Winter season kids need to be dealt with carefully to ensure good health. Winter food for a kid can be planned out for the kids to enjoy the season at home.
Wintertime means parents ensure proper child eating habits. Handling winter season kids is tough.
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Know more about winter food for kid
Parents need to take time out and be involved with children in planning and preparing nutritious snacks for them in wintertime.
Winter season kids undesirable eating habits
- Using food as a reward is not good. It is unhealthy as it reinforces an emotional link to eating.
- Often food is used as a form of recreation to make oneself feel good.
- Treating children with food as if they get a good report card. Parents tend to do this and this is not healthy for the child.
- Having snack foods such as candy, chips, and soft drinks need to be avoided. Indulgences as mentioned earlier are no good. These are not foods of nutritional value and contribute to empty calories in the diet. Children need to eat even in winter a wide variety of foods required for growth and good health.
- Establishing a regular family meal pattern with three nutritious meals supplemented by healthy snacks is suggested for the healthy growth of a child and wintertime parents have to spend more time to ensure this.
- Space meals are better than eating throughout the day or rather than eating large amounts at one time. Several people do skip breakfast and eat most of their daily food later in the afternoon and can become overweight or obese.
- It is good to be aware of serving sizes for each family member and serve enough to meet the needs if obesity is a health issue.
- Making mealtime and snack time pleasant. Avoid fussing about, nagging, arguing, or even complaining at the table. Stress can lead to emotional overeating.
- Help children find ways apart from eating to address emotions.
- Having a designated eating area in the home helps as this eliminates snacking in front of the TV and in the bedroom where mindless eating can take place.
- Planning nutritious snacks ahead of time are important.
- Low-calorie, easy-to-grab nutritious snacks such as fruits, raw vegetables, milk, juice, as well as vanilla wafers are preferred choices. Keep prepared fruits as well as vegetables in the refrigerator. Fruits, carrots, celery, cauliflower, etc. need to be washed in cool running water and cut to be eaten.
- Keep snack foods where it is possible for kids can see them like on the kitchen counter, storing foods in see-through containers and clear plastic bags for contents to be visible.
- Limiting the number of snacks is a good idea as snacks are meant to satisfy the appetite between meals and are not substitutes for a meal.
- Teach children to eat when they are hungry, and not out of boredom as in winter often they do get bored sitting at home.
Healthy Snack Ideas
Fruit Slices: Spread peanut butter on apple or banana slices.
Veggies with Dip: Cut carrots, celery, cucumbers, or zucchini into sticks or even coins, then dip them into prepared salsa.
Snack Kebobs: Cutting raw vegetables and fruit into chunks and then Skewering them onto thin pretzel sticks. (Dipping cut pieces of fruit in orange juice to prevent it from becoming discolored.)
Salsa Quesadillas: Fill a soft tortilla with cheese as well as salsa, fold over, and grill.
Banana Pops: Peel a banana and then dip it in yogurt. Roll in crushed breakfast cereal and then freeze.
Hardboiled Eggs: A quick protein-rich snack.
Also Read, 10 Tips to Protect Children from Cold Weather.
Pudding Shakes
Peanut Butter Balls: Mix peanut butter and bran or cornflakes in a bowl. Shaping the mixture into balls with clean hands and then rolling in crushed graham crackers.
Conclusion
Winter foods for kids choices are manifold.