Prevention. Immunizations and vaccines help to protect the body from certain infections, illnesses, and diseases. The AAP has created a recommended checkup and immunization schedule from the time of your child’s birth through their teens because we believe all children should have the right to be protected from preventable infectious diseases. Well-child visits also serve as a good time to catch any concerns early on so effective treatment can be administered – even if you think it may not be worth mentioning, you never really know so we always encourage our parents to bring any concerns to our attention during these visits rather than waiting until an actual problem presents itself!

…Promotes a team approach. We believe it takes a team effort to ensure your child’s health. As parents you spend a great deal of time with your children and are ultimately their biggest advocate when it comes to their health. During well-child visits we can build a team of support for your child because there should be genuine trust among pediatrician, parent, and child. We want to be your first resource for answering any questions you may have so bring in a list of topics you want to talk about (this can range from sleep patterns, nutritional needs, behavioral development, etc.) and we can tailor your well-child visit around your child’s needs.

…Growth and development tracking. As parents ourselves, it seems our kids grow up way too fast; one day they’re tiny infants, the next, they’re loading the school bus for the first time. Well-child visits let us track their milestones (like how much they’ve grown in between visits, how they’re developing socially, and even their learning progression).

Why do I need a pediatrician?

  Why do I need a pediatrician?

 A few of my patients and their families have commented recently that they had never thought about the difference between pediatricians and other providers for their child.
Pediatricians spend at least three years after medical school in residency, learning about the physical,  emotional and social development of children from birth to early adulthood.  In comparison, family  medicine doctors spend about ½ of a year in pediatric training.
We’re trained in illness and injury prevention and spend a large amount of our time working hard to keep your child healthy, including talking about risks at different ages and stages in your child’s development.
Our approach to your family’s visits, as a whole, is different from when you see your own doctor. We talk to you, your child, and even your child’s stuffed animal, and are aware of your child’s comfort in separating from you during the exam.
We understand the expression “children are not small adults”. Children often present differently than adults with the same disease.  They need different treatments, including medications, than adults.  My approach to a “goopy eye” is different than a doctor seeing adult patients, who may not have seen a newborn with a plugged tear duct. A youngster with anxiety or depression may not have the same symptoms as a teenager or older adult and we’re trained to be able to counsel behavioral issues in our population of patients.
Pediatricians are required to stay up-to-date on current treatments, vaccines, and well-child care for children from birth to their early twenties, concentrating our energy in changes in medicine affecting children.
My favorite part of my job is the well-child exam, offering advice and guidance in your child’s growth and development, and keeping them safe and healthy.

And we usually have stickers for our patients after their exam

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