Craving for sugar in the natural or refined form go a long way to harm children starting off first with tooth decay and other chronic and serious dental problems. I was just reading an article the other day in a famous newspaper that really enlightened me. The tooth of a child gets affected long before it shows up in childhood, so mothers who breast fed or even bottle fed their child bottle would do good to clean the gums of a child with clean sterilized cotton wool after each feed.

Chocolates, ice creams, sweets and cookies have also formed very easy ways for many progressive parents to reward their children for their good doings. Do you think we should give a message that eating sugar and sugar related foods are healthy always? I think a much better policy would be to gift children books, informative toys and CD’s, or better still we could enroll them for a good course or class that could promote their self-esteem and promote further development and learning. It would be still better to probably offer them a healthy, nutritious and appetizing salad or some dry fruits.        

This acquires all the more importance today with the striking of lifestyle diseases at a very early stage and the prevalence of double income families with lot of money and less time to pamper their children. I found another interesting article that told me that gur or unrefined sugar and honey were much better substitutes for sugar. I believe all this is true because my grandmother always preferred to give us sweets made out of gur and lived without any signs of lifestyle diseases until the age of 90. I also think she was right when she told her daughters that getting children used to all tastes like bitter, hot, salt, and spicy was vital for healthy growth of children and adulthood.


How very wise it would be to curtail craving for sugar in children even below the age of 5 years and introduce them to more healthy food choices like fruits, dry fruits and raw salad vegetables. Many parents may contend that it may be difficult once children start going to school and share lunch with their peers and attend birthday parties. I have always thought that spreading the information by word of mouth would do wonders to most like minded parent’s way of thinking. Being an example ourselves and letting our kids mix with children of like minded parents could help bring about a revolution of healthy menu parties.

Do you think curbing sugar cravings and building healthy food habits is tough for the sake of your children? I am sure you would say that is possible because we all care for the apples of our eyes.

Article Posted By : subnirmala  On July 02, 2011lView All Articles

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/curb-sugar-cravings-in-children-and-build-healthy-food-habits-article-132.htm

Keywords :
sugar craving , refined sugar , healthy menu parties , lifestyle diseases , diabetes ,