You may have heard that the day's most important meal is breakfast. "Eat breakfast like a king" is a common phrase. It means your breakfast needs to be fancy and full of good things to eat.
Mostly kids, teens, and their parents are in a rush in the morning, and they skip breakfast to arrive at their school or office on time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that almost 20% of kids in the US don't eat breakfast. Also, kids from low-income families and teens from all backgrounds are more likely to skip breakfast.
Have you ever thought about how badly it affects your kids' mental health? How are you putting your kids' life at threat being a parent?
If your kid doesn't eat breakfast, it can affect her mental and social health. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids and teens eat breakfast to benefit their bodies, such as a healthy BMI, good nutrition, a better brain, better exam scores, and more extended mental concentration. Breakfast is part of a healthy way to start the day. If you skip breakfast, it will be harder to find this balance. In addition, it has been shown that having breakfast daily is good for a young person's academic performance and educational success.
Eating breakfast for better mental health.
A new study of Spanish children and teens found that eating breakfast is also connected to better mental health. Frontiers in Nutrition just wrote about what they saw. Psychosocial health is the state of a person's mind, body, and relationships. It includes both the psychological and social well-being of each person. A study in Spain looks at how skipping breakfast affects the psychosocial health of children. Some of these effects are emotional problems, behavioral problems, hyperactivity, problems with peers, and bad behavior with other people.
Your main worry isn't just that you skip breakfast.
But your child's physical and mental health will also suffer if they eat breakfast away from home.
The new thing about this study is that it looks at what happens to your health when your kid eats breakfast away from home. Parents filled out a questionnaire that was used to get the results. 98.9% of the people who took part ate breakfast. Among the people who ate breakfast, 95.8% of the kids who ate breakfast were at home. People who skipped breakfast or were away from home for breakfast got a high score on the questionnaire for psychosocial problems.
The researchers also examined how what people eat for breakfast affects their health. They put foods into five groups and found that kids who don't eat certain kinds of foods have more problems with their mental and social health. For example, cereals and dairy products are more important for better cognitive and social health. On the other hand, processed meat is bad for your mental and emotional health.
Tips for parents to make a healthy breakfast
A healthy meal, either primary or complicated, is preferable to having no breakfast. The following recommendations for making a simple breakfast will help you to overcome your daily problem of selecting a healthy option in the morning. Some tips for the parents to decide on a healthy breakfast for their children are:
Plan your time effectively
Whether you have a family breakfast in the morning or your kid takes it alone is not necessary. It's a matter of time. A practical approach for having breakfast has enough time, so your youngster may eat without feeling rushed. While scheduling your morning time, it is necessary to include the time for assisted- and self-feeding for younger children.
Make breakfast before going to sleep.
Plan to ensure you always have a variety of nutritious meals for your child. Preparing some food at night to save morning effort is a good habit. It may be hard-boiled eggs, or your child's favorite cereal flavored with his favorite fruits might help you simultaneously fulfill the requirement of an easy and nutritious breakfast.
Easily portable morning meals
If you and your kids always rush to get out the door in the morning, keep a supply of healthy, ready-to-eat snacks on hand. Other quick options are hard-boiled eggs, flavored yogurt, baked muffins, or a bagel spread with low-fat cream cheese.
Plan some downtime into your schedule
The old saying goes like this: get your kid to bed at a decent hour so she can get up and have breakfast before you go to work. But tired and irritable kids would not prefer to sit down and have breakfast calmly. In addition, it has been shown that enough sleep is essential to kids' general wellness.
Broaden your horizon
It is preferable to plan breakfast options for your child according to his age and requirements. However, don't stick to one choice always. It may create a deficiency of some other essential nutrients in your child. And more considerable is that your child may get bored of the same breakfast routine. If you want to change the standard breakfast of cereal and milk, some ideas to keep in mind are protein, fresh produce, and creativity.
Be aware of your school food options.
Before sending our kid off to school or daycare, find out what breakfast alternatives they provide. If your kid has a healthier option at school, he would be more interested in eating than when all of his fellows are eating the same.
What are the best options for a healthy and balanced breakfast?
Foods higher in protein and lower in sugar are good for breakfast. High-fat food and high sugary foods must be avoided. Foods with good tryptophan content are an excellent addition as they improve sleep and mental health. Dairy products rich in vitamin D and high-fiber meals must be essential to breakfast. It improves bone and gut health and lower depression and anxiety. That's why oatmeal, yogurt, peanut butter toast, nuts, and seeds are good to go in breakfast.
All in all, breakfast is an essential part of a daily diet. It must be healthy and full of nutrients to meet the growing demand for kids' mental health. Parents must plan for the morning breakfast and ensure their kids have it fully.
Edited by: Ayona Mitra
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