Growth Over The Ages

Your child's nutrition is important to their overall health. Proper nutrition can also prevent many medical problems, including becoming overweight, developing weak bones, and developing diabetes. It will also ensure that your child physically grows to their full potential.

The best nutrition advise to keep your child healthy includes encouraging them to:

• Eat a variety of foods
• Balance the food you eat with physical activity
• Choose a diet with plenty of grain products, vegetables and fruits
• Choose a diet low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol
• Choose a diet moderate in sugars and salt
• Choose a diet that provides enough calcium and iron to meet their growing body's requirements.

Kids and teens on a vegetarian diet may need to be careful that they get an adequate amount of certain vitamins and minerals. Here are nutrients that vegetarians should make sure they get, and some of the food sources in which they can be found:

vitamin B12: dairy products, eggs, and vitamin-fortified products, such as cereals, breads, and soy and rice drinks
vitamin D: dairy products, calcium-fortified orange juice, and vitamin-fortified products
calcium: dairy products, dark green leafy vegetables, broccoli, chickpeas, and calcium-fortified products, including orange juice, soy and rice drinks, and cereals
protein: dairy products, eggs, tofu, dried beans, and nuts
iron: eggs, dried beans, dried fruits, whole grains, leafy green vegetables, and iron-fortified cereals and bread
zinc: wheat germ, nuts, fortified cereal, and legumes

Depending on the type of vegetarian diet chosen, kids may miss out on some of these important nutrients if the diet isn't monitored by the parents.

While most children cannot be made to like foods they deem as “yucky,” there are many things you can do to ensure your children consume the necessary foods which benefit their health. It just requires a little ingenuity and forethought.

Tips for Healthful Eating:

• Try not to bring junk food into the home.
• Stock up on cereals which are high in fiber over sweet cereals.
• Offer crackers and peanut butter over chips.
• Offer celery, carrots and cucumbers with a child’s favorite dip.
• Replace fruit roll-ups with dried fruits.
• Offer vanilla wafers, animal crackers, graham crackers and fig cookies instead of high fat cookies.
• Replace ice cream with frozen yogurt.
• Have pretzels on hand to replace chips, or cracker jacks.
• Become creative with vegetables. Mash the cauliflower like potatoes, add cheese to broccoli, and provide ketchup for pinto beans.
• If your child does not like sauce, cook their meat separate without the sauce.
• Stock up on tortillas. Use them at breakfast time for eggs and sausage. Use them at lunch for grilled chicken, salad and cheese roll ups. Use them at supper for tomatoes, beef and rice.

Reducing Sugar Intake

It is well observed and studied that refined sugars play a part in hyperactivity in children as well as adults. Some studies even link refined sugar intake to ADHD and ADD in children.

In baking, sugar serves a greater purpose than just adding a sweet flavor. Sugar also helps yeast to rise, tenderizes dough, encourages browning and affects moisture content. There are many ingredients besides refined white cane sugar that can be exchanged with excellent results and are acceptable for diets that restrict or omit sugar.