Getting your children to eat healthily

[dhakiyya]

The younger you start, the better. Babies tastes start to develop in the womb, as the amniotic fluid, which they ingest, contains extracts from the mother's diet. The same is true of breast milk. So whilst pregnant and breastfeeding the mother should be eating a varied and healthy diet anyway, as well as nourishing the child and keeping herself healthy, this is developing the child's preferences in favour of healthy food. A study showed that breastfed babies were much more open to new foods than bottle fed babies, because they were used to the idea of food (i.e. breastmilk) tasting different on different days. Bottle fed babies, being used to the same flavoured formula each day, were less likely to like new foods.

Small children want to eat what their parents are eating. So eat with them. Family meals have gone out of fashion in some sections of society and this is a very bad trend. Eating together is family time, and where meals are fun occasions, children usually want to eat. Also this means setting a good example. If your children see you eating junk food, whilst you are serving them healthy food, they will want to eat junk food. If you all eat healthy food together they are more likely to like the healthy food inshaAllah.

Don't pressure young children into eating. Eating is supposed to be enjoyable. Expect fads and fussiness, its a phase that most kids go through, often starting around 18 months-2 years when their rate of growth slows down (so they need a lot less food than they did as babies) and also when the "terrible twos" kick in as they start to assert their independence. Don't cater to their every whim, simply tell them what there is for this meal, and that if they don't eat it there's nothing until (add next scheduled food time here). Give them a little choice if available, e.g. do they want peas or carrots with it. Praise them when they eat well, don't make a big deal if they don't. All the people on "freaky eaters" (documentaries about people who can't cope with eating anything except the most limited, unhealthy diet, who are almost phobic of normal food) - all of them described being repeatedly and systematically forced to eat as small children.

more to follow...

[dhakiyya]

An experiment done on a recent BBC documentary - A class of five year old kids were given raisins and dried mango slices to try. When asked, there was no overall preference for either of them, they liked them both. Over the next few weeks, the teacher gave the kids a snack break, where they were allowed mango slices for the whole break, but only allowed raisins right at the end of the break. As time went on, the kids became less and less interested in the mango slices, and more and more eager for raisins, and how much they reported that they liked raisins went up and up. So much so that at the end of the experiment, they were pushing and shoving each other to get to the raisins, and waiting eagerly until they were told they were allowed them, whilst the mango slices were completely ignored. This demonstrates that having food there, that children are not allowed to eat, greatly increases their desire to eat the food.

From this, the following suggestions should help parents to encourage kids to like healthy foods.

First of all, don't have unhealthy foods in the house, or if you do (for parents consumption only) make sure the kids don't know about them, ever.

Secondly, use this principle to make your children like friut or vegetables. Have a fruit bowl and vegetable snacks (like carrot and celery sticks or cherry tomatoes etc) in view of the children but out of reach, and tell them that if they are good they can have some later, but they are not allowed any now. If they are hungry between meals, offer a boring but healthy food as a snack (e.g. organix kiddie rice cakes - the plain ones) and if they ask for fruit, give a time later in the day (e.g. after dinner) when they can have one, if they've been good. Keep this up, keep the fruitbowl within reach and vary the fruits and veg snacks available, different colours to keep it looking enticing. Every now and then, let them have fruit earlier in the day, as a special treat, or cause they were extra extra good or something :up:

[ibn suleman]

:jkk:

thats an interesting experiment that mango slices/raisans one :up:

hmm... need kids to try it on now :D

[Al-Qamar]

I believe this is the case.

Get the kids to eat spinach early on masha'Allah.

The food I eat, my family finds horrid. Eg, soya milk, Burgen bread (soya and linseed), Chocolate soya drink, Capella apple juice, Blueberry drinks, fruit smoothies, Oatibix, herbal tea, mackarel, iron liquid supplement (which is truly disgusting) etc. But as they the best things in life are fattening, unhealthy and cheap.

PS. How does iron supplements help the body?

[.: Anna :.]

what show was the mango n raison thing on? i wd have liked 2 watch... thats pretty interesting. jazakallah khayr for ur advice on this topic sis :up:

[dhakiyya]

Iron supplements only help if you are deficient in iron to begin with. Iron is needed to make red blood cells. However once you have enough red blood cells, you don't need more iron, and in fact too much iron can be toxic. If you are eating meat, fresh fruit and veg (especially green veg) then you don't need iron supplements, unless there is another reason for anaemia (e.g. heavy blood loss from something)

The rest of your diet sounds delish though :up: I eat tonnes of soya products cause I'm allergic to dairy products, and its not easy to get halal meat round here (I have lots of recipes for tofu if anyone is interested :up: )

[Al-Qamar]

Does it also matter what diet the father is on before conceiving children, or is it the mother that needs to watch her diet more?

[dhakiyya]

what show was the mango n raison thing on? i wd have liked 2 watch... thats pretty interesting. jazakallah khayr for ur advice on this topic sis :up:

It was on BBC2 about getting kids to eat healthily. They also found that primary school age kids will eat foods they don't like much if the other kids are eating them and saying how great they are. (its a bit harder to manipulate this one, although if your kids have friends that like to eat healthy, send them round for tea often lol :p)

[Al-Qamar]

Iron supplements only help if you are deficient in iron to begin with. Iron is needed to make red blood cells. However once you have enough red blood cells, you don't need more iron, and in fact too much iron can be toxic. If you are eating meat, fresh fruit and veg (especially green veg) then you don't need iron supplements, unless there is another reason for anaemia (e.g. heavy blood loss from something)

The rest of your diet sounds delish though :up: I eat tonnes of soya products cause I'm allergic to dairy products, and its not easy to get halal meat round here (I have lots of recipes for tofu if anyone is interested :up: )

Subhan'Allah, I don't think I have an iron defficiancy alhumdulillah, just thought I'd try iron supplements by Floradix since they had no Magnesium supplement in stock.

Iron liquid is disgusting, but I think I'll see the whole bottle through, only got 80% left to take.

[dhakiyya]

Subhan'Allah, I don't think I have an iron defficiancy alhumdulillah, just thought I'd try iron supplements by Floradix since they had no Magnesium supplement in stock.

Iron liquid is disgusting, but I think I'll see the whole bottle through, only got 80% left to take.

I'd leave it if I were you. Give it to someone who is anaemic. Also iron tablets are a lot more pleasant.

Magnesium is different, men should take magnesium and zinc supplements. Women do need to take iron supplements sometimes as women are more in danger of becoming anaemic.

Generally its better to take multivitamins/minerals because the different vitamins and minerals interact with each other and need each other to work better or be properly absorbed. For example without vitamin C you can't absorb iron, without vitamin D calcium can't be used by the body and so on. You can get different ones, some designed for men some for women, some for pregnancy/trying for a baby, and so on.