KIDS & FAMILY CLIENT LINKS SEARCH
BROWSE BY CATEGORY
|
Cool Clicks : Nutrition Nuggets
|
FoodPyramid.comFoodPyramid.com provides its audience with news and information about nutrition and diets. We give you a full understanding of what a food pyramid is and how you can implement it in your lifestyle. We also discuss health related topics and our mission is to empower individuals to make positive changes in their food and health choices.
http://www.foodpyramid.com/ |
|
Cooking With Your Children One of the best ways to familiarize your child with good food choices is to encourage her to cook with you. Let her get involved in the entire process, from planning the menus to shopping for ingredients to the actual food preparation and its serving.
When you are planning meals with her, refer to the Food Pyramid, and try to include items from the important food groups. Explain the importance of making low-fat choices whenever possible, choosing chicken and fish rather than red meat in most cases, or choosing low-fat cheeses over higher-fat varieties. Particularly in her first few efforts at helping in the kitchen, let her select recipes that she and other family members have enjoyed in the past, so she can see what's involved in preparing them.
In assigning tasks to your child, keep in mind that they need to be age-appropriate. For instance, you wouldn't give a six-year-old a sharp knife to chop vegetables, although she can certainly wash the lettuce. Nor would you let her remove a hot, heavy casserole pot from the oven, although she can carefully open the oven door for you.
Here are some other guidelines to keep in mind:
* Make certain that you or another adult is in the kitchen at all times when your child is helping out.
* When your child pares vegetables, show her how to point sharp edges away from her to avoid accidents.
* Explain how she should weigh and measure ingredients.
* Use the rear burners when cooking on the stove. Make sure that pot handles are turned inward so children can't accidentally knock them off the stove.
* Teach your child the importance of using potholders when touching hot saucepans and other items.
* Shut off the oven and burners when you're finished cooking.
Source
Caring for Your School-Age Child: Ages 5 to 12 (Copyright © 2004 American Academy of Pediatrics)
|
|
Parents' Best-Kept Secrets to Delivering the Good Stuff to Kids"Eat your vegetables!" has been the mantra of the frustrated parents of picky eaters for generations. And the encouragement is needed now more than ever as recent research from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. found that 40 percent of the calories children ages 2 to 18 consumed were empty calories.
So what is the secret to getting kids to eat their other veggies and follow other "moms know best' advice"? Enter www.ClubMum.net, an online community for parents featuring four bloggers (who just so happen to be parents) dedicated to sharing their best-kept secrets and tips on how to deliver the good stuff to their kids.
Sponsored by Chef Boyardee, Club Mum is lead by a panel of four mom bloggers who tell of their own struggles and successes in keeping healthy foods on the home menu, keeping kids active in the colder months and finding engaging community service projects.
"Being a mom is tough work, and this online community is a great place to learn tips and tricks on parenting from other moms," says Jodi Grundig, mom blogger and Club Mum panelist. Grundig is joined with Laurin Evans, Heather Spohr and Sylvia Martinez (who posts articles both in English and Spanish).
Here's a sampling of some of parents' best-kept secrets shared on the site:
* Grate apples or carrots and add them to the classic PBJ for some added fruits and veggies (not to mention some crunch).
* Puree onions, peppers or mushrooms and add them to pasta or pizza sauces for added flavor and nutrients.
* To get more whole grains and vegetables into your kids' diets, look for products they already love with added whole grains and vegetables.
* For super picky eaters, make a "menu" with a list of options - according to the mom bloggers, kids are more likely to eat the things they played a part in choosing.
* One great way to bond with your kids beyond the kitchen is to introduce a community service project like volunteering at a homeless shelter or participating in cleaning a public park.
Courtesy of ARAContent.com
|
|
Picky Eaters Although toddlers are beginning to develop food preferences, they also can be unpredictable about what they may want for a particular meal on a specific day. Their favorite food one day will end up being thrown on the floor the next. The food that they had spit out, day after day, will unexpectedly turn into the one they can’t get enough of.
Picky eating is often the norm for toddlers. For weeks, they may eat 1 or 2 preferred foods—and nothing else. They may eat a big breakfast or lunch and then show no interest in eating much of anything else the rest of the day. Don’t become exasperated with this kind of behavior. Just make healthy food choices available to your youngster, and acknowledge that his appetite or food preferences today may be quite different than yesterday’s or tomorrow’s. That’s just the way toddlers are.
With time, your child’s appetite and eating behaviors will reach some equilibrium. He’ll find something he likes in a variety of healthy foods without much or any prompting from you. In the meantime, try dealing with picky eaters by giving them finger foods or table foods that they can feed to themselves. Just make sure these are healthy food choices such as slices of banana or small pieces of toast. Also avoid finger foods that could cause choking. Children don’t fully develop the grinding motion involved in chewing until they’re about 4 years old, so stick with foods that are small and easy to chew and avoid those that might be swallowed whole and get stuck in your toddler’s windpipe.
That means avoiding
* Raw carrots
* Large sections of hot dogs
* Raw celery
*Raw cherries with pits
*Whole grapes
*Round, hard candy
* Peanuts and other nuts
Even when your toddler is feeding himself, it’s a good idea to sit with him while he eats. He’s also old enough to join the rest of the family in eating at the dinner table. Use these family meals to model the healthy eating that you want your child to adopt for the rest of his life.
Source
A Parent's Guide to Childhood Obesity: A Road Map to Health (Copyright © 2006 American Academy of Pediatrics)
|
|
Will new school lunch programs discourage kids from eating their veggies?(ARA) - School lunches will be changing, thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's complete overhaul of federally subsidized school lunch programs. But will all the changes be for the better? Possibly not, according to some experts and studies.
The changes, implemented over a period of years, aim to limit calories, reduce sodium and increase the consumption of vegetables and whole grains. "Improved nutrition is a laudable goal, but the realities of science and nutrition may surprise the government," says Morton Satin of the Salt Institute in Alexandria, Va. "Scientific studies show that kids are more likely to eat their vegetables if they have adequate salt."
"The promotion of healthy food choices in schools should be driven by knowledge and understanding of science and nutrition," Satin says. Dark green vegetables are among the most nutritious foods. However, they all contain very bitter phytochemicals that affect their palatability. Broccoli is a perfect example. Adding salt to these vegetables makes them taste much better. "There is a natural concern by some as to whether the current salt reduction ideology may end up having a negative impact on nutritious food choices and overall health," Satin adds.
A recent research paper from the University of Pennsylvania examined the response of tasters to varying amounts of salt in a range of foods that were naturally bitter, including vegetables and other foods deemed to be healthy. Reducing the salt intake made these foods less appealing, and as a result adversely affected the tasters' nutrient intake.
In another double-blind taste panel study conducted at Ohio State University, cooked broccoli was fed to individuals from three different age groups: children, adults and senior citizens. The broccoli florets were prepared with different levels of salt and the results made it clear that, even though participants were unaware as to which sample was which, salt significantly increased broccoli's palatability. Both children and seniors liked broccoli better with more salt on it -- up to 350 mg per 85 g serving of broccoli, the highest level of salt used for these two groups. For both children and adults, the broccoli's bitterness decreased as the level of salt increased.
"Based upon these results, it is likely that policies promoting population-wide restriction of salt in foods may result in significant segments of the population responding by avoiding the more bitter, but far more nutritious food choices or simply reaching for the salt shaker to make bitter better," Satin says.
In the United Kingdom similar actions backfired. Their government outlawed the use of salt in schools in 2005. Writing in the UK Telegraph, journalist Paul Eastham complained that, since the school ban on saltshakers, his 14-year-old daughter stopped eating vegetables, because they were so bland.
"All the goodness they promise to deliver remains untouched on the plate - a complete waste of nutrients, health potential and money - all because they remain unpalatable," Eastham wrote. "My daughter might not touch the 'bland' vegetables at school, but at home - where she is allowed to use salt - she clears her plate."
The World Health Organization points to iodized salt as key to eliminating iodine deficiency disorders, one of the most common - and preventable - world-wide causes of brain damage. The WHO calls iodized salt a "spectacularly simple, universally effective, wildly attractive and incredibly cheap 'weapon' against childhood mental retardation."
"Salt is a necessary nutrient," Satin notes. "Without adequate intake, serious consequences arise. If the United States continues down a path of forced sodium reduction, with no recognition of the science indicating many negative effects of such reduction, American children may have more serious worries than bland food and a diet lacking in vegetables. In some countries where pregnant women and children do not consume enough iodized salt, cognitive development is a serious problem in children. This is a problem remedied many years ago in the United States through the iodization of salt."
While proponents of the school lunch sodium reduction campaign may have the best of intentions for children, some science and health experts are skeptical. "I predict a lot of salad and vegetables will go in the trash can at local schools," says Lisa Katic, a registered dietician. "This will not help us improve childhood nutrition."
|
|
