Are you currently struggling to feed your child?
Are you worried about what your child likes to eat and how unhealthy it is?
Do you need help? If your answer to any of these is yes, then you need to pay attention to this.
Children are easily attracted to what they see and what is constantly available.
These tips below will help you set your child right as far as eating is concerned:
• Start feeding your child early and on time. Parents sometimes delay in feeding their children especially those migrating from being exclusively breastfed to appropriate complementary feeds. If you don’t start the introduction early, it can be difficult. At 6 months, complementary foods should be added to meet the health and nutritional needs of your growing baby.
• Serve healthy meals. Parents are the best people to influence their child positively. We need to serve healthy meals and this will stay with children as they age.
• Avoid fast foods and instant noodles. Being a responsible parent includes feeding your children with the right foods. These foods mentioned above aren’t mostly healthy foods and since children easily fall in love with these foods, we need not expose them to it. They are loaded with fats, added sugars which easily affect the weight of your child (childhood obesity) which puts your child at risk for future health challenges like obesity, diabetes and so on.
• Set an eating schedule and stick to it. Once it’s time for a meal, we are doing nothing else.
• Watch the snacking; give juices instead of drinks. Juices are natural and healthy as compared to drinks which are mostly carbonated or loaded with sugar and preservatives which can affect your child’s health later in life if it continues.
• Talk to your child’s school. My first two clients had their obesity crisis from their school and the meals they served them. Their mother had a chef solely for them and was doing her best to help her children but the major contributor to their obesity was from their school.
Their weight had already affected their self-esteem at age 10 and 11 and their school had formally written to their parents to seek professional help for them. Constantly feeding a child with sausages, chicken and coke for mid-morning snack in school was unfortunate especially children who are not allowed to play and sweat. There were issues with their lunch too.
• Have a discussion with your children and let them know the dangers awaiting them in the future if they don’t eat healthily. Be a parent and honestly have this discussion with them. If you cannot do this or it fails, let a professional nutritionist or dietician come in. I made a great impact with these two clients I mentioned earlier. Their wrong habits had affected them so badly that, one mostly felt bloated and could go a week without using the toilet. We did it eventually and corrected it. It’s workable.
• Do grocery shopping with them and cook with them if possible. Once they were part of it, it is easier for them to enjoy it at the table. They also know what sit on their plate and wouldn’t feel like you are pushing it on them.
• Expose your children to what is available and our local foods. It’s pathetic how you meet children in the consulting room and they have no idea about some healthy local foods we have and their powerful components. It’s sometimes not their fault; even their parents don’t know. Treating your child to only exotic meals, fast foods, fancy foods and drinks doesn’t make you a good parent.
Once it starts affecting them in various ways, the feeling of an irresponsible parent torments your conscience. A good parent is greatly concerned for the total wellbeing of their children which includes, feeding them with the right nutrients which offsets them from health challenges in the future.
• Be a role model. Children look up to their parents a lot of times. Exercise with your child or children, go to the gym with them once in a while if not always, eat what’s on the menu and be a parent who influences their child or children positively.
It is workable. I promise to empower you with the right information to make informed choices on your total health and wellbeing with good nutrition.
Read and share with others and let’s challenge ourselves to raising healthy eater. Stay blessed!
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The writer is a Registered Nutritionist
Follow the writer @nutritionistakosua_gh on Instagram and @RNutritionist Aaky Aphyra on Facebook for weekly tips on nutrition.
Watch her live on Citi TV’s Breakfast Daily every Monday (9:00am – 9:30am) on our nutrition segment.
Contact: 0243350206(+233)