Health and Nutrition for Children

Your child's nutrition is important to her overall health. Proper nutrition can also prevent many medical problems, including becoming overweight, developing weak bones, and developing diabetes. It will also ensure that your child physically grows to her full potential.

The best nutrition advise to keep your child healthy includes encouraging her to:

(a) Eat a variety of foods
(b) Balance the food you eat with physical activity
(c) Choose a diet with plenty of grain products, vegetables and fruits
(d) Choose a diet low in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol
(e) Choose a diet moderate in sugars and salt
(f) Choose a diet that provides enough calcium and iron to meet their growing body's requirements.

You can also help promote good nutrition by setting a good example. Healthy eating habits and regular exercise should be a regular part of your family's life. It is much easier if everyone in the house follows these guidelines, than if your child has to do it alone. You should also buy low-calorie and low-fat meals, snacks and desserts, low fat or skim milk and diet drinks. Avoid buying high calorie desserts or snacks, such as snack chips, regular soft drinks or regular ice cream.

The best way to prevent feeding problems is to teach your child to feed himself as early as possible, provide them with healthy choices and allow experimentation. Mealtimes should be enjoyable and pleasant and not a source of struggle. Common mistakes are allowing your child to drink too much milk or juice so that they aren't hungry for solids, forcing your child to eat when they aren't hungry, or forcing them to eat foods that they don't want. Also, avoid giving large amounts of sweet desserts, soft drinks, fruit-flavored drinks, sugarcoated cereals, chips or candy, as they have little nutritional value.

Your child may now start to refuse to eat some foods, become a very picky eater or even go on binges where they will only want to eat a certain food. An important way that children learn to be independent is through establishing independence about feeding. Even though your child may not be eating as well rounded a diet as you would like, as long as your child is growing normally and has a normal energy level, there is probably little to worry about. Remember that this is a period in his development where he is not growing very fast and doesn't need a lot of calories. Also, most children do not eat a balanced diet each and every day, but over the course of a week or so their diet will usually be well balanced. You can consider giving your child a daily vitamin if you think he is not eating well, although he probably doesn't need it.

While you should provide three well-balanced meals each day, it is important to keep in mind that most children will only eat one or two full meals each day. If you child has had a good breakfast and lunch, then it is okay that he doesn't want to eat much at dinner. Although your child will probably be hesitant to try new foods, you should still offer small amounts of them once or twice a week (one tablespoon of green beans, for example). Most children will try a new food after being offered it 10-15 times.

Other ways to prevent feeding problems are to not use food as a bribe or reward for desired behaviors, avoid punishing your child for not eating well, limit mealtime conversation to positive and pleasant topics, avoid discussing or commenting on your child's poor eating habits while at the table, limit eating and drinking to the table or high chair, and limit snacks to two nutritious snacks each day. You should also not prepare more than one meal for your child. If he doesn't want to eat what was prepared for the rest of the family, then he should not be forced to, but you should also not give him something else to eat. He will not starve after missing a single meal, and providing alternatives to the prepared meal will just cause more problems later.

Dental Health Week

I believe that pre-schools and kindergartens can support lifelong dental habits by providing activities and lessons which focus on proper dental hygiene. Good health habits begin at home and a child’s daycare or preschool environment should support them.

It is normal to encounter some resistance to teeth brushing with toddlers. Whether it’s getting them to practice brushing on their own or an attempt to assist, toddler tooth brushing can be a struggle. Here are some tips that encourage toddlers to brush:-

(a) Offer fun toothbrushes. There are dozens on the market and children can select their favorite colours or characters. Children love using them.
(b) Ask toddlers to sing a song as they brush or set a musical timer for two minutes so that children will get in the habit of brushing for the recommended length of time.
(c) Use a simple reward system. A colourful sticker after every successful brushing session is a great incentive.
(d) Be a good role model. Toddlers can watch child care providers brush and floss after meals and snack. Adults and children may also brush their teeth side by side so that adults can model and explain proper tooth brushing techniques.


The children were rewarded with a Healthy Smile Certificate at the end of the week to encourage them to continue this healthy habit at home. Parents play an important role in ensuring that a child forms healthy habits. Teachers reinforces this habit and the learning process is successful. A positive learning environment is essential where the child has ample of group activities and demonstrations to show them proper methods when teaching each subject matter. At my centre the children continuosly participate in many hands-on sessions to make the learning process simple and fun.