Nourish Your Child's Mind
10 Tips When Feeding Your Child During the Exam Period
Exams are an inevitable part of every child's academic journey. These days, this periodic assessment of your little one's learning brings along a lot of stress to both the learner and the parents. Expectations and fears run high as we all place much importance on academic success. So, you work on the regimen - tuitions, assessments, extra learning –all to keep your child focused. Along with the brain routines, do pay attention to nourishment as healthy kids are better learners.
10 Easy Tips To Nourishment During Exams
- Serve up breakfast everyday
It is well established that kids who eat breakfast concentrate better, score better at math and are less fidgety. Exams or not, breakfast helps your child learn better. Set up easy-to-eat breakfast menus that include grain foods and proteins. Simple menus include bun or oatmeal with GROW® milk. If your little one is too stressed to eat, serve up a glass of ready-to-eat cereal mix with GROW® milk – as drinking may be easier than eating on some days.
- Include hearty main meals for lunch and dinner
Despite the hectic schedule, kids need ample nourishment. Pack healthy meals for your little student to eat for lunch at school or on the way to a class. Make dinner a warm and relaxing family meal that helps to balance out his diet and allows for supportive family interaction. Nourishing main meals will help your child take a break from the learning and fill his tummy with nutrients to support the rapid growth and development that go on through childhood, despite exams.
- Energize with healthy snacks
Kids have small tummies but great nutrient needs! So, snacking on healthy foods and drinks helps pack in vital nutrients in between main meals. A sandwich, a bowl of noodles or porridge, a serving of fruit with a glass of GROW® milk are ideas for simple snacks that are nourishing and easy to put together too!
- Include carbohydrates (carbs)
A working brain prefers carbs to fuel its activities. Grain foods, fruit and milk provide vital carbs to keep the neurons revved up to cope with the demands of exam rigors.
- Push for protein power
The special 'chemicals' that help the neurons (brain cells) talk to one another are made up of proteins. Small portions of wholesome proteins will help your child's body receive the amino acid building blocks to put together these natural communicating chemicals. Lean meat, skinless poultry, eggs, beans, and milk are great nutrient dense protein choices.
- Ensure 'good' fats
The structure of brains cells is largely made up of fat molecules. Infant brains are about a quarter the size of an adult brain. It grows to about 80 percent by three years and 90 percent by five. Because of rapid brain growth and development, young children need high levels of fat in their diets, especially the good fats – DHA and AA or their precursors - omega 3 and 6 that accumulate especially in the brain and eye.
- Serve up vital vitamins
Vitamins - there are quite a few of them - starting from the well known A, D, E, K, C and the B- family. Each of them is needed in really tiny amounts but they are all vital to health and development of children. Like little sparks that stoke up a big fire, these vital nutrients are essential to keep the body functioning at its peak ability. So, read labels, compare similar products to pick those that deliver more vitamins per serve, to build your child's balanced diet.
- Include important minerals
A healthy child needs quite a few minerals including calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and iron. Each of them has important individual roles and in some cases, they support the function of each other. Many studies of young children who were iron deficient or anemic in early childhood demonstrate that the lack of this important mineral impacts IQ negatively and, this downtrend during early growth cannot be corrected even after repleting the child's diet with iron.
- Aim for fibre
Fibre in the diet helps to regularize the bowels, helping to make your child feel comfortable even on exam days. The 'prebiotic' fibres have the unique ability to feed the 'good' germs in your child's large intestines thereby ensuring the 'bad' ones do not thrive as well. They also break down to special fuels that help nourish intestinal cells and indirectly help build up your child's immune defenses.
- Make meal and snack times fun
During periods of stress, eating regular and healthy meals and snacks will help your child stay nourished and also provide periods of well-deserved relaxation. So, though it is hard to focus on anything but the books at this time, take extra effort to ensure that your child enjoys meals and snacks. Help your child develop a healthy relationship with food and eating even during exam stress. This will go a long way to helping your child maintain a healthy weight through adult life as well.
* Based on full year 2008 sales value data reported by Nielsen MarketTrack Service for Infant Milk category, GUM 3+ & 6+ Segment in Total Singapore. (© 2009, The Nielsen Company.)
^ Applicable for GROW SCHOOL®
+ Applicable for GROW®
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For expert advice on paediatric nutrition, please contact Abbott Nutrition Careline at 6278-6220.
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