This article was written by dietitian, Isabelle Bouchard, MS, RD, LD
Isabelle Bouchard is the owner of Bamboo Nutrition based in Columbia, MO and Rochester, MN. We are a team of registered dietitians and therapists who specialize in improving nutrition and body image through experiencing peace with food and improving food behaviors.
You may be reading this article to learn about specific foods to provide your child, how to make sure they don’t eat “bad” foods at school, and what you can do to teach them about nutrition as they grow up with multiple other influences outside of your control.
These are such great things to be thinking about, and shows how much you truly care about your child’s health!
Let’s break this down into a few segments:
What are some common mistakes parents make when it comes to focusing on their school child’s nutrition? (Answered here)
What are some nutrition goals parents should try to meet for their school child?
What recommendations can parents follow for improving mental health and physical health of their school aged child?
Practically speaking, are there easy tips and tricks busy parents can do to provide healthy, wholesome meals?
In this article, we are only going to tackle the first question, because there is so much I want to dive into here. Read the following blogs to answer the next few questions!
Let’s dive in!
What are some common mistakes parents make when it comes to focusing on their school child’s nutrition?
Rather than focusing on specific foods, let’s start with adequacy. See the image of our Gentle Nutrition triangle below to follow along with how the dietitians at Bamboo Nutrition recommend progressing with nutritional priorities.
As an adult, we have to remind ourselves that a child’s nutritional needs are much different than our own. Adults are constantly being told by the dieting industry to eat less, focus on protein, eat lean and low calorie foods, etc. Children are not adults. They are growing every day in height, weight, bone density, hormones, brain functioning, and more! Children need to have enough food, especially with the mental energy demands of school.
Children’s nutritional needs are also different from adults. For adults, our bodies require carbohydrates as the largest macronutrient we consume, followed by protein, and then by fat. Children need carbohydrates first and foremost, followed by fat, then by protein. This is because their hormone development is rapidly changing and dependent on fat for operation. Their young kidneys are also not developed enough to yet process large amounts of protein, it can be very dangerous for them to have too much. Which is why children need to eat like children and not adults!
For more specific questions on what this looks like, we recommend working with a pediatric dietitian.
Start with adequacy
Send your child with enough food. Start there and we can then focus on the what that’s inside their lunchbox. Enough food looks like a main food (sandwich, or entree of some sort) with two sides, and drink or source of dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt), and to begin, I would recommend providing 3 snacks. It is okay if these are mostly carbohydrates for now. Again, we are focused on adequacy, not what the food is.
The reason for the additional snacks is because the school day is so long. If your child is taking the bus, or carpooling home, or has after-school activities, they need more food to get them through until dinner.
Secondly, focus on balance
Balance means having a bit of every food group included. The food groups are:
carbohydrates
protein
fat
dairy
My tip for parents who sometimes find this unachievable… it Is normal for children to be picky eaters. It could also be that their lunch is late in they day, or you don’t have a lunchbox that keeps dairy cold enough to be enjoyable. If your child continues to bring home a certain food group, or is refusing to eat something, ask practical questions:
do you not like this food because of how it tastes?
do you not like this food because it doesn’t stay cold enough? firm enough? changes color? smells bad?
do you have enough time to eat this food? is it hard for you to eat (unpeeled orange, unsliced apple, requires heating in the microwave, messy, etc)?
Use their answers to either make a change so that food is easier for them to eat, or find a different option.
Third, think about variety
Variety means within the food group, mix it up. Variety doesn’t have to be fancy. If its easiest to provide a deli sandwich for every lunch, you can provide variety by changing the type of bread! Whole grain, hawaiin rolls, wheat rolls, hoagie rolls, pita bread, tortilla, naan, etc. You could change the type of cheese, the condiment, or the type of deli meat!
Variety doesn’t need to change every day, but I’d recommend at least mixing it up once per week, if not twice per week. It is hard to have too many groceries on hand at once, so this is where a little bit of planning comes in. You can have two types of bread or deli meat on hand at a time.
Variety is also a great opportunity to teach your child about nutrition and get them involved in meal planning! Get their opinions, you want them to like their lunches. Give them choices and have them pack their bag. Take them grocery shopping with you and sample different cheeses and deli meats at the counter. There’s lots of room to be creative here!
Specific Foods
This category is alluding to the specific foods that would be a compliment to our every day nutritional needs. If your child has a hard time getting in fruits and vegetables, maybe they take a multivitamin, or have a smoothie with blending fruits and veggies. Perhaps your child needs more calories (recommended by doctor or dietitian) to support their growth, you could consider nutrient-dense foods such as chia seeds, flaxseeds, drinks, etc.
Specific food questions would be best discussed with a dietitian. Dietitians can also review your child’s growth charts and help provide you with education and guidance on best feeding practices as they grow and experience puberty (a huge time of growth for children).
What are some nutritional goals parents should aim to reach for their school-aged child?
With the theme of overall nutrition, as provided by the Gentle Nutrition Triangle above, consider your child’s nutrition over the span of an entire day, and an entire week.
Diet culture places a lot of pressure on each specific meal that we eat. It has to be perfect! This is not the case, nutritionally speaking. Your body is more advanced than just one meal. You have an entire day to get your food groups in, to have variety, and to provide your body with specific foods that make you feel good.
Same goes for children. As a parent, besides packing their lunch, you have very little control over what your child eats while at school. But what is more important are the other 15 + meals they get throughout the week with you at home.
Family meals is extremely important to have the opportunity to provide variety and balance. In addition, it is a time for children to be involved in the kitchen and learn about nutrition. Breakfast, dinner, after school snacks, are all opportunities to provide your child with more nutrition.
Don’t get hung up on one meal.
Ready to answer question 4? Click on the button below to read our other blog posts on this topic.
Tired of reading and ready to take practical steps? If you’re really excited and passionate about this, we would recommend at least 2 or 3 sessions with a dietitian just to run questions that pop up by them and get guidance on how to make these goals realistic and achievable. We see school lunches start strong in August and September, then once the holidays and busy season comes around, it’s easy to drop the ball.
If you have kids of multiple ages, at different schools, some with after school activities or taking the bus home vs. car pick up, a dietitian can help you make the necessary adjustments and meal plan accordingly!