Maryann Tomovich Jacobsen, MS, RD writes a blog about children’s eating habits on Raise Healthy Eaters. If you have children, and they eat food, then this is a must read blog!
She recently wrote a post about children and snacking Is Your Kid a “Good” or “Bad” Snacker?. I have found that I am doing great with planning healthy meals for Jackson, but I often forget about the other two meals of the day – the snacks! Maryann says you should treat snacks as mini-meals.
Calling it a mini-meal turned on a lightbulb for me – Of course it is a mini-meal! Kids only have 3 meals and two mini-meals per day, so if we give them junk food for their mini meals, we are losing valuable opportunities to get healthy options in their bellies.
Calling it a snack said to me “just get something in them to tie them over until dinner”. However, calling it a mini-meal made helps to make the snack sound more important to me. It may even make me feel guilty if I let him have those fruit snacks instead of a healthier option. Who says a little guilt is a bad thing?
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Thanks for recommending my site! Mini meals (AKA snacks) are an important part of kids’ diets. But it’s also okay to provide non-nutritious foods during snacks so kids don’t feel deprived. So a couple times a week you might want to provide Jackson with cookies and milk or fruits snacks etc. The key is to provide healthier options 80-90% and fun foods the other times.
Thanks Maryann. As always you are full of rational and realistic advice for us moms trying to raise healthy eaters. 🙂