The School-Age Child: Ages Six through 10

The school-age kid is generally stable when it comes to actual physical development. Height might increase in increments of five to six centimetres, or about two to nearly two and a half inches each year. While weight gain averages two kilograms, or almost four and a half pounds, per year during the early childhood years, it increases to four and a half kilograms, or around nine to ten pounds, each year as puberty approaches. A young child starts to make food choices independently, with increased peer influence and less adult supervision. It’s a period of few obvious feeding problems. Appetite as well as food intake will naturally increase with the added activities of school as well as play.

A proper breakfast…

Breakfast is definitely an important meal for adults and children alike. A young child who’s used to being seated to eat in the morning is more likely to keep this particular habit as he or she grows older.

Breakfast doesn’t need to be the time consuming and high-fat meal of bacon and eggs. A breakfast of cereal, milk,and fresh fruit need little if any preparation. An egg simply prepared can be given to a young child several times a week.

For breakfast, any of these works well:

• Homemade muffin, such as corn, fruit, oatmeal, as well as raisin-nut, along with milk and fruits or fruit juice
• Fresh fruit on unsweetened whole-grain cereal with skim or low-fat milk
• Hot oatmeal with raisins and skim or low-fat milk
• Low-fat cottage cheese or ricotta on toasted bread with fruit or fruit juice
• Fresh fruit with low-fat yogurt and muffin or whole-grain bread
• Whole-wheat raisin toast with margarine made from an unsaturated vegetable oil and sprinkled with cinnamon or low-fat cottage cheese.

Wholesome Eating Tips for Kids

Instead of ice cream, they can select from:

• Fresh fruit
• Fruit-juice bars
• Sorbet
• Sherbet
• Ice milk
• Frozen low-fat yogurt

For high-fat, store bought biscuits, they may select from:

• Homemade cookies, fruit muffins, (made with tasty recipes which call for nominal amounts of fat and sugar)

Rather than regular cottage cheese, the low-fat cottage cheese is really a better option. Whole-milk mozzarella may be replaced with part-skim mozzarella. Higher fat varieties of cheese may be replaced with some other low-fat cheeses. Bologna and mayonnaise sandwich on white bread, this is often replaced with peanut butter on whole-wheat bread. As an alternative to butter, margarine made from an unsaturated vegetable oil is way better.

Rather than making use of items produced from coconut or palm kernel oils, it’s always best to use goodies made from monounsaturated or polyunsaturated vegetable oils, most notably olive oil, safflower, peanut, as well as other oils.