How to Meet the Challenge of Nutrition for School-Age Children

How to Meet the Challenge of Nutrition for School-Age Children

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The following article (with slightly different formatting) was first turned in as an assignment for my nutrition class.

What Elementary School-Aged Children Need in Their Diets

Elementary school-aged children, perhaps surprisingly, do not have radically different nutritional requirements than adults. They are, however, in a period of significant transition, from being fed to having a greater responsibility for their own diets, and this presents the greatest challenges to healthy eating during this period.

Most nutrient requirements in the 4-8 age group are remarkably similar to the adult requirements, although, of course, scaled for body size and daily caloric intake. The one notable exception is protein. Pound-for-pound, the recommended protein intake for children is slightly higher than (non-pregnant) adults: 0.95 grams per kilogram of body weight per day, versus 0.80 g/kg per day (Institute of Medicine, 2005). The increased protein requirement helps facilitate growth. In practical terms, this difference is somewhat negligible; the average consumer would never notice the difference in the underlying figures by looking at the recommended totals.

In addition to the slightly increased protein intake, the rapid growth during this stage probably makes it wise to also be vigilant about the intake of calcium and its sister mineral, magnesium. This will be supportive of the bones which are having to grow, solidify, and support an increasingly greater body weight. In this country, though, the greatest difficulty is typically not in having access to the right balance of nutrients; it is getting children to actually eat it.

Challenges

Up to this point, children’s eating habits have been highly dependent. They more or less eat what they’re fed. (They may balk, but they have had little control over what is available.) With the transition to school comes increased independence. They may begin to influence purchases by expressing their preferences, choose what goes in their lunchboxes, or purchase/borrow/beg/trade for foods outside the home. This makes it imperative to make healthy foods palatable for picky eaters and to influence the development of food-related habits and thought processes in a healthy way.

Depending on the community, a seemingly contradictory challenge may also present itself. Children who want to make healthy choices may find themselves stymied by their parents’ inability to cook. This may necessitate both educating parents and providing some easy-to-prepare, no-cook (or “low-cook”) options that children can handle on their own.

Solutions

Given all the points just presented, how do we address them? The approach is multi-faceted, and which aspects are emphasized will depend greatly on the setting. We can educate children, present appealing options, get them involved, teach parents, and advocate in our communities.

Educate Children About Good Nutrition

Educating children involves informing them of facts, and increasing their awareness. Children are never too young to begin learning that what they eat affects how they feel and how their bodies work. Their understanding will gradually increase with age, of course, but children can learn where food comes from, that some is more processed than others, that different foods present different nutrients, etc.

They can learn that every calorie they take in is like a “space” that is now occupied, and if those spaces are all filled up with “empty” calories, they run out of room for the foods with nutrients.

Perhaps most importantly, they can be made aware of how their food makes them feel, learning to pay attention to their bodies’ signals for hunger or thirst, or that a food gives them energy or makes them feel bad.

Present Them with Appealing Options

We can also present children with appealing options. If the only vegetables a child ever sees are mushy, grey peas from a can, he probably will not like vegetables very much! Crisp red radishes and sweet, vibrant orange carrots on top of crunchy romaine lettuce is much more appealing. If he doesn’t like cooked spinach, maybe he enjoys it raw. If sauteed broccoli is not a favorite, maybe roasted broccoli is. The idea is to make healthy food a joy, not drudgery, even if it takes a little bit of experimentation to figure out what he likes.

It is also important to keep in mind that “good enough” that we actually eat is far better than “perfect” that we don’t. Raw carrots and broccoli with Ranch dressing is a vast improvement over an absence of veggies. If a little chocolate in the milk is what it takes for a child to find it palatable, the calcium might be worth the trade-off. A little of a not-so-healthy, but flavorful ingredient can go a long way toward making the really healthy foods edible. “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” as Mary Poppins said. As long as the balance is healthy, it’s worth letting these little things slide.

The same is true of other lifestyle choices. Very few people are going to want to exercise if “exercising” means squat thrusts and ab crunches. Dodgeball in the backyard is a lot more fun. Teach the kids hopscotch or jump rope rhymes like we used when we were children. Get them riding bicycles or swinging. Or find an activity they enjoy, like baseball, dance, or horseback riding. Get them involved in active hobbies, and that will create healthy habits they can carry forward through life.

Get Them Involved

One method that often helps to make the healthy options more appealing is to get the children themselves involved. A preschooler who “hates” radishes might relish eating the radishes he grew in the flower bed. (Radishes are a really good introductory plant for little ones, because they grow quickly.) A child who balks at vegetables might enjoy choosing something “weird” from the international market and learning about how to prepare it. The child who learns to cook is usually more interested in eating.

In order to get the children involved, though, we might need to educate the parents. Many of the parents in this generation never learned to cook. They stick with frozen chicken nuggets and boxed macaroni and cheese primarily because they don’t know how to prepare anything else. Community classes can be a help. Friendly neighbors can help. Even the children themselves can help, if we teach them simple skills they can then pass on to their parents. Something as simple as providing recipes that are wholesome but easy may be the difference between a family eating processed food and a family eating real food.

Advocate for Health in Your Community

Finally, we can advocate for health in our communities. Those community cooking classes? Somebody has to teach them. Somebody has to fight for the schools to serve proper food. Many schools have been cutting back on or eliminating recess. If we believe it’s important for children to move, we may even have to fight for recess! Community gardens might be a need in areas where homes often do not have yards with planting space. Even encouraging an appreciation for weeds can be beneficial to children’s health, if it decreases the amount of pesticides community residents spray on their lawns.

Recommended Eating

For the most part, the meals I would recommend for school-aged children would be the same I would recommend to anyone: whole, real foods, as unprocessed as reasonably possible. Particular recipes that would be helpful for this age, though, would fall into two categories: healthy snacks, and from-scratch versions of kid-friendly favorites. A few examples follow.

• 2 c. warm water
• 4 c. whole wheat flour (bread flour or all-purpose, not pastry flour)
• 1 Tbsp. instant yeast
• ½ tsp. salt
• 8 oz. tomato sauce
• 1 Tbsp. oregano
• 4 c. grated mozzarella cheese
• pizza toppings as desired

1. Mix the warm water with half of the flour and the yeast. Let sit for 15-20 minutes.
2. Add salt and remaining flour. Shape into two crusts on greased baking sheets or stones.
3. Mix oregano into tomato sauce and spread over pizzas.
4. Top pizzas with cheese and other toppings as desired.
5. Bake in a preheated 450-degree oven for about 14 minutes.

References

Institute of Medicine. (2005). Dietary reference intakes for energy, carbohydrate, fiber, fat, fatty acids, cholesterol, protein, and amino acids. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Petersen, D. (2015). NAT 308: Holistic Nutrition. Portland, OR: American College of Healthcare Sciences.

Original article and pictures take titus2homemaker.com site