5 tips for children to eat less snacks and stay healthy without getting fat

During the Chinese New Year, every household will definitely store some biscuits and candies, which can be used as snacks for chatting when friends and relatives come to visit. It is also a great opportunity for children to eat snacks. Although it is the Chinese New Year holiday, parents should still remember not to let their children eat too much, otherwise they will gain weight after a year.

Eating too many cookies, candies and other snacks during the Chinese New Year may not only cause tooth decay, but also affect children's dietary health.

Taking a stroll around the New Year's shopping street, it is not difficult to find snacks commonly eaten during the New Year, such as squid shreds of various flavors, beef and pork jerky, or colorful soft candies, or candied fruits with many seasonings. Although it is always felt that these are the things to eat during the New Year, most of them are high-calorie, high-sugar, and high-salt foods, and eating too much will only be harmful to your health.

According to a four-year follow-up study conducted by Leann Birch, professor of human development at the University of Pennsylvania, on 140 five-year-old girls and their parents, the results found that children can control their intake of snacks before the age of three, but as they grow older, they will gradually be tempted by external food and influenced by the environment, and tend to eat up the food in front of them, which makes them develop the habit of eating more and more snacks when they grow up.

Therefore, before the age of 5 is a critical period for training children to develop good eating habits. This does not mean that children should be completely prohibited from eating snacks, as long as they choose healthy and nutritious snacks. So, how can parents prevent their children from eating too many cookies and candies at home?

Parents should prepare more high-fiber, fruit, and light snacks to avoid exposing their children to too much junk food.

Choose Snack Type

• Rich in nutrients: various fruits, bread, whole-wheat biscuits, etc., and remember to change the types often to prevent children from getting tired of them. You can also choose some nutritionally fortified foods, such as foods containing iron, zinc, and calcium, but you should choose according to the needs of your child. For example, if your child suffers from nutritional anemia, you can choose iron-containing biscuits.

• Low-sugar, low-fat, and cold snacks: Cakes, candies, canned fruits, and chocolates that are too sweet or too greasy are not suitable as daily snacks for children, because they are not only high in calories and fat and difficult to digest, but may also cause obesity. In addition, it is not advisable for children to drink cold drinks and soda as boiled water every day. Sugary drinks are one of the causes of many chronic diseases or nutritional imbalance.

In addition to carefully choosing the types of snacks, remember to control the frequency of snacking. Between lunch and dinner, or after a nap, you can let your children eat some snacks or fruits, which should account for 10% to 15% of the total daily calories. It can not only solve the problem of children's gluttony, but also supplement nutrition at the same time, killing two birds with one stone.

★《Tips》10 tips to help children eat healthily