Dubai: The problem of obesity among children in the UAE is on the rise and concurrently, the rise in early onset Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease has made it imperative for parents to rethink the food choices they are making available to their children.
Hala Barghout, a nutritionist with Barni, a division of Mondelez International, a global snacks manufacturer, feels parents are critical to helping a child develop healthy eating habits from the time they begin to eat solids, and importantly once they reach school age. “These days, the moment a child turns three and gets exposed to proper eating habits, parents spoil him with crisps, fast food and other processed food stuff. If parents were to help develop a child’s taste in healthy wholesome eating in his formative early years, the chances are he would grow up with a taste for good food.”
Children’s tiffin or lunch boxes are a giveaway of what kind of health problems a child could end up with. “Parents pack comfort food in their kid’s tiffins like processed biscuits, nuggets, etc, which results in a host of health problems among school-going children,” says Barghout. “Children are experiencing unbridled weight gain, dental decay, leaching of calcium from their bones, and low levels of Vitamin D, which results in gluten and lactose intolerance, hyperactivity, laziness, fatigue and impacts their educational performance.”
Barghout urges parents to cut out sugar and processed foods from their children’s diet and encourage them to enjoy eating lean meat, more fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrains and drink plenty of water as part of their everyday diet.
What’s a balanced diet?
A balanced diet is one that gives your body the nutrition it needs to function properly, says Barghout.
In order to get balanced nutrition, an individual, whether an adult or a child, should gain the majority of their daily calories from fresh fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, and lean proteins. A healthy, balanced diet provides essential vitamins, minerals and other nutritional foods that are required to maintain a healthy body.
“While we all understand the importance of a well-balanced meal in our lives, we tend to falter many times in making it a part of our routine either because it’s the holidays and [we need to have fun], or we are travelling [so we need to have fun] or we are bored [so we have no desire to plan properly].”
Snacking, which is an acceptable way of eating in between meals, however, has got a bad reputation because in today’s times, it usually means eating unhealthy foods or comfort foods which translates as fatty, salty, sweet foods. But healthy snacking is not necessarily a contradiction. With a bit of planning and plenty of sensibility, snacking for children can be made nutritious and pleasurable.
The most important thing, however, is to get your child to have an early start to healthy eating. This fact cannot be emphasised enough, said Barghouti.
The sooner a child is familiarised with healthy foods, the faster he learns to adapt to a healthier eating habit. If parents wait or neglect this discipline till a child is well into his habit of eating junk food, they have a bigger battle on their hands of making him reverse his food habits, she said.
It’s as simple as that.
