Simple breakfast swaps for children

This week the NZ Heart Foundation released a statement about encouraging children to eat a healthier breakfast. The media release contains the usual sobering stats on the state of children's diets. What I really liked about the second part of the media release was the idea of simple breakfast swaps. I.e. swapping a less healthy option for a healthier one. To make it easy for parents, the Heart Foundation have launched their "TICK" programme which provides an easy system to identify healthy choices in the supermarket (just look out for the "tick" from the Heart Foundation). Swapping standard breakfast options with the ones that fit the "Tick" Programme can remove more than a teaspoon of saturated fat and about as much salt as found in a packet of potato chips from your child’s breakfast every day, according to the Heart Foundation.

A Good Diet For Adolescents

For all the adolescents who are overweight and really want to do something about it, the first suggestion is: try cutting out one calorie-full but nutrition-poor food that you're crazy about. If you can't stop eating chocolate candy bars or big dishes of ice cream or those wonderful cookies—or whatever is your favorite bad-habit dish, you're probably not ready to do very much about your weight.

Another help in the direction of self-education is keeping a diet diary. Doing this in any notebook or scratch-pad for a period of at least two weeks will give you more of an idea of what you really eat than just memory will ever do. To be of the most help, such a diary should be kept closely, itemizing what was eaten at each meal and for each snack. Addition of those items not put down during the day can be done at night. Then, when the study of your eating habits for that length of time is completed, each item can be checked for nutritional value and calorie count by using any of a number of nutrition or cook books. Of even more value would be the discussion of such a diary with a nutritionist or physician.