Healthy eating habits and physical activity are linked to academic achievement. Getting children excited and ready to learn are dependent upon their well-being; proper nutrition plays a significant role. Want to know more? Click here to see the full report provided by the Center for disease control (CDC).
With our fast pace society, sometimes it can be a challenge to consistently eat well. Below we have provided some fun tips to get the whole family involved in a healthy eating lifestyle.
Activities:
~Cook a healthy meal together! With your child, pick a recipe that looks good to both of you. There are plenty of recipes out there that fit all kind of tastes, budgets, and time constraints. EatingWell offers a lot of recipes online that range in time demand and difficulty. CountryLiving also offers some recipes, including crock pot recipes, which are great for people who have little time, but want a home cooked meal.
Click here to visit Eating Well.
Click here to visit Country Living.
Once you and your child pick the recipe you want to cook, go shopping for the ingredients.
Cooking is always a great time to bond with other people, and your child will get to learn things about cooking something healthy and delicious!
Cooking can also be a great time to test your child's listening skills. Read some of the recipe to your child and ask them to repeat what you said. Following a recipe is the same as following instructions. It might be a good time to share the importance of following instructions with your child.
~Look at the Nutrition Facts on some of your favorite foods. There are a lot of long, complicated words on a label, but there is one part of the nutrition label that is pretty easy to understand - serving size. With your child, count or measure out the appropriate serving size.
If you or your child don't normally eat the serving size, discuss the differences between what you measured and what you normally eat. You can discuss that serving sizes are just suggestions and not a law that must be followed. Serving sizes just let us know how to count things like calories and sugar intake.