TOLEDO, Ohio — As students across northwest Ohio are back to class, parents have a task of preparing a healthy lunch for their kids.
Making sure that your child is eating nourishing foods can help their immune system perform at its best. Eating a nutritious school lunch is key to helping minimize childhood obesity, it’s also helpful in warding off illness.
When packing your child’s lunch, let my plate guide inspire you.
The plate's guidelines emphasizes on variety and quality food choices. For example, fill half your child's plate or lunchbox with colorful fruits and vegetables and a quarter with whole grains, and the remaining quarter with healthy proteins.
Of course, you can add fat and small amounts of dairy around the meal that will fuel an active, healthy lifestyle.
Christina Gardner, a Bariatric dietitian with Promedica, says when packing your child’s lunch, make sure you keep things interesting.
“Keep things simple but switching things up at all times, kids do get bored of eating the same thing over and over so don’t just pack deli meat sandwiches and a fruit. Try to switch it up, weather it's changing how you make it - whether it’s deli meat, you do skewers or you change up different themes days in their lunches. Keep them with a lot of different nutrients and foods so they won’t get bored,” says Gardner.
To get more information on my plate, click here.