NUTRITION FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: THE RECIPE
Ingredients:
Connecting – good health and healthy food
Empowering – for better food choices and timing
Recognizing – hunger and satiety
Respecting – food preferences
Expanding – food choices
Guiding – the family toward healthy changes
Putting It Together:
Working with children and teens to appreciate the connection between food and good health (physical and mental) paves the path for sustainable nutrition habits.
Empowering young people to make smart food choices and sensible meal/snack time decisions is a skill of independence. Wise choices and appropriate timing can positively affect school performance.
When kids develop a self-awareness for basic cues – hunger and satiety – and the knowledge of how to make healthy food choices, their struggles with overeating/under eating/fatigue diminishes.
Individualized and sensitive counseling with each child requires support of adult family members. The objective is to expand food selections while respecting individual food preferences.
Start Time:
Early and soon, because effective, accurate and individualized nutrition counseling is invaluable for a lifetime of good health.
COMMON CHALLENGES
- Picky eaters/poor habits
- Overweight
- Failure to thrive
- Underweight
- Allergies/food intolerances
- Sports nutrition
- Abnormal lab test results (cholesterol/triglycerides, insulin, glucose)
- Eating Disorders
