Good Diet Necessities

Its not all about nagging and forcing our children to engage themselves in exercise and fitness but another major necessity is to help and introduce good balanced and healthy diets in our households.

Good diet and nutrition is essential to help our minds and body to stay healthy( Well maintained) fit and strong. It might be a bit hard for a parent to introduce healthy meals to her kids, all at once, but a gradual process can be the way forward.

Try and have your kids to be part of the cooking. Shop around with them and let them pick what has to be cooked for dinner provided it will be a healthy and nutritious meal. In this way, the kids will always be looking forward to have the good and appetising meal of their own choice and they will gradually become enthusiastic when it comes to healthy living and well being.

This does not mean that your child has to get rid of all her favourite junk food or unhealthy snack, but make the intake limited.

Fruits and vegetable Intake

But how do you make kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, especially when they may only want to eat the famous mcrubbish chicken nuggets and the traditional English fish and chips and you are not supposed to force kids to have their plates cleared or make meal times a chaos?

The easiest way is to let your kids become creative, let them help you make different recipes and dress up your serving line to draw attention to fruits and vegetables to encourage children to make these selections. Make it a routine and have a variety of the fruit and vegetables in case they get bored of having the same meal. More info at www.mancubs.com

One trick that often works for both fruits and vegetables is to find foods that your kids already like to eat, like smoothies, muffins, yogurt, etc., and find recipes that allow you to add fruits or vegetables to them, like banana or zucchini muffins.

Creativity on Fruits

Other helpful tips might be to:

" let your kids pick the fruits they want to eat when you go shopping

" mix fruit pieces in with yogurt or serve them with a dip or sauce

" make fruit crunchies

" offer a fruit salad,for example mixep up with oranges, grapes, strawberries, etc. as a dessert or snack

" make a snack mix with raisins, nuts and cereal

" add chopped fruit, especially berries and bananas, to your child's cereal

" try dried fruits

Creativity on Vegetables

" As it will always work, trust me on this one, let you child help you when preparing the meal.

" Have a back yard garden, where your child can be excited on eating and growing the vegetables.

" Serve the vegetables on their favorite meals.

" Let them know about the nutritious values and benefits in what they eat.

Written By Sphephile Peppy Sibanyoni