Food glorious food with children

We all know how vitally important it is to ensure that your child has a healthy diet. As a general rule of thumb, ‘everything in moderation’ is a great starting point. Providing fried foods at every meal for your child doesn’t even bear thinking about, but nor do you have to ban your child from eating high-fat foods altogether. If you tell your child that they cannot have a particular food at all, you are making that food seem extra yummy in your child’s eyes, and he is more likely to crave it in the future.

It doesn’t take long for children to decide which foods they like best, but as a parent, you do have an important role to play in influencing his choices. Small children naturally prefer the taste of sweet foods, but studies also show that they develop preferences for foods if they’re offered to them in a positive context. This means that if you bribe your toddler to eat all of his broccoli with the promise of chocolate cake for pudding, then you’re setting up broccoli as a not-nice food and chocolate cake as a yummy food.



Breakfast: a great beginning

Children’s blood sugar levels are at their lowest first thing in the morning, so a good breakfast is designed to get their concentration levels up and stave off hunger pangs until lunchtime. The ideal balanced breakfast should contain:
• about 25 per cent of your child’s daily calorie intake
• a reasonable amount of protein
• plenty of starchy carbohydrates
• some calcium, iron and vitamin C
• a small amount of fat and sugar

Traditional porridge or instant oats with hot milk is one healthy option. This breakfast will provide slow-release energy and vital vitamins and minerals. If you top the porridge off with a few pieces of chopped, fresh fruit or soaked dried fruit and give your child a glass of fruit juice, you’ll have a nutrient-rich meal. Many children will eat a bowl of the same breakfast cereal every morning, but, to help them achieve a more balanced diet, try to encourage them to eat something different occasionally.

If you have a child, who doesn’t like to eat first thing in the morning, then make sure they have something in their stomach before they go to nursery or school, even if it’s just a glass of warm milk.

The easy way to five a day

It can seem like a major effort to get your child to eat their recommended five portions of fruit and veg a day, but bear the following in mind! In addition to simply offering your child a piece of fruit (such as an apple, orange, banana or pear), or two smaller fruits (such as kiwi, satsumas or plums), you can also increase their fruit and veg intake by giving them a heaped tablespoon of dried fruit such as raisins. Three heaped tablespoons of fruit salad (fresh or tinned in fruit juice) or 150ml of pure, unsweetened fruit juice also counts as a portion.