All families and health practitioners should encourage breastfeeding, then a wide variety of nutritious foods and exercise in all children to ensure optimal health. Good nutrition in the home from the beginning of life is essential for bringing up healthy children and ensuring these good eating habits continue. More education on practical healthy living is needed for families, especially those of school age children, to help parents realise it isn't too difficult to be healthy. I hope you find these tips helpful.

General Health Information for Children

In this day and age we are seeing more parents who are both working and extra stresses on our lives leaves less time for cooking. There is an abundance of convenient premade food and take away now targeting kids, but this leaves children eating less fresh food, more sugars, colourings and preservatives and the increase of food allergies and related illness is on the increase. 

Outlined here are some good nutritional tips on bringing up a healthy child.

Encourage:

Limit:

• Salt
• Saturated fats
• Sugar 
  

Healthy Eating Pyramid

The healthy eating pyramid from Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, published by Simon and Schuster (2001) has updated the more widely known food pyramid. It recommends the following intake:

• Daily exercise and weight control.

• Whole Grain Foods at most meals, as carbohydrates act as an energy source. Whereas refined foods such as sugar and white breads cause an increase in insulin, whole grains are digested much slower which keeps the blood sugars from falling quickly. 
• Plant Oils provide healthy calories and can protect the heart from disease and help control cholesterol. Best sources are from olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower oils and from fatty fish such as salmon. 
• Vegetables should be consumed in abundance to protect against common illness.
  
• Fruits should be eaten 2-3 times a day to provide a variety of vitamins and minerals.
  
• Fish, poultry and eggs 0-2 times a day will provide a good source of protein essential for building muscle.
  
• Nuts and legumes 1-3 times a day provides protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals plus good fats.
  
• Dairy or calcium supplements 1-2 times a day assists bone production and keeps bones strong.
  
• Red meat and butter are to be consumed sparingly to control cholesterol and saturated fat intake.
  
• Refined foods such as white rice, bread, pasta plus potato, sweets should also be used sparingly to control blood sugars and reduce the incidence of weight gain, diabetes and heart disease.
  

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