Having worked as a children’s mental health nurse for the last seven years, I’m acutely aware of how important healthy and balanced nutrition is for children. Eating disorders are on the rise in the UAE, and it is our responsibility to develop a healthy relationship with food and teach our children.
But I get it:
Making your children eat healthily can feel like a losing battle between the many life responsibilities and stressors. Still, you need to focus on this because it plays a vital role in the short and long-term.
In this post, we’ll go over exactly why childhood nutrition is vital.
It Helps Establish Life-Long Habits
Let’s face it:
We all tend to struggle with our nutrition and often make choices we know aren’t that great for us. The problem is, we’ve ingrained behaviors and beliefs toward food that originate from early childhood. Trying to re-program ourselves later in life is much more difficult, and many people fail.
Good childhood nutrition is vital because it sets children up for good life-long habits and saves them a lot of frustration down the line. For example, habits like eating more vegetables and drinking more water become part of their identity, and doing them takes no effort down the line.
It Helps Prevent Weight Gain and Obesity
One of the biggest battles we have to fight today is that against obesity. According to one source, the rate of obesity among adults in the UAE has gone up by nearly ten percent from 2007 to 2016.
Ask any obese person today, and they can tell you how impossible it feels to change their behaviors and attitudes toward food. Even worse, these individuals feel hopeless, and many consider weight loss to be impossible for them.
Teaching children about the value of good nutrition from an early age helps them maintain a healthy weight throughout their early years and as they grow up.
It Helps Develop a Healthy Relationship With Food
Many people today have a poor relationship with food, and that is a shame. They see food through a good or bad, black or white lens. The problem with that is, folks struggle to see food for what it is: fuel for the body. This creates a poor relationship with food and roots misleading beliefs. A meal consisting of fish and salad is good, but one consisting of a burger and fries is bad.
Instead, we should see food as more and less nutritious. Sure, you can get your daily calories from processed foods. But they often lack the crucial nutrients we need to function optimally and remain healthy. Of course, this isn’t to say that the occasional indulgence is inherently bad. It only means that we should focus on whole and nutritious foods more.
Eating disorders often stem from restrictive diets because people never learn how to balance their nutrition and go for the either-or approach - “I’m going to eat nothing but whole foods, or I’m not going to bother.”
Good childhood nutrition allows kids to internalize this fact, which helps them develop a healthy relationship with food for the rest of their lives.
How We Can Help?
LiveFreshr stands for one principle:
Deliver fresh, delicious, and nutritious foods to your doorstep. Instead of worrying about what ingredients to buy and what recipes to prepare, we take care of the entire process for you.
Using our services allows you to streamline your nutrition and make good choices automatic. What’s more, we help you eat better and lead your kids by example.