1. Factors That
Influence Your
Child’s Health:
Nutrition
University Medical Center
Nutrition Services
Developing Proper Nutrition Habits Can Help
Your Child Lead A Healthier Lifestyle
You should make sure that your child eats breakfast as it sets
healthier nutrition habits throughout the day. Getting your child
to get the proper nutrition fulfillment can become difficult if your
child is a picky eater. Ask your child to taste everything you’ve
prepared even if they don’t eat. It takes seven to twelve times for a
child to try a new food before they will accept it. It is also a good
idea to stick to a schedule for meal and snack times. You should
not talk too much about calories, fat, or dieting with your child and
instead talk to them about a healthy lifestyle.
When thinking about what meals to prepare your child you
should consider using less fat, salt, and sugar in the dishes. There
are a few simple tips that can help you achieve this. One of these
tips is to use olive or canola oil instead of butter or margarine.
Instead of frying food items you should bake or roast them. You
can oven fry food instead of deep frying them to achieve the
crunch factor that kids love. In order to avoid your child from over
salting items, you should keep the salt shaker off of the table. It is
also a good idea to keep plenty of fruits and vegetables in the
fridge for kids to snack on instead of chips. In order to limit the
amount of sugar that your child receives you should choose cereals
that have a limited amount of sugar in them. You should avoid
oversized portions and make sure half of your child’s plate consist
of fruits and vegetables. For more information on this topic please
visit https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-
topic/weight-control/helping-your-child-tips-parents/Pages/
helping-your-child-tips-for-parents.aspx#c
2. Why is nutrition important for
children?
Getting your child to want to eat healthier
can be a challenge. However, it is a vital key
to making sure that your child leads a
healthy lifestyle. Poor nutrition habits over
time can lead to an increased risk of devel-
oping diabetes, heart disease, high blood
pressure, and high cholesterol, among other
Children ages four to eight need approxi-
mately 1,200 to 1,400 calories a day ac-
cording to the United States Department of
Agriculture. An important lesson to re-
member is that your child can eat anything
as long as it is in moderation. According to
the State of Obesity, Alabama’s obesity rate
in children ages two to four is 14.1% and it
ranks Alabama the 20th most obese states
of the forty-one states that were included.
An important lesson to remember is that
your child can eat anything as long as it is
moderation. While you can’t completely
control what your child is eating at school,
you can control what your child is given at
home. It is important to remember to feed
your child a variety of fruits and vegetables
as they provide all different types of vita-
mins and nutrients that are needed. An
easy way to remember this is to “feed your
child the rainbow”. Dark leafy greens such
as spinach and kale provide excellent
sources of iron and vitamin A which is
needed for eye sight development, among
other things. For more information please
visit https://fnic.nal.usda.gov/lifecycle-
nutrition/child-nutrition
