It can be difficult to get youngsters ready for school, childcare, or a day of play. However, a good breakfast is essential. Here’s how to incorporate a nutritious breakfast into your daily routine.
Why Bother With Breakfast?
Breakfast is an excellent approach to replenishing the body’s energy reserves. Breakfast eaters tend to eat healthier overall and are more likely to be physically active — both of which are excellent methods to help children maintain a healthy weight.
Children who skip breakfast may become fatigued, restless, or irritated. Their bodies require refueling in the morning for the day ahead. If they don’t eat something for breakfast, their mood and energy levels can plummet by mid-morning.
Breakfast may help children maintain a healthy weight. Breakfast stimulates the body’s metabolism, which is the process through which the body turns the fuel in food into energy. When the metabolism gets going, the body begins to burn calories. Furthermore, some research suggests that our bodies burn more calories in the morning than late at night.
Breakfast skippers are more likely to be overweight because they may:
- Snack more often throughout the day.
- Overeat at later meals.
- Eat late at night.
Breakfast Brain Power
Breakfast is crucial for children every day, but what they eat in the morning is also important. Choose breakfast items that are high in nutritious grains, fruits or vegetables, and protein while being low in added sugar. Breakfast consumption:
- helps kids get more fiber, calcium, and other important nutrients
- can help kids do better in school
- improves memory and attention, which kids need to learn
Breakfast eaters perform better in school and on standardized examinations. In addition, students who engaged in school lunch programs had fewer absences.
Getting breakfast ready
It can be hard to make a healthy breakfast happen when you’re rushing to get yourself and the kids ready in the morning. These practical suggestions can help:
- Stock your kitchen with healthy breakfast options.
- Prepare as much as you can the night before (get dishes and utensils ready, cut up fruit, etc.).
- Get everyone up 10 minutes earlier.
- Let kids help plan and prepare breakfast.
- Have grab-and-go alternatives (fresh fruit; individual boxes or baggies of whole-grain, low-sugar cereal; yogurt or smoothies; trail mix) on days when there is little or no time.
Pack a breakfast that kids can eat later on the bus or in between classes if they aren’t hungry right away in the morning. Nutritious, simple to prepare, and convenient for youngsters to carry around are fresh fruit, cereal, almonds, or half a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
It’s also crucial to know what not to serve for breakfast. Yes, some breakfast bars and toaster pastries are convenient, portable, and kid-friendly. However, many are loaded with sugar and calories and have no more nutritious value than a candy bar. Before you add these breakfast bars and pastries to your shopping cart, carefully review the nutrition labels.
You might also want to look into the breakfast options offered by the school.
Talk to your children about choosing healthy foods if they have breakfast out of the house.
