Begin at the Beginning: The Best Diet for Healthy Children

Part 5: Tips

Tips for shopping

Shopping with an infant can be a hazardous business, or it can be a combination of fun and education. Here are some tips that I hope you will find useful.

Before setting out, make out a shopping list and, when you shop, stick to it. Not only is it quicker, it's usually cheaper too. It also has the added advantage that if your child asks for something that you don't want her to have, you can say quite truthfully "It's not on the list". It may help if you both make out the list before you go. That way you can discuss the items beforehand and your "not on the list" will carry more weight.
Have a good meal before you go shopping. You and your child are more likely to be tempted if you are hungry. In case your child does get hungry while out, take a piece of cheese or fruit to eat with you.
Let your child know that manufacturers make the boxes pretty so that people will want to buy their products even when they are not good, and make a game of you being the clever ones, not being fooled by them.
Use the information that manufacturers have to put on their products. If the label on a food your child fancies contains just a list of chemicals, say "Ugh, look! There aren't any real strawberries in that, it's just red colouring". Make her aware that manufacturers make the packet pretty in the hope that you won't look too closely at the label.

Taking this approach is both a good way to avoid buying products you do not want your child to eat, and a good consumer education for her future.

Don't 'diet'

If you are dieting, don't let your child know. It teaches her to be faddy.

Suitable snacks

Include pieces of cheese, natural, whole-milk yogurt (not fruit yogurt), raw vegetables or fruit. The best drink is water. Full-cream milk is also acceptable, but bear in mind that milk is more than a drink, it is a food.

Gifts.

Ask friends and relatives not to give sweets as gifts. And the same goes for you! If sweets are given, restrict them to, say, two only and then only once a week. And have them only after a meal, when they will do the least damage. If sweets accumulate, get rid of them quietly. No child needs to know about sweets before she starts playschool. Let your friends and relatives know that you prefer presents such as crayons, felt-tipped pens, books, sketch pads, bat and ball, knitting pins and wool, computer games - educational, of course. These will give more pleasure for longer, and they are not fattening!

Family meals.

Make sure that the family always sits down to meals together, particularly at breakfast time. If the child always has a good breakfast, she will be less likely to err later to boost flagging blood-sugar levels.

Cooking and helping.

Teach your child to cook - these days she won't learn it at school. And children love it. It's fun as well as being educational. Not only are you teaching self-sufficiency, you can teach about foods at the same time. But best of all, it could stop your child living out of packets, tins and TV dinners in future. This way she will be slimmer and healthier and, ultimately, considerably richer.

Throw away

Commercially produced desserts, cakes, cake mixes and toppings, burgers and pies, fruit drinks and squashes containing sugar, saccharine or aspartame, fruit tinned in syrup, fruit yoghurt and fruit fromage frais, sugared breakfast cereals, jam, marmalade, treacle, golden syrup, honey, sweet biscuits, blancmange and custard powder have no place in a healthy diet.

It's never too late.

If your child is already eating sugar and sweets, slowly begin to reduce the amounts so that it is not noticeable. With sugar, you may find that you can cut amounts in some recipes by half without a noticeable difference to the taste. We use a traditional Christmas cake recipe that includes both sugar and molasses. Halving the amount of sugar and excluding the molasses entirely make no appreciable difference to the taste. If you need to change eating patterns, try not to make it seem a punishment.

Parties

Make party foods mainly savoury. You may be surprised to learn that many children actually prefer this.
Make open sandwiches. These have two advantages: they are easier and quicker to make, and they contain less bread. After buttering the bread, top with any soft cheese, tinned fish, peanut butter, mashed egg, salad vegetables, or a combination of these. Make faces on some with tomato strips, red and green peppers, pieces of carrot or celery, with cress for hair and sultanas for eyes.
To save mess, make sandwiches bite-sized. Cut out rounds of bread with a pastry cutter or build upon slices of cucumber or carrot. These are difficult to butter, but soft cheese will stick. Top them with sliced ham, tuna, salmon, mackerel, tomato or grated carrot.
Make cheesy dips with pieces of raw vegetables. Fill unsightly gaps on plates with cherry tomatoes, seedless grapes, et cetera.
Build sweet courses around fresh fruit, or fruit canned in natural juice (not in syrup and not sweetened). Sweeten puddings with fruit. There are some ideas in the Recipes section of my book Natural Health & Weight Loss

Conclusion

Health patterns for later life are set in early childhood. Not only childhood diseases such as rickets and colds, the likelihood of heart disease and cancers in adulthood are also determined at this time as, of course, is obesity. Feed and teach your child good nutritional practices in the first months and years and you lay the foundation for a long, healthy (and slim) life.

References

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Last updated 22 February 2008

Part 1: Prepare for pregnancy | Part 2: Pregnancy and breast feeding | Part 3: Weaning to teething | Part 4: Growing up | Part 5: Tips

"One must attend in medical practice not primarily to plausible theories but to experience combined with reason." Hippocrates

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