Top 10 Healthy Foods for Kids


Importance of Healthy Food Habit?

Food is one of the most important factors for a child’s healthy growth and wellbeing. A healthy diet can help your child maintain a proper weight, stabilize their moods, sharpen the minds and avoid variety of health issues. It can also have a profound effect on your kid’s mental and emotional happiness. Serious diseases like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD etc can be prevented by switching to a healthy diet from an early age.  

How to Do It?

However, in practicality, this may come as a challenging task for many parents.

  • The first thing that is important is – knowledge. Knowing what is good for your child & what is not - are the first most critical aspect.
  • Secondly, Kids don’t always want to eat healthy foods and tend to be picky. Just forcing your child to eat what you want, does not always work. Hence, disguising healthy foods with tastier ones is also very important.
  • Peer pressure and TV commercials for junk foods can make getting your children to eat well an uphill struggle. Factor in your own hectic schedule and it’s no wonder so many kids’ diets are built around convenience and takeout food
  • Spending time with kids while they are eating is also important. In today’s fast paced world, parents are super busy and they are finding it difficult to take out time for their kids. This also impacts the food habit for the children growing up.

Top 10 Healthiest Foods

Kids need nutritious food-healthy fats for their brains, calcium for their bones, and all the vitamins and minerals vegetables offer-and more. To make sure you're offering your child the healthiest foods, we compiled a list of the top 10 healthy foods for kids.

  1. Milk: Milk is a good source of calcium, vitamin D, and protein for kids and should be a part of every child's diet—unless they have a milk allergy
  2. Eggs: Eggs are a good source of protein and contain some iron and many other vitamins and minerals.
  3. Yogurt: It's a healthy, filling snack that checks the boxes on protein and vitamin D, a nutrient many kids lack in their diet. Yogurt also delivers probiotics, good bacteria that are important for maintaining a healthy gut.
  4. Avocado: Avocados are an easy way to get healthy fats into your child's diet. They are high in monounsaturated fats, which decrease inflammation and keep cholesterol levels healthy. Fat moves through the digestive tract slowly, so it keeps kids full longer.
  5. Nuts & Seeds: Nuts and seeds deliver a healthful trio of fibre, protein and healthy fats. Mix it up by offering cashews, walnuts, almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, chia seeds and more. If your child has a tree nut allergy, seeds may be a safe choice and a good way to get important nutrition. Nuts are high in magnesium, a mineral that's crucial in bone development and energy production.
  6. Vegetables: Kids, like most adults, don’t like veggies. However, the more color and the greater the variety of vegetables, the better. Each color delivers different nutrients: leafy greens like spinach and kale are high in vitamin K, orange and red vegetables have vitamin A, peppers are packed with vitamin C, and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower contain cancer-fighting compounds and feed good gut bacteria.
  7. Berries: One cup of berries has 4 grams of fibre and is high in vitamin C and other antioxidants like anthocyanins. Blueberries, blackberries and strawberries are also lower in sugar than many fruits. Fresh berries make an excellent snack for kids or a great topping for yogurt.
  8. Apple & Plums: Kids often crave sweets, especially when they're feeling sluggish. Apples and plums are lunchbox-friendly and contain quercetin, an antioxidant that may fight decline in mental skills.
  9. Oatmeal: Protein- and fibre-rich oatmeal helps keep heart and brain arteries clear. In one study, kids who ate sweetened oatmeal did better on memory-related school tasks than those who ate a sugary cereal.
  10. Fish: Fish is a good source of vitamin D and omega-3s, which protect the brain from declining mental skills and memory loss. Be aware about the good fat and bad fat in specific fishes.

 

Overall – healthy diet not only means healthy foods; it also means healthy habits. Limiting portion size, controlling sugar intake, refined carbs in food habit, find heathier alternative to junk foods rather than simply cutting down junks are very important to make a kid adopt to healthier lifestyle. It would make your child happier and smarter.

 

Mahatma Gandhi said this once, “It is health which is real wealth, and not pieces of gold and silver”

Team WondrYears

16-07-2021 12:25 PM

Health & Fitness

#WondrYears #Parentingtips #Healthandfitness #healthiswealth

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