Carbohydrates, Sugar, and Your Child

Carbohydrates are the body's most important and readily available source of energy. Even though they've gotten a bad rap lately and are sometimes blamed for the obesity  epidemic in America, carbs are a necessary part of a healthy diet for both kids and adults.

The two major forms of carbs are:
   1. Simple sugars (simple carbohydrates), such as fructose, glucose, and lactose, which also are found in nutritious whole fruits
   2. Starches (complex carbohydrates), found in foods such as starchy vegetables, grains, rice, and breads and cereals

Calcium and your child

Milk and other calcium-rich foods have always been a must-have in kids' diets. After all, calcium is a key building block for strong, healthy bones. But most kids ages 9 to 18 don't get the recommended 1,300 milligrams of calcium per day.

That's not surprising when you consider that many kids now drink more soda than milk, which is one of the best sources of calcium. And teens who smoke or drink soda, caffeinated beverages, or alcohol may get even less calcium because those substances interfere with the way the body absorbs and uses calcium.

Grab a Healthy Snack

As a growing kid, you need healthy snacks to get you through the day. Regular and nutritious snacks help keep your mind alert and your energy levels up.

When you get hungry between meals, nutritious snacks give you the extra energy and nutrients you need.

Healthy Kids Activities

Think a vegetable can’t teach you anything? Well think again! Try these cool experiments and activities and see what you learn!
 

Colourful celery experiment
Place a celery stalk in a clear container. Fill it up three-quarters full with brightly coloured water (just add some food colouring). Look at what happens over the next few days. You should see the celery drinking the water.

Try the experiment with other plants – maybe one with a white flower. What do you predict will happen?

Plants draw the water up their stem and send it on to their leaves and petals. Carefully cut the stem. Can you see the coloured water inside?

Healthy Summer Snacks for Kids

One of our biggest challenges as moms is to feed our kids a healthy diet that they will actually eat. The busy, hot summer days add the extra problem of having the school agers at home all day long. They want snacks and they want them now!  They don’t care if the food is wholesome or junk, in fact they’d often prefer the latter. So begins the battle of what mom wants versus what they want. Here are a few ideas that have helped us reach a compromise.

Presentation is key. If it’s fun it’s a winner. If I put some pineapple chunks, grapes, and banana slices on a skewer and call it a fruit kabob they are on cloud nine.

Healthy Eating Tips You Kids Will Love

Every parent wants good things for their children: a positive outlook on life, a healthy respect for authority, a strong sense of self, a disease-free body…a healthy body weight. Despite our best intentions, a recent report suggests that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

With all the advances in medicine, how could this possibly be true? The blame falls squarely on today’s toxic food environment.

In short, your kids are eating too much junk.

Healthy Eating for Kids

For your children to be as fit as possible, you may want to check out the following tips about healthy eating for kids. We all want our kids to eat healthy food, but that doesn’t always happen even with the best of efforts on our part.