A-Z of feeding children
A for Activity: combined with healthy eating, builds healthy bodies and minds
B for Bia Kid meals: great tasting meal replacements when you're stuck for time. Chilled homemade nutritious meals, made with quality Irish ingredients, no artificial colour, preservatives or flavours and naturally low in salt and sugar.
C for Choice: it's virtually impossible to keep children away from 'junk food' indefinitely, but in the home you can make a rule that there is always a good variety of good nutritious foods on offer. If you give your kids a choice between an apple or sweets, the sweets will win every time. The best solution is to offer them a choice of fruit (kiwi, apple or grapes) at home and when they're out the occasional treat.
Dietary requirements: follow the food pyramid to ensure adequate nutrients
Eating out: doing so regularly can help to stimulate children's interest in food. Going to a restaurant and ordering proper food for yourself and a childrens menu of cheap nuggets, sausages and chips totally defeats the purpose of taking them to a restaurant in the first place. Order smaller portions of healthier options on the main menu instead.
Food: focus on fun. The use of colour and shapes can transform even the healthiest looking food into an appealing mouth watering feast for the younger members of the family.
Growth: the amount of food needed may be less that you expect. Remember it's quality not quantity that is vital.
Hygiene: teaching hand washing and keeping food preparation areas clean are both important to health.
Involve: never force children to eat anything but try to insist they try something before they tell you they don't like it. A good way of getting them to try something is to get them get involved in preparing food e.g. cracking eggs or squeezing oranges.
Judge: a child is the best judge of when they have had enough.
Knowledge: be smart in handing food refusal and fussiness.
Limits: set limits on less nutritious foods and meal time behaviour.
Milestones: they keep happening! Children need to practice and one day you'll find they can use a spoon and pour breakfast cereal into a bowl without it ending up on the floor.
Nutrients: the food components needed by the body to grow and develop and perform the body's main complex tasks.
Occasional treats: biscuits, sweets, and bars can be enjoyed as occasional treats, but don't let them take over from healthier choices on an everyday basis
Portions: if there is only a tiny amount of something available it tends to seem much more desirable, so serving very small portions of any food that has taken time to prepare is a good tactic. It is better to serve them less and get them to ask for more.
Quality and Quantity: parents decide on the food, the child decides on how much to eat.
Range: if children are only offered 10 different types of food, you can be sure they will refuse 3 and moan about two. If they are offered 50 foods, even if they refuse 25 they are still eating a decent variety and will be getting a better nutritional balance.
Snacks: essential for young children - make them count nutritionally.
Tastes: encourage tastes of new foods but don't force - insist they try something before they tell you they don't like it.
Unstressed: what every adult needs to be with fussy eaters.
Variety: is the key to a healthy diet.
Water: a great healthy drink and very tooth friendly. Avoid fizzy water and drinks - they can erode teeth.
Xciting food: let them experiment in the kitchen.
Yes: think positive. He won't starve himself;one day he will eat vegetables.
ZZZZZ: a good night's sleep - essential for healthy little bodies to bounce them into the next day.
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