We know you love your children and want the best for them, but sometimes it’s a massive challenge, especially when it comes to getting them to eat healthily. There is just so much to do! Chores around the home, and having a job, plus trying to prepare those sumptuous meals and encouraging your little ones to eat them, gets tedious at times.
But you create those meals because you understand the value of healthy foods for your growing children. So we want to help make your job a bit easier. In this article, we will explore a few ways you can use healthy meals to nourish your children’s minds. Let’s get started!
Use Vitamin Supplements
If you can’t prepare or your kids don’t eat healthier meals, add sugar-free vitamin supplements to their diet. Kids who take vitamin supplements tend to be healthier, in general, and perform better in school.
According to Mayo Clinic, vitamins are essential building blocks of healthy cells, and they aid with the different processes that occur within your children’s brains. Healthy skin, cells, and blood and improved brain function can be achieved by having a proper intake of sugar-free vitamins.
According to research, kids ten years old or younger should consume ten micrograms, while kids 11 years or older should be taking fifteen micrograms of vitamins daily. Since the brain is made up mostly of fat and sugar, it requires a lot of vitamins to function efficiently.
Make those Meals Look Attractive
Even though your food tastes and smells delightful, if it doesn’t look that way on the plates, the younger kids may not want it. To add variety to the meals by using different foods with different colors.
For example, instead of using only green peas, rice, and chicken, try arranging a plate with nicely shaped carrot sticks, green peas, rice, chicken, red bell peppers, and corn. This method is proven to work. In fact, according to a Cornell University study, “Compared with adults, children not only prefer plates with more elements and colors but also their entrees placed in the front of the plate and with figurative designs” (Cornell University, 2012).
Get creative with those plates to ensure your children get the vitamins and nutrients they need since brain development occurs primarily during childhood, and nutrients are vital to that process.
Choose Healthier Snacks
Snacks are the go-to option for numerous occasions, so it’s best to give your children healthier ones. If you do this, you will worry less about their nutrition. So when you go to the grocery store, check those nutrition facts.
Look at the salt (sodium), sugar, and fat content. These are most essential, given that excess consumption of these elements will impair your children’s ability to learn and think, along with their memory. Additionally, unhealthy snacking facilitates the development of non-communicable diseases, obesity, and dental caries later in life.
Opt for Water
Water plays an essential role in many of your children’s brain functions, such as controlling its temperature, helping it to balance its chemical processes, removing waste, etc. As such, opting for water instead of juice or drinks all the time is ideal.
The best way to get your kids to drink more water is to interchange it with the juices you usually give them. So that means if you pack two juices in their lunch boxes, stop. Give them one juice and one water. At home, serve them water when they are playing. Over time, they will grow accustomed to having water with their meals and at playtime.
But of course, you want to make sure that the water that your kids consume is healthy and nutritious as well. For this reason, you could use aqua water filters to purify the water, keep your kids’ diet healthy and drink clean water.
Cook with Healthier Food Options
This method may be one of the best ways to get those valuable nutrients in for your kids while avoiding the disease-causing ones. Let’s look at a list of items that you can easily substitute.
White Bread- change this to whole wheat or whole grain bread.
Butter- when possible, use a healthier fat option, like olive oil.
Potato chips- these tend to be greasy and salty, so get nuts, crackers, or baked snacks instead.
Whole milk- yes, it’s creamy and delicious, but it’s not too good for your kids. Instead, use low-fat milk or plant-based milk.
There are numerous other foods that you can switch up, so the next time you sit down to write your grocery list, do some research to find healthier alternatives that promote brain development and function.
Conclusion
Those kids are precious, and you try your utmost best to treat them as such. So when it comes to their nutrition, don’t drag your feet. Use sugar-free vitamins to ensure they get that daily requirement to sustain brain development.
Get creative with those meals to create eye-popping and appetite-opening masterpieces on those plates. Choose healthier snacks, food, and water to help your kids get the nutritive value they need from each meal to help with thinking, learning, memory, other cognitive functions, and cell repair while avoiding possible illnesses.
Author: Bella Clarks
