Let’s Give a Big Cheer for a Healthier School Year!

Let’s Give a Big Cheer for a Healthier School Year!

It is now the start of the school year and with it the start of morning rush. Everyone is trying to leave the house as early as possible, especially the students. We either opt for instant breakfast like noodles and hotdogs, or worse, skip breakfast altogether. These kinds of meals are fine but when taken alone, they don’t provide the necessary nutrients for the day. Lunch time is not any better; no time to prepare lunch or baon means we parents give our children instant lunch or just pocket money – Pocket money, that they may use to buy healthy or not so healthy foods like sweets and junk foods.

During these growing years, we’ll notice that they’d start to discover different types of food and develop their food preferences. Studies show that these food choices during their childhood will continue until later in their life. This gives us more reasons to ensure that the food they eat even outside of our homes will give the different nutrients that their body needs. We’d want to make their meals as healthy as possible while being enjoyable. Staying away from certain foods isn’t the only solution. It’s the balance of meals regardless of choices that makes one a healthy meal.

One of the easiest meals to prepare are sandwiches. When we hear “sandwiches” we think about peanut butter spread, fruits jams, and mayonnaise-based spreads but it doesn’t always have to be this way. Gardenia has a variety of healthy recipes at www.gardenia.com.ph/recipes/ which are easy to prepare. There are many ways to help our children choose healthier foods, and to help you guide your children, here are some tips from Gardenia:

• Make breakfast the heaviest meal of the day. This is a good foundation of energy supply that your body needs throughout the day.
• Nutritious homemade sandwiches that should contain ingredients from the three food groups (Go, Grow & Glow Foods) like grilled chicken fillet with lettuce and lite mayonnaise sandwich.
• Add fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Being at school doesn’t mean that they are limited to their daily fiber intakes – add slices of fruits and vegetables, use whole grain breads and low-fat mayonnaise or dressing.
• Include milk or other dairy foods to assure enough calcium in the diet and to give them beverage that they could choose over carbonated drinks. Also make sure to pack clean and safe water.
• Be creative! Combine foods of different color and shapes to make your child’s meal and snacks more appetizing.
• Lastly, put in something that your kid will like to keep their meals enjoyable and don’t forget to use proper proportions.

Make this the start of a healthier school year!