Fairbrother Focuses on Healthy Eating for Kids
By Gaye Rutherford, Dietitian

I unfortunately wasn’t able to be in Tassie for the recent Fairbrother Family Christmas Days, but have heard they were terrific days, especially for the children who came along and enjoyed hours of active fun plus of course the essential visit from Santa. The magic of Christmas really is highlighted by the joy it brings children, and I think this makes it an opportune time of the year to focus briefly on healthy eating habits for kids. While Christmas Day is not the time to worry about diets, it can be a useful tool for demonstrating the difference between “treat” or “special” food and everyday healthy eating. I would never encourage anyone to worry about diets on Christmas Day, but I would strongly encourage us all not to let the indulgent eating patterns of the day seep into usual daily habits or patterns – openly acknowledge that the chocolates, cakes, lollies, puddings, and altered meal and snack times (ie the whole day becomes one big long eating/grazing bonanza!) are associated with this special day but not the 364 other days of the year. For parents and carers of children, it is especially important to remember that your eating habits in general are a major role model and influence on young children. Given that what children eat in their childhood years sets the pattern for the rest of their lives, it is important that we as adults take our role modelling responsibilities seriously.

An important example to set for children is eating breakfast every (yes that’s every!) day. Eating breakfast is essential for maintaining good levels of concentration, and for establishing healthy meal patterns that are more likely to be sustained into adulthood. Children, indeed anyone, who skips breakfast, are far more likely to become cranky and reach for an unhealthy snack as they start to feel hungry later in the morning. The box below contains some suggestions for quick healthy breakfast ideas. Do you eat breakfast every morning? (A coffee at work or on the way to work doesn’t count as breakfast!) If so, are you making good healthy choices? If not, why not? The most common reason I am told when talking to clients about why they don’t eat breakfast is that they aren’t hungry at this time of the day – after delving into the reasons for this it’s often because they were eating unhealthy snacks until well into the night. Often, cutting these out or making time for a quick dose of early morning exercise, like a quick walk to get the morning newspaper or some exercises at home, greatly assists in making breakfast more appealing. Remember there is no point telling your child “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” unless you are practising what you preach.

Quick Healthy Breakfast Ideas

	High fibre cereal with milk and a sliced banana or other fruit
	Natural muesli with milk or yoghurt and fruit
	Porridge with milk, topped with sultanas or canned fruit
	Wholegrain, wholemeal or high-fibre white bread or an English muffin with baked beans or tomato and cheese
	Toasted English muffin or fruit toast with honey or jam and a glass of milk
	Smoothies made with milk or yoghurt and fruit

Two in five children also want to be more involved in meal preparation at home. Involving children in all of meal planning, shopping and cooking (even in a small way) assists them to develop healthy eating habits as well as helping them build essential skills for later in life. Cookbooks and magazines now often include simple recipes specifically targeted at building kids’ skills (and interest) in the kitchen, though it is not necessary to have special recipes or books – pretty much any meal contains some simple tasks that children can assist with. One new family cookbook on our bookshelves this Christmas that has raised some debate in dietitian circles is “Deceptively Delicious”, a cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld that focuses on ways to “hide” vegies in food to get young children to eat them. While I have no issues with strategies to increase our kids’ intake of vegies, together with other dietitians I agree lying to your children about their food and encouraging spinach-filled cupcakes in preference to actual vegies runs counter to all advice about building healthy eating habits. Far better to model the behaviour of a vegie lover and let your kids get involved in choosing and preparing them – children can help pick out the carrots (for example) at the supermarket, help wash them at home, and help chop them up (if old enough) or simply with placing them into the pot to be cooked.

Now that summer’s warm weather is upon us, it is important to make sure children are drinking enough fluids. Just as adults should watch the kilojoules they are consuming in drinks, as childhood obesity continues to escalate, so too should children. In a recent survey of 941 Australian adults from households with children, over half considered it to be ok to give children two to three fruit juice drinks per day, while one in ten believed that children could drink as much fruit juice as they wanted. In contrast, the actual acceptable amount of fruit juice for kids to consume is just 125 ml (one small glass) per day, with children encouraged to eat fresh fruit in preference to additional serves of juice. Fruit juice, just like soft drink, is high in sugar – and while these might be sugars naturally occurring in fruit rather than added sugar like soft drinks, the impact on your child’s weight (and teeth) is just the same. For quenching thirst, the best drink to encourage is water. To help encourage children to drink water, try serving it in jugs with ice and lemon, mint or orange slices – this not only gives the water a great fresh taste, it also makes it look appealing.

More tips on tips for healthy eating for kids can be found in a new booklet published by the Dietitians Association of Australia. If you would like to obtain a copy of this booklet, please email me at grutherford@fairbrother.com.au

In Season Now… Passionfruit

	In season in Australia now, the purple variety of the ‘passiflora edulis’ or passionfruit, is originally a native or the rainforests of the Amazon region of Brazil. Introduced to Queensland before 1900, its name came from Spanish missionaries who thought parts of the plant’s flower resembled different religious symbols, though for me the name suggests more a “passion” for eating these delicious balls.
	Passionfruit are best eaten when their skin has a slightly wrinkled appearance – if the skin is still hard and glossy they are still a bit unripe.
	In Australia the passionfruit is the most common topping for the Australian pride and joy, the pavlova, and also the vanilla slice.
	Fresh passionfruit pulp is high in vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium and dietary fibre.
	Try this for a delicious dessert – peel one banana for each serve required and place on a piece of foil. Drizzle with honey, a squirt of lemon and orange juices, and the pulp from one passionfruit for each banana. Draw up the sides of the foil to make a parcel and cook on a baking tray at 200°C for 10 minutes or until the banana is soft. Serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt. (Recipe from “The Farmers Market Companion”, Penguin Books 2006)