Healthy Diet for Kids

♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.
Hi, I'm Mallori Tomblin, a graduate dietetics student
from Eastern Illinois University, and today I want to
stress to you the importance of how feeding a child
can be important to their health.
In 2006, the CDC reported that 17% of children ages 6 to 11
suffered from obesity, so it's our job as parents and childcare
providers to incorporate a healthy diet into their diet.
It's easy to say that feeding children can be very frustrating
and a challenging process, so we want to encourage them
to try new foods.
Often it can take up to 10 times for a child to be
introduced to a food before they actually want to try it.
It can be frustrating as a parent, so don't force
your child to eat the food.
Forcing children to eat food can cause over-eating
and emotional eating, so this is something you
want to steer clear of.
As providers, it's our responsibility and our duty
to promote a positive attitude towards eating and provide
healthy meals and snacks.
So you ask, what's one of the easiest ways to
teach children about nutrition?
Well, you can teach them portion sizing and how to
read the food label.
Portion sizing can be taught very simply.
You can teach them with just your hand.
You can teach them the fist of your hand would be the
appropriate size for an apple, or that the palm of your hand
would be an appropriate size for a serving of meat, and
the tip of your thumb would be an appropriate serving size
for an oil or a fat.
These are just simple techniques.
You can also use household items such as a tennis ball.
That would be the appropriate size, again, for a medium-sized
fruit or a CD would be an appropriate size for
a pancake or a bagel.
These are simple techniques you can use in the home
to teach children about portions.
You also want to teach children how to read a nutrition label.
Reading the label can be simple.
We want to teach them about the serving size.
Serving sizes can be directly related back to portion control.
If they know what the portion should be they can kind of
get a better guess of what the serving should be.
Also, we want to teach them about the three things
we want to look for on the label.
We want to look for calories, carbohydrates, and protein.
The three things we want to teach the children they want
to limit in their diet would be fat, cholesterol, and sodium.
We have to remember that it's our duty, again, to incorporate
these things into the child's life.
And if you're a childcare provider you're wondering,
how can I incorporate nutritious foods into my budget.
An easy way to do this would be to create a cycle menu.
Cycle menus can be created for four to five weeks.
This will allow you to cut back on stress, time, and budget.
You can do these things by once you have created a cycle menu
and you've gone through the cycle menu once or twice,
you're going to be able to project exactly how much food
you have to by when you go to the grocery store.
This is going to help you cut back on food waste.
You're also going to start to be able to buy in bulk and
that's going to help you cut back on your budget.
You can also cut back on the stress and timing of
cooking food and preparing food.
You can prepare once and eat twice, so you can prepare all
of your meals at one time and freeze them until it's time to
eat, or you could do it once a day and then eat twice a day.
Also, the cycle menus can help to eliminate stress and
time when the children are in the facility if you have
created them before hand.
It also is a great activity for the children to get involved in.
They can get involved in either the planning or preparing of the
menus and they can also learn exactly what they're eating and
if they are getting enough fruits and vegetables or grains
and dairy products throughout the week.
You can also incorporate the parents, and they can take the
menus home and incorporate nutrition at the home as well.
So if you're a parent you're wondering, what resources are
available to me to be able to learn about how to incorporate
nutrition into our lifestyle.
You could check out this book, it's "The American Dietetic
Association's Guide To How To Get Your Kids To Eat",
and it's for ages 5 to 11.
They talk about how to incorporate physical activity,
fun activities with food, and snacks that are
appropriate for children.
You can also check out Ellen Sader's book.
She is a great writer, she has lots of books about
parenting and nutrition, and this particular book is
"How To Get Your Kid To Eat, But Not Too Much".
Ellen Sader has several other books out there as well
that would be a great resource.
Now if you're a childcare provider I can't encourage you
enough to attend the Color My Nails Healthy workshop.
The Color My Nails Healthy workshop is a workshop
that is put on by INET.
INET is the Illinois Nutrition Education Training program.
They put on workshops that encourage childcare providers
to incorporate nutrition into their facilities.
If you attend the Color My Nails Healthy workshop, you
will get the "Making It Bounce and Kicking It Up" workbook.
This workbook is a great reference for
childcare providers.
It offers different recipes that are incorporated and
it gives samples of menu cycles, as well.
And also, it incorporates other worksheets about how to
incorporate nutrient-rich foods into the child's diet.
If you live in the Coles County area, or around the
Coles County area, I encourage you to attend
the Color My Nails Healthy workshop.
It is located at the Coles County Center
for Human Services.
It's going to be offered November 17, 2009
from 6 to 9 PM.
It's a free workshop and you do receive this booklet
free of cost for any childcare provider that wants to come.
So if you have anymore questions regarding the Color My Nails
Healthy workshop, please visit the INET's website, which is
kidseatwell.org, or you can call Childcare Resource Center
and Referral located at Eastern Illinois University.
So just remember, parents and providers, it is
our responsibility to incorporate a healthy diet
into our children's lives.
♪ [music playing-- no dialogue] ♪♪.