Coloring your lunchbox and childcare Nutrition is our simple push towards diversifying the food we all buy to go into childrens lunch-boxes. We do realise that most of the parents, and many nannies / childcarers who may read this article, will basically not have the time or inclination to go to the shops, carefully select various ingredients for little Louisa’s lunch at nursery or primary school. However, we have found that for those who are prepared to make just a little effort that it’s hardly rocket science, and is surprisingly easy to become a healthy habit when it comes to exploring the possibilities as to what is good for our precious little ones to eat for lunch.

Remembering that lunch is 5 times a week, every week, whether at school / nursery or during the holidays, just as it applies to us adults, so it also applies to our kids – ‘You are what you eat’, but we like to think of it more as – ‘They will become what they eat…, actually what we feed them’ ;-).

A masters degree is not a requirement to raise healthier kids. We are just putting this out there and hope that someone will consider some of our simple ideas for starter pack lunches useful.  The real goal is to encourage you to use what you already know about you children’s likes and dislikes and coloring their lunch boxes in regard to giving them a more balanced and healthy menu to choose from and eat.

No one is perfect and neither are our kids but most of us know we could do a little better in our food choices, especially for them.

Following some basic guidelines you can help yourself and encourage your kids to eat better, maintain a healthy weight, and help to enhance their concentration at school.

A few quick rules from Part One:

1. Parents are the masters of all supply lines – One trick is to let them choose something that has a colour when you are stocking up for the weeks lunches.
2. The younger they are the better – Trying to teach good eating habits will be easier the sooner you start offering healthy choices.  Try to set the best example possible with mainly nutritious snacks.
3. Don’t believe the hype! – The majority of the mass advertised drinks are not good for adults, don’t fall for the advertising / marketing.  Water, Milk and Juice (100%) are the best drinks for kids and they don’t need that much, 150ml to 250ml should be more than enough depending on their age. Oh and if it says ‘drink’ or ‘nectar’ then it has extra sugar added 🙁
4. Unhealthy food is not love – Does an unhealthy lunchbox say ‘I love you’?  Although the occasional sweet or biscuit is fine in a lunch box, the majority of it should be nutritious, healthy and colourful.  In the event that everything is white then alarm bells should start ringing.
5. Its all in a plastic packet! – In general we recommend limiting the number of sealed plastic packets / bags in your children’s lunch box, we like to aim towards putting more homemade and some fresh items too, things like fruit and vegetables.

That’s it!! Now join us at Niche Nannies and lets put together some exciting, satisfying lunch boxes for the week.

Coloring Your Lunchbox – Niche Nannies Lunchbox Menus:

Tuesday: Can you name all of the ingredients of this colourful children’s lunchbox?

We now know that food is one of the most valuable tools for enabling and influencing a child’s future health, well being and lifestyle choices.  It relates to every child in your school as everybody has to eat and drink. It is the basis of so many other topics about health, concentration as well as learning opportunities and the best part is, it can engage absolutely everybody, both young and old.

The key to success is to find some variety in the menus you choose, different colours, shapes and textures that will encourage the young to eat more fruits and vegetables as well. Do you have a suggestion for a healthy lunchbox?

Part three of coloring your lunchbox will be coming soon. Have a great lunchtime!

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