On September 1, working days for children begin, and mothers will again think about what to feed the child, what to give with them.

– For a child, as well as for an adult, three principles are important: balance, moderation and variety, – says our permanent expert, nutritionist Lyudmila Denisenko. We’ll tell you a few secrets on how to achieve this.

1. For breakfast, there must be a hot dish, best of all containing starch – porridge, potatoes, pasta. Starch is digested rather slowly, due to which the resulting glucose enters the bloodstream in small portions, so there is enough energy for a long time. Vegetables and fruits are a good addition. From drinks – juices, tea, coffee with milk.

IMPORTANT!

Pushing children during meals, and especially at breakfast, should never be! If the child eats slowly, he will eat less and get full sooner, and if he just doesn’t want to eat anymore and picks at the plate, delaying this process, just see him out of the table, never force him to finish eating if he is no longer wants to eat! This will help him avoid weight problems in the future.

2. Snacks. Packaged juices are not the best option, but certainly the best choice when it comes to what to give your child to school for a “snack”. 200-gram bags with tubes of juices (namely, juices, not nectars, etc., carefully follow the labels, it must be 100% natural juice without sugar and preservatives) + cookies, crackers, a sandwich, about which a little later, vegetables or fruits are a wonderful “brake” to school!

– I even allow the intake of juices with meals, as part of the diet, but I beg you not to teach children to drink juice to quench their thirst, just like that, and especially on an empty stomach! – warns Lyudmila Denisenko. – This also applies to fresh juices, rather even fresh juices in the first place! Fresh juices (I’m talking about fruit juices), with all their apparent advantages, are fraught with many “pitfalls”! I have already said it many times, but I will repeat it again: it takes 2-3 oranges to prepare a glass of, for example, orange juice. How long would it take us to eat them? 5-10 minutes! Plus the work of the teeth, plus fiber for the intestines, plus the uniform consumption of released insulin, plus the feeling of satiety from a full stomach. All in all, a great benefit! What about fresh? We drink the same three oranges per minute, minus some of the fiber, minus the work of the jaws, and a big minus – a quick emptying of the stomach without the effect of saturation and an almost instantaneous release of insulin, which, in fact, has nothing to break down! And its excess, you know what it leads to! In addition, orange fresh contains essential oils that irritate the gastric mucosa and can cause gastritis. These oils disappear if you put the juice on ice for 15-20 minutes. Therefore, there are no fresh juices on an empty stomach, only during meals, or after it, drink slowly, and even better, through a straw! And for overweight children, either not give fruit juices at all, or dilute them in half with drinking water!

3. Remember that breaks between meals in children should not exceed 4 hours (for adults – 5), so that there is no stagnation of bile. If the school organizes hot meals, then it will be enough for the child to put 2-3 cookies, a bag of juice, an apple or a pear. If he does not have the opportunity to fully eat at school, you need to take care of a sufficient “snack”.

“Many mothers make impressive sandwiches with butter, cheese, sausage for their children, and then complain that the child does not eat anything for lunch,” the nutritionist complains. – Not only is sausage, in principle, not the best choice for a child, but it also tends to deteriorate rather quickly. The best option is a piece of boiled meat (beef or chicken) + vegetables, such as cucumber, bell pepper, carrot, and even a cabbage leaf. Add low-fat cheese, give a bottle of drinkable yogurt. Now there are a lot of plastic containers for school lunches in stores, even with separate cells for different products.

4. It is undesirable to interrupt the appetite with sandwiches, chips, sweets. A large number of pastries, sweets, sodas leads to metabolic disorders. The body gets used to the fact that it needs to process a lot of sweets, and therefore more insulin is released than necessary. This condition is called hyperinsulinemia. It develops even in thin teenagers and is fraught with an increased risk of diabetes. Due to the high level of insulin in schoolchildren, episodes of hypoglycemia may occur, when the blood sugar level drops significantly. Hypoglycemia can be recognized by an acute feeling of hunger between meals, severe dizziness on an empty stomach. How as a rule, a teenager gets rid of such a state by repeated use of sweets or buns. In the future, this can lead to overweight and even obesity.

5. A student’s lunch depends on where he gets it, at home or at school. But in any case, the lunch menu should include a small first – meat, chicken, fish, vegetarian soup with greens, the second dish – boiled or stewed meat, fish with a side dish of vegetables and dessert.

– If for an adult the first course is optional (but desirable!), then for children it is simply necessary, – the expert emphasizes. – Again, avoid fatty first courses, and especially bone broth!

6. If there is a long period of time between lunch and dinner, it is advisable to add an afternoon snack – fresh fruit with natural yogurt, or cheese with tea, or milk with a whole grain bun.

7. For dinner – egg, or cottage cheese, vegetable, fish dish, tea, juice or milk. Bread is best served with rye or grain. Pastries, cakes, halva, chocolate, etc. should not be included in the daily diet of a child (and an adult too!), It is better to leave them on weekends and holidays.

Be sure to make sure that the child drinks a sufficient amount of ordinary drinking water during the day – at least 1-2 liters (depending on age and weight)!

BY THE WAY

Several healthy breakfast options

– I recommend whole grain cereals, although, of course, you have to tinker – soak the cereal for the night, put it on the fire in the morning, bring to a boil, add a little salt, reduce the heat to a minimum – that’s it, go about your business – morning toilet, fees for work -school-kindergarten, – recommends our expert. – After 30-40 minutes, the porridge is ready. Try not to boil it, let it be crumbly porridge, and not “slurry”!

+ Even easier – pour boiling water over the cereal overnight in a thermos, and get a 100% healthy product in the morning. For yourself, you can dilute porridge with half milk (an excellent choleretic effect!), For a child with normal weight – whole, but do not try to add “fatter”! 2.5% is optimal! Let’s add fruits to the porridge – any, according to the season, you can also dry fruits, after soaking them in water, you can even use compote.

+ Non-working mothers or early risers can treat their households to pancakes or pancakes, a wonderful breakfast option, provided that these dishes are from wholemeal flour, or from oatmeal, buckwheat, etc., and always with “baking” – from pumpkin, zucchini, cabbage, apples …

+ The so-called “carbohydrate” breakfasts should be alternated with “protein” ones. What it is? For example, an omelet with vegetables and kefir, or cottage cheese with fruit. Eggs are a nutritious, high-protein food, they are also a source of choline – a vitamin-like substance that is essential for a growing body! With eggs, you should be careful only if the child is allergic to protein, but even then it is not advisable to refuse the yolks! It is not for nothing that the yolk was previously introduced as one of the first complementary foods in babies!

+ Curd breakfast can be very tasty: 100g of cottage cheese (for men it can be fatter, for girls and girls – with zero fat content) + banana (peach – raspberry – melon – anything – any fruit or berries 50-100-150 g, so that the amount carbohydrates obtained from them did not exceed 10 g per serving.Fruits and berries can be fresh, dried, fresh-frozen, canned without sugar!Plus 50-100g of kefir or natural yogurt (fat content up to 2.5%!), Whip all this in a blender – breakfast is ready!Add a few crackers from various grains, or a whole grain bun, and let the child eat it all slowly, not in one gulp, but slowly and with pleasure!