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Healthy Living www.help4everyparent.com |
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On this page you will find information about Click the headings at the side for more healthy living information. Make sure active kids have plenty of fluids in hot weather. Water is the best drink. Avoid sugary juice and soft drinks. Summer holidays are a time for relaxation. Parents deserve lots of relaxation too but kids are on the go all day and get hungry as horses. Fruit smoothies are a great way to fill children up in a healthy, refreshing way. Try some of these combinations blended with two cups of milk for a meal in a glass.
Main meals. On very hot days it is hard to settle to cook the usual dinner. A quick solution is to cook an omelette or grill the meat and serve it with wholemeal bread and
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By lunch time kids will be hungry but they want to eat fast so that they can play and mess around with their friends. Include foods that satisfy the hunger and cool foods for this hot weather. Hunger fixes All types of bread and sandwiches – use favourite fillings that are sure to be eaten such as vegemite, cheese, sultanas, peanut butter, ham, tuna. Keep the sandwiches small for easy handling and fast eating. Keep to school guidelines as some do not allow peanut butter because of the risk of life threatening anaphylactic responses in some children. Pasta or noodles – crisp noodles or noodle salad if your child will eat salad in a lunch box. Cool food - Drinks can be frozen overnight and will keep the rest of the lunch cool. lunch time they will be defrosted and ready to drink. Freeze:
Fruit is a favourite food with most children. Make sure that your child can remove the skin easily or provide peeled or diced fruit. Chilled fruit salad is usually popular. Tell your child to bring home any food that is not eaten. This way you can see what works and what doesn’t work in your child’s lunch. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Choice, the consumer watchdog in Australia, analysed many of the drinks and snacks we think are healthy for our kids, and found that along with vitamins they contain loads of sugar. Two of the foods they tested are milo cereal and Ribena blackcurrant fruit drink. The latter has only 5% blackcurrent and the rest is sugar and water. If your child is having several of these drinks in a day, they are having way too much sugar. So called health snacks like muesli bars often have the same problem. This is really false advertising but the manufacturers refuse to change their approach. Kids don’t read labels. It is up to parents to be responsible and see that sugar and fat consumed by our children is not excessive. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At one of the centre I visit, there is an emphasis on children preparing their own snacks. Recently I observed twenty children sitting to prepare ‘pizzas’ on wholemeal buns. Each child had a half bun on a plate and the teacher had prepared dishes of toppings that the children would spread or sprinkle on their bun. The toppings were tomato paste, diced cheese and diced ham. Other toppings that could be used are diced beef or lamb, diced or mashed egg, pineapple pieces, diced celery, tomato, avocado, beetroot, tuna, salmon or sardines. The teacher first demonstrated to the group how to hold the bun with one hand while using the knife in the other hand to spread paste. Children actively involved in such an activity are
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lebanese bread is flat, thin and easy to roll up. One round of bread will make a filling snack in a jiffy, for two kids. Cut a round of Lebanese bread in half and prepare both halves as follows:
________________________________________________________________________ Eggs are a great body building food and can be served up in many ways. Kids like something different so why not try astronaut eggs in a rocket? It will be worth the trouble when you see the expressions on their faces.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Baked potatoes Winter time is the time to enjoy hot food. Try oven baked potatoes with a luscious filling.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most children like rice from an early age. Here is a quick, no-fuss variety. You will need 1onion, 2cups of rice, 1 chicken stock cube, parsley, cheese and other titbits such as corn nibblets and cubed tomatoes, 1 cup of hot water, extra water. Method
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chicken and fruit are tasty when combined and are quick snacks to prepare Ingredients: Cooked chicken cubes, tinned pineapple pieces, cherry tomatoes, avocado chunks Method: Thread onto skewers drizzle with oil and heat under a griller just till warm, or eat cold if preferred. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you look around for ideas for kids cooking, the main ones are still sweets and cakes. These are no good for diabetic kids. Most children I know love fruit and some colourful Christmas treats can be made using fruits in season. Here are a couple of ideas the children can make themselves. Watermelon Christmas tree
Santa Face
On the Fresh Food site www.freshfoodkids.com.au there are easy and fun food things for the kids to make. Sam and Tim made naughts and crosses. Your kids could make naughts and crosses with fruit. Give them a plate full of fruit and vegies cut into different shapes and sizes and suggest they make a lot of different things to surprise you. They will come up with lots of their own ideas. If you have not pre-cut the shapes, be sure to supervise and tell kids that you will need to do the cutting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A survey of Australian children shows that over 40% of our children go to school at least one day a week without any breakfast. The reasons given are that there is no time, the children are too tired and slept in late, or they couldn’t be bothered. Eating breakfast has long been recognised as essential for people who want their brains to function well all day. Kids who are to concentrate at school and be effective learners need food for the brain at the beginning of every day. Missing breakfast also increases the chance of poor food choices such as quick sweet, or fat-filled food, over the rest of the day. Long term effects are likely to be obesity and constant dieting to control obesity. We know what happens when we don’t put petrol in the car, if we don’t fuel our brains our brains will be at a standstill. Don’t let this happen in your family. Make breakfast a priority. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mothers are renowned for putting their family first and their own needs last. Mothers with new babies have special needs when it comes to food and may need help from family members to maintain healthy eating habits. Those breastfeeding may produce a plump, healthy baby even if they neglect their own food intake, snatching a snack here and there, but their health will suffer in the long run. Here are some facts:
Make sure the mother in your family is eating the right foods. It is just as important as eating good food while pregnant. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nutritionists recommend that adults eat 5 servings of vegetable and 2 servings of fruit every day. It sounds a lot but when I added up what I ate I was doing the right thing. What about children? Toddlers need 2 servings of fruit and 2 of vegetables per day. School aged children need 3 to 5 servings of vegetables and 2 to 4 of fruit. Children are often fussy eaters but showing by example is one of the best ways to encourage healthy eating. You can’t expect children to eat the food on their plates if you have different food on yours. Here are some hints to broaden a child’s menu.
With summer just around the corner there is a bigger variety of fruit and vegetables available. Take the children shopping and let them choose some of the food. Be guided by their interest instead of the price. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Over Christmas and New Year supplies often run short. With floods in many areas of NSW families will run out of bread and damper is a quick, easy substitute that kids can make. Extras like cheese and chopped ham and herbs make it tasty. For this recipe you will need
Method: Sift flour and salt into a bowl, rub in butter until mixture is like fine crumbs. Make a well in the centre, add the milk and water. Mix cheese, ham and herbs into the dough. When it forms a ball gently knead it on a lightly floured surface and then shape into a round about . Put on a greased oven tray. Pat into a round 16 to diameter. Cut a couple of slits across dough like a cross, approximately 1cm deep. Brush top of dough with milk. Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sports stars are role models for kids in so many ways. Geoff Heugil an Australian swimmer is doing his best to help kids, especially sick kids. However, he is also a great example of determination and how to change lifestyle. Geoff has overcome an obesity problem caused by poor diet. I hope he will be an inspiration to parents and kids alike. How do you know if your child is obese? A child is obese if the body mass is above the recommended size. A doctor is the best person to advise you about this. The reasons for obesity include genetics, diet, and the amount and kind of physical activity. The lifestyle children today follow, is quite different from that their grandparents or even their parents followed. Now, the main entertainment for kids is likely to be electronic games, TV and texting their mates. Walking and cycling have been replaced by car transport. What can you do? Accept that your child is obese – it isn’t puppy fat. Gradually change diet and lifestyle. Implement change for the whole family, focus on health with your child, not on weight. Support and encourage each other. Kids need active play like swimming, cycling, walking, ball games, running every day. Set aside time every day for these active sports as a family, don’t use food as a reward, watch TV without eating snacks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Most young adults will know about the five food groups from which health authorities recommend we take our daily food intake. However, it is good to revise our knowledge from time to time. It is also necessary to teach young people how much of each group they should eat. Many kids and teens think that they can eat as much fruit as they like. However, fruit is high in sugar and no more than three pieces are recommended for each day. Number of servings also depends on the size of the piece of fruit and the weight of the child. A person who is already on the path to obesity will need to eat the lower level. The amount of each food group must be selected carefully or there will be no improvement in weight. Here are the food groups with recommended servings. 1) Breads, cereals, rice pasta, noodles- 5 to 9 servings. If you want each of these foods, choose small helpings. 2) Vegetables and legumes – 4 or 5 3) Fruit – 2 or 3 4) Milk, yoghurt and cheese – 2 to 4 5) Meat, poultry, fish, beans, eggs and nuts – 1 to 2 Other factors should also be considered such as how and when the food is eaten. If the food is eaten very quickly, it will not give as much satisfaction as food eaten slowly. Food eaten before rest, sleeping or sedentary activities will make fat, instead of energy. Diets seem to fail. That is because the metabolism of the body changes. Once a person has become obese, it will probably mean that care will be needed throughout life to avoid a return to obesity. Prevention is certainly better than cure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cooking the dinner for a family can be a pleasure but if you have a young family and limited time, cooking can be a boring necessity. It is easiest to dish up the same meal with little variation night after night. Some families eat more and more fast food, high fat dinners even though they know this is a poor health option. An alternative is to plan weekly menus; easy, healthy dinners. I recently found a large book of healthy barbecue recipes at the local post office. Best of all it was at a low price so I bought it to give as a gift to a family member and I looked through the book before parting with it. The recipes were simple to prepare and although I didn’t have all the ingredients, many of the herbs and spices recurred throughout. Most of the meals were quick to prepare and cooked quickly too. While on holidays I was introduced to a slow cooker and a recipe book to use with it. The recipe book was well organised to include seafood, lamb, beef, poultry, pork, vegetable dishes etc. and again the number of new ingredients not in the pantry was small. I know families where one partner spends fifteen minutes every day to prepare the slow cooker so that when they come home from work tired and hungry, the dinner is ready to eat. To plan menus, I suggest you plan seven dinners using foods in season to begin with. Note the meat, vegetables and spices you’ll need so you can get everything when you do the weekly shop. If the meal you cook is enough for two nights you have the option of freezing the second dinner for the next week. You don’t have a slow cooker or the necessary recipe books? How about asking for that when a birthday comes around, or visiting your library to look for an inspirational book? Happy cooking. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2008
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