WHY DOES THE TIME TO EAT MATTERS FOR KIDS

Everyone remembers the voice of their mother echoing through the room, “Hey you! Don’t eat at this hour of the day. Save your appetite for meal times, Kiddo”. None of us liked the sound of it, yet alas! We ourselves grew up to become very similar mommies and daddies, didn’t we? Bombarding orders at our kids about what to eat and when to eat; what a horrid thing to realize!

Raising healthy, happy munchkins takes knowledge and wise planning. Operation Falafel, Dubai is glad to equip young, enthusiastic parents with insights on how much of a kid’s health depends on when he has his meals. So parents, listen up.

Why do kids need to eat in time?

• A research concludes that eating bulky meals in the first half of the day is more beneficial for the body and yields greater energy from the food rather than eating heavy during the second half of the day.
• This can be explained by the varying amount of hormones released during the expanse of the day.   

Know your kids’ metabolism round the clock

• The times of the day at which your kids take their food affect their growth spurts and wellbeing especially Street Food like Falafel in Dubai.
• Toddlers have smaller stomachs, about the size of their fist, and thus they can store food for a considerably shorter period. Therefore, they need frequent feeding every 1-3 hours.
• As their stomach grows larger with age, kids (aged 6-12) can go on for longer intervals without food.
• By the age of 1, most kids munch around 6-8 times each day.
• While preschoolers can do fine with 3-4 hours long breaks between meals.

However, an ideal plan for school going kids would be a combination of 3 main meals and 2 mid meal snacks. What counts as snacks is an altogether new debate. Cutting to the chase, snacks include low sugar, low salt, and low fat food that your kid finds to be a delectable treat.

Point blank, it’s good if your kids follow an eat routine since adolescence. They don’t have to follow it strictly, but maintaining a routine helps ease a little tension off the digestive system by allowing it to predict when to expect food and get gurgling.

Make your kids follow a well planned mealtime schedule        

Although snacks can be a good, constant supply of fuel, unplanned or random intakes can put your kids at the risk of malnutrition or obesity. Parents need to regulate and allot thoughtfully the times for specific kinds of meals.

• A nourishing and appetizing snack can be planned in between two proper meals.
• On an average, it takes 2 hours to digest a meal and release the energy stored up in it
• So, this snack will be a perfect appetite boost if offered to the child a few hours after one meal ends and 2-3 hours before the next meal is scheduled.
• The mid meal snack, if well timed, can balance out hunger spikes and trigger a much-needed energy increment.

The times when your kids eat can have a major role to play in their cranky moods and stunted growth. If you are fulfilling all the nutritional needs of your kids but still seeing the aforementioned symptoms in them, it’s time you check and balance their meal schedules. It may sound like another hectic thing to add to your checklist for the day, but it will develop a habit of healthy living in your child, for which he will thank you all his life. Happy parenting!  

(Photo Credits: Shutterstock)