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.
If you read our last blog post in this series, you may be walking away with some already good tips about what your child’r nutritional needs are, how to think through meal planning for school lunches and snacks, and more.
But for this article on back-to-school lunches, we want to focus on what goals a parent should have when planning and packing lunches. Where to invest more time and thought, and where can you adjust and move quickly.
The questions we are answering in this blog series are:
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?
We already answered question one in this blog post.
In this article, we are only going to tackle the second and third questions, because how can we make goals without knowing our intention! Our intention as parents is to best support and prepare our children while they are at school. This includes their mental health and physical health while at school. Read the other blogs to answer questions one and four!
Let’s dive in!
What are some nutritional goals parents should strive to meet for their school-age child?
I love that this is something we are considering as parents. Making goals around meal planning and being intentional about what we put in our child’s lunch is very important. This can set your child up for success giving them the mental energy they need to do well in school and not have an afternoon-crash, as well as the physical stamina to be engaged in class and group projects, after-school sports, or have the energy to play at home after school!
Our goals need to be practical and realistic. There will be days that a child doesn’t have energy, and that is not to say it is all because they had a bad lunch made by mom or dad. Children may also not get good grades, or perform poorly in after-school-activities, and again, that is not all because of lunch. But can lunch help? Absolutely. And it should be a piece of the puzzle that all parents consider.
effort over perfection
Goal #1. Strive for effort over perfection. In the last blog post we discussed the nutritional triangle describing adequacy as the most important consideration in meals. Followed by balance, then variety, then specific foods. So for goal #1, we are going to take the pressure off of being perfect and focus first on adequacy, followed by balance, then variety, then specific foods.
One way to set the stage for this is to consider the meals and snacks your child is having over an entire day. Do not put too much pressure on lunches being perfect., Do your best and know that if it is the same components each time, you can make up for missed food groups at other meals.
For example, when I make my toddler’s lunch, my go-to is a PBJ with a fruit, a cracker, and ideally a veggie, but if I can’t get the veggie in, then it is usually a fat (cheese, yogurt, nuts). Do I get upset that I couldn’t make the perfect lunch? No. I can always get a veggie in for a snack or for dinner. Don’t sweat it!
Even though my example included dairy (cheese/yogurt), these options can be really hard to pack because they require cold temps to stay good. If they get warm, your child may not eat them. Or if you notice your child never eats the fruit that you pack, then start having dairy or fruit for breakfast, or after school snack.
Sometimes we have to be creative detectives to figure our why our child won’t eat something and how we can make it more appealing.
Let’s say it again… adequacy
I firmly believe children need wholesome energy to get through the day at school and be their most engaged selves. So goal # 3 needs to be focused on the effort that our child has enough.
Going back to our triangle from the last blog post, made by our lovely dietitian, Lynn Eaton, adequacy is the basis for everything. If we are not achieving adequacy, then we should not be focusing yet on the above things: balance, variety and specific foods.
Your child’s ability to focus and engage, rather than crash from fatigue, comes from quantity (having enough), then doing the best you can to incorporate variety: have protein, fat, and carbs in the meal.
The adequacy piece looks different for every child. Even children in the same family, twins, etc. Each child has different needs and grows at a different rate. You may notice your 9-year-old son eats less than your 6-year-old daughter. That’s ok. Your daughter may be reaching puberty sooner than the older brother and her body needs more. Trust your child’s appetite. If you’re having a hard time doing this, consult one of our dietitians.
To trial-and-error adequacy, start by making lunches bigger. You probably can’t fit it all in a bentgo box, so again, let the perfection go, and go back to the old-school ziploc bags for things. Give more and see what is eaten at the end of the day. Make peace with food waste, this is the trial-and-error stage.
If you’re child takes a bus home from school, or has after-school-activities, definitely pack enough for a big lunch + a snack.
If you pick your child up after school, have that snack in your car ready-to-give. Next, give them time to gobble and get some energy back before you drill them with questions- “how was your day? what did you do? did you eat your lunch? did you turn in that assignment?”
Next tip: remember, that energy needs may change throughout the school year. You may have to recalibrate a few times. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you didn’t give your child enough I their lunch box. I always encourage having some money in the school account so they can purchase something from the cafeteria if needed.
Next question… question 3:
What recommendations can parents follow for improving mental health and physical health of their school aged child?
I have two points on this topic:
1.Do your best to get your child on a schedule, especially when they are younger (elementary or preschool). This is especially important for school breaks, provide 3 meals and 3 snacks. Be consident with the times you have meals and snacks (a range is ok, ie. 7-9:30am is breakfast, 9:30-10:30am is snack, 11:30-1pm is lunch, etc.) and offer options!
It is up to the child to choose how much they eat, or whether or not they eat. If they skip the snack time, then they don’t eat again until the next meal or snack. I also believe in being psychologically flexible, so please do not follow this rule hard and fast, especially if you’re under new circumstances such as a road trip, grandparent’s house, new activities, etc. It is ok for things to shift and eat outside of normal times. AND try to be consistent most days of the week with meal and snack times.
It is very important that children have these regular time intervals to eat because it helps regulate their hunger and fullness cues. This sets them up for lifelong success and a healthy relationship with food!
If a child is constantly grazing, they won’t notice any hunger or fullness cues. If there is too much time between when you offer a meal or snack, their growing bodies can feel so worn down that they have behavior issues, or don’t feel like eating enough come the next meal or snack offering.
Questions about this? We strongly suggest working with a dietitian.
2. Second point, the habits you start now as a household, will shape the type of eaters they are throughout their lifespan. Parents play a very important role in their children’s lives when it comes to setting the tone in the kitchen and the child’s relationship with food.
Ever heard someone say that in order to pour from your cup, your cup needs to be full? Or in order to best support someone, you have to be okay-enough to offer good advice or support?
Well, unfortunately parenting is 24/7. If you didn’t sleep enough, too bad, you still have to parent and raise good kids. If you aren’t eating well yourself, too bad, you have to put the needs of your children above your own and do your best to give them what they need. It’s HARD!
That being said, you DO need to take care of yourself when you can. Just know that you may be working on yourself alongside these big goals you’re setting for your children.
If you have food issues, dieting tendencies, an eating disorder, or feel like you don’t know enough about nutrition to do this well, please don’t put this off. Your child learns more from what you show them than what you tell them. So if you’re not modeling good nutrition yourself, your child will see.
Even with all the love and effort you put into their meals, they can still grow up to have their own food issues because of what you modeled. This is a part of caring for your child’s mental health that you need to take seriously as a parent: work on your own issues.