Helping Your Child Eat Healthy for Life

Many parents worry about their children eating too much or too little. With the increasing concerns about childhood obesity and children getting enough fruits and vegetables, how can parents help their children eat right without making mealtime a battleground?

Ellyn Satter, author of How to Get Your Kid to Eat, But Not Too Much (Bull Publishing), suggests that parents divide the responsibilities of eating, using the following tips.

Most healthy children naturally know how much they need to eat—knowing when they’re hungry and how much to eat is the child’s job. Children don’t know what kinds of foods they need. Serving the right food to help a child grow and be healthy is the parents’ job.

You choose what food you serve, and when and where you serve it. When you do offer children a choice, make sure it’s a healthy choice: “Shall we have fish or chicken for dinner?” “We’re having fruit salad with dinner. Help me pick out the kinds of fruit we should include.”

Parents:

• Buy and choose healthy foods: fruit, vegetables, whole grains (bread/tortilla products), protein foods, and low-fat milk products.

• Set the times your child eats.

• Make sure the food can be eaten easily (cut meats, for example)

• Make sure your child is comfortable while eating.

• Teach your child the eating manners that are important to you and your family.

Remember:

• Your child will eat more on some days than on others.

• Children’s servings are small—about 1 tablespoon of each food served for each year of age. A two year old would need 2 tablespoons of vegetables, 2 tablespoons of rice, and 2 tablespoons of beans. Offer this recommended amount first, and then give more if your child asks for it.

• Have water available for your child to drink between meals instead of milk, juice, or sweet drinks, which may make your child feel full and not want to eat.

• Have snacks available that will keep your child healthy and growing well: bite-size pieces of apple or orange, carrot or jicama sticks, a small handful of nuts, seeds, and raisins.

• Make sweets, chips, soda, and candy “sometimes foods,” that your family eats only occasionally.

• Children learn by example so try to eat the same healthy foods that you want your child to eat.

These guidelines will help your child to grow up to be a smart eater, who chooses healthy foods to eat when he is hungry and stops eating when she is full.

Nutritious Snacks
Replace candy and sweets with equally tasty but healthier treats.

Ants on a Log
1 celery stick cut in two
2 tbsp. peanut butter
1 tbsp. raisins
With your child, wash the celery. Spread peanut butter into the celery. Top off with raisins and enjoy!

Fruit and Yogurt
½ cup low-fat vanilla yogurt
1 tbsp. sliced strawberries
1 tbsp. blueberries
1-2 tbsp. granola
Help your child layer yogurt and fruit in a clear glass or bowl. Top with granola.

Protecting Children from Iron Deficiency Anemia

In 2005, more than 22% of one- and two-year-olds from low-income families in Sonoma County had iron deficiency anemia. This is a higher rate than in almost all other California counties. Children’s bodies (and adults’ bodies too) must have iron to make red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the tissues in our bodies. Most often when children get anemia, it’s because they don’t get enough iron in their food. They may not have obvious signs of illness, but they may:

1. Look pale, feel tired and weak, act cranky
2. Eat poorly
3. Not grow well, develop more slowly
4. Get sick more easily, get infections and headaches
5. Have trouble learning, may be disruptive, and do poorly in school

If you are pregnant and are anemic, your baby could be born too soon or too small.

Anemia can usually be prevented by making sure children get plenty of iron in their food. Here’s what you can do:

• Infants younger than 1 year should drink only breast milk or infant formula supplemented with iron. It is important for all infants to receive iron-fortified solid foods starting at about 6 months of age.

• Children under 2 years should have no more than 16 to 24 ounces of low-fat (1%) cow's milk a day. Milk and dairy products have little iron. Drinking too much milk can make your child too full to eat other iron-rich foods.

• Iron-fortified cereal can be a great way to get kids—especially kids under 2 years—to get more iron. Check labels to find other foods with added iron.

• Many foods are good sources of iron: lean meats; egg yolks; broccoli, spinach, and other green leafy vegetables; dried peas and beans; blackstrap molasses; raisins; and whole-grain bread.

• Make sure children or teens on a vegetarian diet are getting enough iron. Because iron from meat sources is more easily absorbed than iron from plant sources, you may need to add iron-fortified foods to their diet.

Proper nutrition, which includes plenty of foods with iron, is important for all kids. Establishing good eating habits early in life will help to prevent iron deficiency and iron-deficiency anemia.

Source: Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance Survey, 2005
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics, adapted from “Iron Deficiency Anemia,” Diane E. Pappas, MD, JD

Healthy Active Living for Families
Healthy nutrition can start as early as infancy with breastfeeding. Once your child begins eating solid foods, introduce nutritious rich foods early on and frequently. Sometimes toddlers need to be introduced to a food 10 times before they actually accept and enjoy it.

It is also important to encourage free play as soon as children start crawling and walking. As your children grow, continue to support a healthy active lifestyle. Four simple goals all families can aim for are:

5 fruits or vegetables a day
2 hours or less of screen time per day
1 hour of moderate physical activity a day, and
No sugared drinks.


Parents can also start by being role models themselves and by making healthy nutrition and daily physical activity the norm for their family. Parents can create an environment where healthy choices are available and encouraged. As parents, we can also make it fun. Find ways to engage your children in the activities around healthy eating and physical activity, such as

• playing a game of tag with your children after dinner
• cooking healthy meals together
• creating a rainbow shopping list to find colorful fruits and vegetables
• go on a walking scavenger hunt through the neighborhood, or
• have your children grow their own vegetables.

By providing fun and healthy options for your family, your children will learn to enjoy healthy active living and form the foundation to make healthy choices for themselves.

Follow these tips to prevent overweight and obesity in children and the whole family

• Eat 5 fruits and vegetables per day
• Get 1 hour of physical activity a day (does not need to be all at once)
• Limit TV and computer time to less than 2 hours a day
• Limit consumption of sugar sweetened beverages
• Eat breakfast daily
• Switch to low-fat dairy products
• Regularly eat family meals together
• Limit fast food, take out, and eating out.
• Prepare foods at home as a family
• Eat a diet rich in calcium
• Eat a high fiber diet
• Breastfeed exclusively until 6 months and continue breastfeeding after introduction of solid food until 12 months of age.
  

Reprinted from the American Academy of Pediatrics

Childhood Obesity Resource Preventing Childhood Obesity: A Proposition 10 Opportunity