Healthy Eating Habits For Adolescents
What should my child eat?
Your child should be eating a nice variety of food. I always encourage people and kids to eat food close to the earth. Basically what that means is, foods that have as little human and machine touch as possible. For example, white bread vs. whole grain bread. Whole grain bread still has the grains intact and you can envision them being pulled from the field and tossed into the dough. With white bread all those grains have been removed. The same also goes for other types of foods. Foods that come in a box, for example, usually aren't the most healthiest of choices.
How can I give my child a healthy diet?
When it comes to feeding our kids, we want to give them a variety of foods. You want to definately only have healthy options for them. When they are younger, their portion sizes are going to be different; half a slice of bread, or half a cup of fruit, half a cup of vegetables. Now, as they grow up then that serving becomes one slice of bread, one cup of fruit, one cup of vegetables. You want to be able to space out throughout the day what your ideal meal plan would be. If you go to mypyramid.gov and it gives you this amount of greens and this amount of fruit and vegetables, you kind of want to spread that out throughout the day. The other main concern or concept does come back to fruits and vegetables. I find that a lot of kids aren't eating their vegetables so, at this point, whatever you can do to sneak some extra vegetables in or introduce new ones to your child, the better. If they want to eat more than three servings a day, allow them to.
How often should my child eat?
A toddler should have two main meals and a few snacks throughout the day. They should maybe eat a good breakfast, a nice big lunch, have a snack instead of dinner and have a couple of snacks in-between those meals. As they get older, kids will generally need to eat every three to four hours, whether it's a meal or a snack.
How do I know if my child is eating enough or too much?
You know if your child is eating enough or too much by monitoring their growth on that growth chart. If they're eating too much you'll see their weight for their age is going to fly on up. If they're not eating enough, their weight is going to go down. The same will apply to height. If over a long term your child is not getting enough calories, then your child's height will actually, their rate will slow down. So they may not reach their full growth potential. Same thing with overeating. I see a ton of kids who are overly nourished or eating way too much, and their height just jumps percentiles, it goes from like the 5th percentile up to the 9th percentile height for age.
How much fruit should my child eat?
Our children need different amounts of fruit as they get older. A toddler basically will need one cup of fruit, which is about the size of a fist. An older child, elementary school age, will need closer to two cups of fruit a day, so two fists. When we get into adolescence, our kids are going to need two to three cups of fruit.
How do I feed a child who's a picky eater?
When it comes to picky eaters, you want to establish your role as a parent and take responsibility for feeding your child. It's a parent's responsibility to decide what foods children eat, and how and when they eat them. Allow your child to have a little bit more independence; allow your child to decide whether or not they are going to eat the wonderful, healthy choices that you have presented to them, and how much of those healthy choices they want to eat. Other things you can do with a picky eater include coming up with fun names for the different foods, using cookie cutters and creating fun shapes with a sandwich. Present food to your picky child in a fun way. You can also make sure to cut your child's food into small bite-sized pieces. This is so not to kind of overwhelm them with a huge piece of food in their mouth.
How do I teach my child healthy eating habits?
When it comes to teaching adolescents healthy eating habits, the best thing you can do as a parent is to set a good example. If your child sees you and has grown up watching you and participating with you in healthy eating habits, you have a much greater chance of having an adolescent who is willing to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and willing to choose healthy food options instead of unhealthy options. Definitely sitting down to dinner, or at least one meal as a family, to create that unity and that connectedness as a family unit, is a good way to encourage healthy eating habits.
How can I give my child a healthy head start each day?
For a healthy school age child, start with breakfast. Breakfast is definitely, hands down, the most important meal of the day. It turns your child's brain on. It turns our brain on, as adults. It sets your child up for a successful day. So a nice healthy breakfast is very simple to achieve. Three fourths of a cup of cereal. Put some milk on that cereal and slice some banana and have that as a breakfast. Oatmeal with some fruit in it or prepare that oatmeal with milk for a little extra protein, a little extra calcium, also, great, great option. For the most part you want to have some sort of carbohydrate source and some sort of protein source.
What are my child's special diet needs during puberty?
In terms of a child's special diet needs during puberty, females will require additional iron. Iron, basically, is found in our blood, and when we're going through puberty, our girls are starting their menses. They're starting to have that monthly blood loss. So, we need to replenish that iron. Foods that have iron are meats, chicken, and fish. There's also iron in plant foods. Those foods are spinach, broccoli, and oatmeal. What you want to do with those plant food sources of iron is also eat a vitamin-C-rich food with it. If you have spinach, put some tomatoes with it and cook it all up; maybe even cook it in an iron skillet, and the tomato acid will actually draw the iron out of your iron skillet. For boys, what you want to do is make sure they're getting enough calcium. That's because their bones may be growing rapidly, and calcium is what gives our bones its strength. It's that inner networking that's in our bones. If we don't eat calcium, it's hard to get it anywhere else. If our body needs the calcium, it will pull it from our bones.
What are common mistakes parents make when feeding children?
What parents want to be careful of is allowing the child to become more responsible for food than the parent. Parents make the mistake of allowing the child to decide what foods they're going to eat and when they're going to eat, and allowing the child to basically control the food happenings of that households. Parents definitely need to keep responsibility. They need to be the ones to show their children how to eat healthily. Parents need to be the ones who are buying and preparing healthy foods and instructing their children to eat at appropriate times - setting up schedules for them. The other concern I have when it comes to feeding our children and making sure they're healthy is the type of foods that we're choosing. Parents choose fewer and fewer fresh foods and instead select fast and convenience foods. My word of caution to parents is if you need to go to that resource, use it, but figure out a way that you can add something to the food to make it a little more nutritious for your children.
What is "normal eating" for my child?
Normal eating for your kids is paying attention to their bodies. It's not making food "good" or "bad", it's learning to enjoy our food and to enjoy it in moderation, and to trust our body. One day, we're going to overeat, and so therefore the next day, we're going to maybe have a smaller breakfast and lunch, as a normal eating pattern. Or we know we're going to go out to dinner and we're going to eat a lot, so again, that breakfast and lunch beforehand, we try to cut back a little bit.
