Showing posts with label Eating Habits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eating Habits. Show all posts

Health and Food Tips: 7 Healthy Eating Habits for Parents

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If we parents should make just one promise to ourselves that concerns children, it should be a life-long investment on health. Tips for effective parenting come only from parents having healthy eating habits. This is where strong minds and body come from.  Poor parenting comes from having poor health and chronic sicknesses.  Parents can only take care of their kids as much as they can take good care of their own selves.

Being busy parents is not an excuse for not taking care of ourselves.  This is true when it comes to providing themselves with right food and nutrition.  Without understanding the healthy eating habits, parents tend to eat less and choose the wrong kinds of food.  Today, they are more concerned about their children’s welfare and simply neglect their health.  All through the day, 24 hours is given to children and there’s almost no time left for themselves. 


Healthy eating habits all parents should develop:

1.   Consume less meat, and buy leaner cuts.  Before eating, pick the leanest option, trim all visible fats from meat and remove the skin from poultry.  Don’t go on a crash diet; this is risky to your health.  Maintaining healthy eating habits means discipline on the part of parents.

2.   Never assume that a fat-free or low-fat label indicates the right food diet.  These labels do not necessarily mean the product is also low in calories.  Also, watch out for sugar and sodium content.  Since fat plays a big part in making foods taste good, sugar and sodium may be added to make up for the lack of fat.  By going fat-free, you may take in excess calories, which are eventually converted into body fat.

3.   Healthy eating habits help parents keep blood cholesterol levels.  Eat more oats, carrots, chick-peas, and soybean foods.  Use lots of garlic in your food.  This powerful clove keeps down blood pressure, cancer, infections, and diabetes.

4.   Take time to chew your food, as this prolongs eating and gives you the feeling of fullness.  It also aids digestion and helps you savour the food fully.  If you must reach for seconds, wait for 20 minutes after you’ve finished the firsts.  It takes that long for your brain to know that your stomach is full.

5.   Drink a full glass of water before a meal, and another one during the meal, even when you’re dining out.  This aids digestion and makes you feel full.  The healthy way to eating habits is avoiding salty foods: anchovies, smoked fish, pickles, capers, luncheon meats, salted snacks.  Use honey only if you prefer its flavour.  Honey is no more nourishing than ordinary sugar.

6.   Eat potatoes for Vitamin B and C, minerals and protein.  The potato has the undeserved reputation as a fattening food.  However, it is the butter we use when we eat baked potatoes that add up the calories. Whenever possible, eat the skins of the fruits and vegetables.  You get the most nutrients that way including the roughage you need.  Including fibers make healthy eating habits important for parents. 

7.   Cut down on bacon, ham and other treated meat products.  They contain sodium nitrate and nitrites are widely believed to be cancer-causing.  Neither excessive fat consumption nor fat phobia is good for parents healthy eating habits.  We have to get the pendulum back to the middle where there is a place for some fat in our lives.

Above all, remember that balance, variety and moderation tips form the basis of a healthful diet.  These are the genuine, healthy ways to all eating habits parents can do.  They need to get out nutrients from each food.  This means 50 to 55% from carbohydrates, 15% from protein, and 25 to 30% from fat.  Parents should learn to eat these without having guilt on themselves.





    Eating Habits : Keys to Developing Healthy Eating among Children

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    Children naturally eat food when they are feeling hungry.  There are times they don’t want to eat, not because they don’t like the food but because they're not really hungry.  But if they want to eat, they ask for food.  This is not same with adults who keep eating even they're already full. Unfortunately, many children are now overweight kids because they are trained to eat like adults.

      
    Our present generation has lots of bad food to offer every day.  If these foods have become choices of your children, sooner or later it will be their lifestyle.  Today, responsible parents should apply corrective measures as far as food is concerned and take into consideration their child's health.  So here are some ways to enhance good eating habits in your homes:

    Tips for Eating Kids

    1. Avoid limiting or controlling food.  If parents have the habit of restricting food to their children, the latter will only build up eating disorder like bulimia or anorexia later in their lives.  It has chances of having defective growth development.

    2.  Always make healthy food available.  Children will normally eat what they see.  Display a variety of fruit on a big bowl.  Offer some apples for snack.  As much as possible never put on display anything that you don’t want them to eat—something that’s not healthy to eat.  Keep in mind that a child will be eating food that is seen in the house.

    3.  Never brand the food as “bad” or “good.”  Rather, tie the food to the stuffs your children love so much like appearance, sports, cartoon, or toys.  Tell them how certain food like turkey and other lean meat can provide them protein, how calcium in dairy products provide them energy for physical performance and sports.  Fruits and vegetables serve as antioxidants.

    4.  Give compliment if they choose healthy food.  Show your appreciative smile and let your children understand how smart they have become because of healthy food they eat.

    5.  Avoid nagging at your children if they have unhealthy food choices.  Just ignore it, if they do.  Or if the child likes eating fried, high-cholesterol content, fatty food, then redirect the choice.  Offer them to try roasted potatoes in the oven, rather than french fries.  Or if he likes candy, you optionally offer fresh strawberries coated with less chocolate sauce.  Too busy to do it?  Then give them organic sweet dried fruit for quick snacks.

    6.  Food is not good to reward a child.  Eating creates only weight problems in their bodies.  Better yet, reward them with things for fun and physical benefits like an adventurous journey, fast catching games, or hide and seek family play.

    7.  Seek advice from your health care specialist.  It helps if you regularly visit your child’s doctor and nutritionist before doing a diet for your child, changing the type of food, attempting to help him gain or lose weight.  Don’t make any diagnose that your child is underweight or overweight.

    Changing your children’s diet and eating lifestyle are continuing and not overnight.  All food outside the house can make overweight kids.  Each time they are off home, people around can make them eat much and indulge in wrong food.  But the eating style they learn from you is capable of protecting them for a lifetime!