Children and diet

Healthy eating and kids

One of the main issues worrying Doctors is the rise in obesity in children and the complications associated to this problem. Latest figures show that 19 per cent of five-year-olds and a third of 15-year-olds in the UK are overweight. Many blame this rise on convenience foods and the pushover the last 10 years or so away from home cooking. Many contribute the rise in sales of convenience foods to the increasing amount of situations where more and more mothers are HAVING to work and time is of the essence. In some cases many people also believe that buying ready-made meals is the best way to get decent 'home-cooked' style foods into their children at the right price.

One look at the labelling on many of these meals will show that this is not entirely correct also by the time some of these foods have cooked you could have made a home-cooked healthier meal from scratch. Many have added ingredients such as bulking agents, E Numbers and in many cases Hydrogenated Fats, which have proven links to increased chances of heart disease and other illnesses such as high cholesterol and blood-pressure. More and more children are being treated for diabetes and illnesses such as Asthma which are believed to be caused by bad-diet and being overweight.

I am a mother or two boys and know the difficulties faced in trying to get your children to eat fresh vegetables and fruits and have over the years discovered a few tricks to get these foods passed their lips. It is a tough battle as packaging and advertising has a lot to do with it and it can sometimes feel like an uphill struggle. I am not saying that I don't allow my kids burgers or chocolate and sweets but it is all about moderation. I have banned stuff with hydrogenated fats and certain e-numbers and I certainly don't feel that there is anything wrong with explaining to the kids why I would rather they don't eat these things. I have had an on-going battle where over the last few years the boys have begged and begged me to let them try a certain 'fruit' drink that is marketed as healthy etc, etc, so one day we read through the ingredients and I pointed out that it contained vegetable fat amongst all the other junk on the label - I then let them make up there own minds and their initial thoughts were 'YEUK, why would anyone want to drink vegetable fat?' I let them taste it and they decided it was revolting and they would stick to fruit juices etc from now on.

Maybe sometimes we need to let our children be involved in making decisions for themselves. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't - but hey, there is no rule book when it comes to being a parent and what is good for one is not necessarily good for another! It is all about trial and error.

As I said before I have learnt some tricks along the way and I would like to share them with you and also some of my recipes that I find the kids love. We always find pack lunches a bit of a pain as it can be hard to get stuff to put in that is healthy and 'cool' but do you know what? My kids are now coming home from school saying that other kids were asking for some of their lunch and the mums are calling me to ask for recipes and tips 'cos their kids are going home asking for the same lunches as my boys! So now, the majority of kids are having wraps and pasta salads like my two which I have to be honest makes my life a lot easier.

I have found that getting the kids involved has been the best way forward. We are lucky in that we have a good sized garden and living in Spain means we can grow a lot of our own stuff. But things like herbs etc don't need a lot of space and can give your food a lot more flavour than dried herbs - you can grow them in window boxes and they are pretty hardy so can withstand the cold too. I get the kids to go and pick the herbs for the bolognaise and other dishes and I also involve them in the baking too, which of course they love. I remember one day when they were younger making a pot of lentil soup, which they love to this day. My eldest came into the kitchen and looked in the pot and said "That's not our soup is it mummy? Ours doesn't have vegetables in it?" So, knowing if at that stage I said yes it wouldn't be eaten. I told him that it was mine and daddies I hadn't made theirs. Later I took out some blended it and put it in another pot and they wolfed it down. Now of course they know the 'truth' and they love it still. We have smoothies in the morning a few days a week where we blend up all sorts of fruit with yoghurt and/or milk, takes two minutes and the kids (and us) love them but it's a great way to get fruit into them and most of the time they choose what goes in.

I have also been known to make gravy with vegetables blended into it to 'hide' the vegetables when friend's children have been round that don't eat anything green!!! My kids are by no means perfect but they will eat veg and fruit, some days under duress like all children. They will try most things as I have always said to them 'How can you tell me you don't like something if you have never tried it?' If they try it and find they don't like it - fine, not a problem! I just try again later.

Get kids involved in cooking the meals or baking with you. If they are making it they will invariably eat it. Muffins with fruit in such as bananas or berries, oatmeal cookies, homemade cakes - ok still got the sugar still got the fat but at least you know what is going into them. And latest research shows that more people are returning to home-cooking and baking. So come on try some of these recipes and give me your feed-back. Why not post some of your kid's favourite recipes? LETS GET COOKING!!! Make it cool and fun and see what happens!

Pasta with Sausage and Basil
Garlic Chicken Drumsticks
Banana Muffins (Good at any time of the day even breakfast)
Blueberry Breakfast Muffins
Caramel Oat Bars
Banana and Toffee Pancakes

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