Making a menu is not hard. It takes a little balance between serving children what they should eat and what they will eat.
By the time a child is two, he or she has definite likes and dislikes. Children who become picky at an early age usually understand quite well the differences between tastes. They are definite about what is salty or sweet, and they know the difference. They also know bitter and sour and will sometimes ask which taste does a particular food have before they will try it.
Children who continue to eat nearly everything that's offered haven't a clue about salty, sweet, sour or bitter. They know it all tastes pretty good, so who cares how you describe it.
Taking into consideration a child's likes and dislikes should help create children's menus and be the focus of a child's nutrition. If a parent is very nutrition conscience, and only gives his or her child the most nutritional food available, a lot of children are either going to be listless because they won't take in the right amount of calories, bored with the whole idea of food or passive in general about food because it's no fun.
Eating is one of the great pleasures in life. Eating is an investment in the body. It can make or break complexion, energy levels, continued health, vitality, and even make hormone issues less and less frequent or more and more frequent depending on what you need or want.
Food is not "just something you do" three or four times a day. Feeding the body is one of the most important things you will ever do, and doing it well can change your life.
The first thing to think about with children is absolute eating times. Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner and dessert are arranged during the day to promote hunger and desire. Children who snack all day usually eat too many empty calories and too much "non food." They are rarely hungry at meal time, and they all to often fail to eat nutritious food in favor of waiting till the coast is clear in order to have more junk. It's the universal story.
Setting up breakfast, lunch dinner and snack times is important enough to center the whole household around. What we do before breakfast, after breakfast, before lunch, after lunch, before snack, after snack, before dinner, and after dinner will help organize a family like no other successful approach to keeping a house healthy.
With the times set for eating, the next step is deciding what to serve. Keeping in mind children need so many calories per day. Here's a chart:
| Gender | Age (years) | Sedentaryb | Moderately Activec | Actived |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Child | 2-3 | 1,000 | 1,000-1,400 | 1,000-1,400 |
| Female | 4-8 9-13 14-18 19-30 31-50 51+ | 1,200 1,600 1,800 2,000 1,800 1,600 | 1,400-1,600 1,600-2,000 2,000 2,000-2,200 2,000 1,800 | 1,400-1,800 1,800-2,200 2,400 2,400 2,200 2,000-2,200 |
| Male | 4-8 9-13 14-18 19-30 31-50 51+ | 1,400 1,800 2,200 2,400 2,200 2,000 | 1,400-1,600 1,800-2,200 2,400-2,800 2,600-2,800 2,400-2,600 2,200-2,400 | 1,600-2,000 2,000-2,600 2,800-3,200 3,000 2,800-3,000 2,400-2,800 |
The United States Department of Education Child Care Food Program preaches that children need a whole grain bread product, a veggie or fruit and milk every morning. This is supposed to use up about 25% of your child's dietary needs. So when creating that menu, remember that children love sweets, but those sweets should have the nutritional value of whole grains. Adding a 100% juice and an eight ounce glass of milk will make a complete meal.
Milk is an important part of bone health, and too often children who have tasted thinner substances prefer nearly anything to milk. When children drink too much milk at breakfast, lunch and dinner, because they are avoiding other foods and want to feel full, they will often become constipated. This is not milk intolerance. This is called "milk belly" and can be avoided with one glass of milk per meal.
At lunch, a child should get to indulge himself in food he really likes. This is, for some, the best eating he or she will do during any day. Make sure the menus made include a protein, a fruit and veggie, or two fruits or two veggies, a whole grain and milk. This offers the child enough variety of nutrients as well as a big enough offer of calories so that he or she is not whiny or hungry till afternoon snack.
But consider two like lunches: A grilled cheese-food sandwich on white bread with chips and a coke will add all the right calories, but none of the nutrition a child needs. So switch breads to whole grain use real cheese, use whole grain chips and a sliced apple and a handful of carrots or applesauce, or raisins or banana or melon or grapes. It makes a much sounder lunch and offers a child both the hard crunchy with the sweet. A lunch with a food value of 50% of a child's nutrition needs and 50% of his calories is far superior to a lunch with 50% of his caloric needs and zero percent of his nutrition needs. White bread, cheese food, and artery clogging chips might satisfy the child one way, but won't accomplish anything but added body fat and a disposition for illness.
I believe snacks should be calorie high and fun. I'm a baker, and baking cookies is what makes any parent aces in the eyes of their children and grandchildren. But baking doesn't have to be sugar on sugar on white flour on lard. It's a balance...what a child should eat with what a child likes. Always reduce your cookie batter sugar. Always use whole grain flours. Add oats, use butter, whole eggs, spices like cinnamon, and anything healthy you think your child will eat. Often the cookies we make at school are the healthiest things children eat all day.
Snacks should not be more than 15 % of calorie daily intake.
Dinner, for many children, is not eaten. If your child is not a dinner eater, don't fight it. Give your child a piece of cheese, a little fruit, a finger veggie, and some whole grain crackers. If you add up his calories at the end of snack, you'll see he needs very little extra food. Why push or force it? Children are tired at the end of the day, and sometimes that big pot roast, or the spaghetti is just too much for a little person.
But at the same time, a child should not pass dinner by and gravitate towards boxes of junk from the forbidden cabinet!
Eating is not something most children do with grace or knowledge. That's where mom and dad come in. Mom and dad do know how to read and know how to cook - or should - and also they should know what children should and should not eat.
Now let's get down to the fun stuff. If your child eats well every day, there is no harm in giving him as many treats as he wants. The truth is, children will eat the calories their bodies need. So you can offer a child many things, and he probably won't over indulge himself if he's well fed with good stuff first. And too, if he has the routine of eating learned at the appropriate times, he will probably remain thin, active and healthy all his life.
No comments:
Post a Comment