How To Make Kids Snack Healthfully

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From Your Health Journal…..”As I have said here before, please visit the Times of India web page where I am reviewing this article. It is a great web site, with a lot of valuable information. Today’s article is to discuss healthy snacks for kids. One of the main suggestions was to give children healthier snacks to combat obesity. Overweight and obese children ate 76 per cent fewer calories when they were given the cheese and vegetable snack while other children averaged a 60 per cent reduction in calories eaten. Healthy choices has always been a big concern, as many kids have a ‘free hand’ to chose whatever they want. One other factor to take into consideration is the liquid kids drink. Staying away from the liquid candy is a important factor to consider when trying to help your child stay at a healthy weight. I strongly recommend your reading the entire article at the Times of India web site.”

From the article…..

One of the many factors leading to childhood obesity is increased snacking, but restricting or limiting it can backfire, say researchers.

Children in homes where parents carefully regulate snacking were found to eat more unhealthy snacks in an unregulated environment than children with less restrictive parents.

Researchers suggest that parents can ensure that their children eat fewer calories when snacking by giving them more nutritious snacks such as veggies and cheese in place of chips on a regular basis, or offering them smaller quantities of a variety of healthy snacks (multiple kinds of vegetables or fruit) on a plate.

Researchers Brian Wansink, Ph.D., Mitsuru Shimizu, Ph.D., and Adam Brumberg set out to discover whether certain types of snacks would lead children to feel full while consuming fewer calories.

201 students in the third through sixth grade were given either a plate of potato chips, a plate of vegetables, a plate of cheese, or a plate of vegetables and cheese while watching some of their favorite afterschool cartoons.

They were asked about their fullness at the beginning of the experiment, after watching one episode of a cartoon, and again after watching a second episode of a cartoon.

Children who ate the vegetable and cheese snack plate needed significantly fewer calories than the children who ate the plate of potato chips to achieve satiety.

To read the full article…..Click here