Child nutrition: How to keep your kids healthy and safe this summer

Adequate nutrition is essential to keep kids healthy and comfortable during summers.

New Delhi: Now that summer has arrived and it's time for parents, particularly mothers, to ensure that their child doesn't leave half their food uneaten.

As the temperature is soaring high with each passing day, it is quite likely that your child's energy is getting drained, leaving him exhausted and hungry. Therefore adequate nutrition is essential to keep them healthy and comfortable during summers.

Sujetha Shetty, nutritionist and diet expert at online fitness platform Gympik, and Gulneer Puri, dietician at tele-medicine platform Doctor Insta, suggests some healthy eating tips to keep your child healthy and safe this this summer:

Grains

Choose whole grains such as whole-wheat bread, oatmeal, quinoa or brown bread. Whole grains are good sources of Vitamin B and fibre which fill your child's tummy and help improving digestion.

Protein

Proteins are the building blocks which are important for maintaining and repairing tissues, making haemoglobin, improving immunity, and helping muscles grow. The sources of protein include seafood, eggs, lean meat and poultry, legumes, peas, beans, soy products, unsalted nuts and seeds.

Fruits

Including fruits and vegetables in your child's diet is one of the major difficulties you might have already faced. Encourage your child to eat a variety of fresh fruits. Let fruit juice be the last option as the juice takes out the fibre that comes from the whole fruit. Also, fruit juices come with loads of added sugar that only contribute to empty calories sans nutrition. If your child drinks juice, make sure you make it at home without adding sugar.

Vegetables

Serve a variety of fresh, colourful, seasonally and locally available vegetables. Aim to provide a variety of vegetables, including dark green, red and orange, beans and peas, starchy and others every week. It's difficult to convince children to binge on vegetables as they require a lot of munching and they lack tongue tingling taste.

Dairy

Include low-fat dairy products such as milk, yogurt, cheese or fortified soy beverages in your child's diet. Try some innovative ideas and recipes to incorporate dairy in their diet as these are some of rich sources of calcium which is essential for better bone health.

However, try to avoid the components listed below from your child's diet:

Added sugar

Help your children get habituated to natural foods and beverages. Limit their consumption of processed foods, chocolates, bars, breakfast cereals and candies that contain corn syrup, brown sugar, corn sweetener and caramel.

Saturated and trans fats

These are the unhealthy fats that come from foods such as full-fat dairy products, red meat and poultry. Try replacing saturated fats with Vitamin E and essential fatty acids that are found in vegetable and nut oils, sea foods etc. Healthier fats can also be found in nuts, olives and avocados. Avoid the consumption of trans fats by removing foods containing partially hydrogenated oil.

Knowing that summer is the time when children go out in the scorching heat to play, make sure that children don't skip their meals in between fun and feel hydrated. In order to prevent that, concentrate on giving those certain foods which have a cooling effect on the stomach like watermelon, curd, mint and Gulkand.

See that you pile on nutrition on your childs plate and make it look yummy yet healthy.

(With IANS inputs)