5 types of foods that will help your child become an excellent student 01 December 2009
You are doing everything you can to make your child a good student. OK. But do you feed him properly?
Scientists have studied students’ heart activity and breathing during lesson and they found out that the level of stress they experience equals the stress experienced by an astronaut who is in weightlessness. Students sit behind a desk, but their emotional and intellectual tension is so high, that it actually leads to burning a big amount of calories. Students' minds use up to 25% of the energy, gained by food, while adults’ minds are satisfied with only 3–4%. That is why children at the age of 7-10 need about 2000 kcal a day, these at the age of 11-14-2400-2600kcal a day and 16-year-old children-around 3000 kcal a day. Compare-parents need 2000-2200 kcal and grandmothers and grandfathers-up to 1500 kcal.
Of course this does not mean that children should cram themselves with sausages, hamburgers, chips or chocolate, thinking they will burn all the calories. They need a completely different type of food.
Breakfast
Dieticians always say that in the morning children need something warm and not very sweet. Just forget about sandwiches with sausages (in the beginning of the day animal proteins are not easily assimilated), stop the pancakes with jam (his blood sugar will drop after the second lesson and your child will feel tired) and the dry snacks. Oatmeal is perfect for breakfast. It is rich in carbohydrates and your child will be sated till noon. Most appropriate in fact is buckwheat. It contains a lot of vegetable proteins, phosphorus, calcium, iron and vitamin B, which help the brain to function actively. Oatmeal comes next, but made from flakes, rather than whole grains, because it can be assimilated more easily. Semolina is not recommended, not because it is not delicious, but because of the many calories it contains. It is necessary to alternate this breakfast with other healthy foods- omelet with vegetable, casseroles, cheese snacks, etc.
Milk
Children, drink milk and be healthy! This is true to some extent. Milk is healthy, but not always. If your child, who used to like milk very much, suddenly refuses to drink it and complains of abdominal pain, do not consider this a caprice. Until the age of 3-5 children assimilate milk perfectly, because the intestinal enzyme that controls blood sugar at this age is very active. It looses its activity with age and usually at the age of 10 it becomes clear if cow milk is good for the child. People in Sweden, England and Ireland are very lucky, because lactose intolerance is not a common problem there. However, in Africa and some other north peoples, this enzyme is genetically absent in 70-97% of the population.
Soup
“Eat your soup"- our mothers and grandmothers used to tell this all the time. Actually, they were right. Soup is a very good lunch for all the students-it is warm, nourishing, easily digestible and it quickly restores children’s strength. Moreover, students need a lot of water, which they can get form soup. However, bouillons from animal bones are not healthy at all, especially for a child. They contain a lot of cholesterol and fatty acids. Healthy is the light soup with meat-fish or chicken. Another option for a healthy lunch for students is a meal with vegetables and mushroom bouillon.
Fish
We often cook chicken or other meat for our children, but what about fish? And it is exactly fish that contains healthy amino acids which help to activate and strengthen brain cells. Salmon, trout, mackerel, sardines and herring are very healthy. In case your child does not want to eat fish at all, offer him other sea products.
Chocolate
Chocolate is another "smart" product which students must eat, especially during an examination. It contains carbohydrates which are "the food" of brain cells. But this does not mean that one should eat a whole kilogram. A few pieces of milk chocolate for children and black (natural) chocolate for adults are enough. Try not to give children sweets that contain pure sugar. All the lollipops, candies and caramel sweets are very unhealthy. Not only they spoil teeth, but also they chemically "attack" the pancreas.
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