Children: breakfast is served 🆙

The importance of breakfast for children

Children who do not eat breakfast are four times more likely to have them obesity e overweight compared to those who do it. In children's diets, breakfast is a particularly important meal and should make about the 20% / 25% of the daily calorie requirement.

There are children who have no appetite as soon as they wake up: what to do in this case? Usually this waking anorexia lasts about a quarter of an hour, so just plan to let this moment pass before serving breakfast.

In the context of a healthy and balanced diet, breakfast for children must be given priority nutritious and light foods and avoid those too rich in sugar and fat, for example snacks. Furthermore, breakfast should be diversified to favor one diet always varies.

What foods in children's breakfast

Let's review some of the most commonly used foods for kids' breakfast.

Latte. Food discussed, depends a lot on the lifestyle and creed of the parents, the inclusion of the child's diet or considering natural alternatives that do not contain animal proteins. The cow milk it can be introduced in the nutrition of children from one year of age (unless otherwise indicated by the pediatrician). Then there are the so-called growth milks, generally recommended for the diet of children from 1 to 3 years old: but are they really recommended? To answer, just think that if in a glass of cow's milk 100% will be milk, in one of these products we will have 50% milk and the rest of other ingredients (sucrose, fish oil, potato starch, etc.).

Yogurt. Yogurt is also a great breakfast food for children. A good product should only contain yogurt, some sugar and maybe fruit. Fruit can also be added fresh; everything else is superfluous. There are not many yogurts on the market with these characteristics, but they exist and just look for them.

fresh fruit. It goes without saying that fresh and seasonal fruit is one of the best choices you can make for breakfast for children and the whole family, perhaps accompanying it with a slice of bread and a cup of milk.

Fruit juice. Juice should not be considered a substitute for fresh fruit. The industrial filtration and conservation processes, in fact, reduce the nutritional characteristics of the original fruit. In practice, juices, even 100% ones, have a much lower quantity of fiber and vitamins than fresh fruit. If the child likes it, it is still a drink that, if chosen well, can be part of a healthy breakfast.

Bread. Better if made from durum wheat semolina and free of fatty ingredients such as oil and lard. If children do not like semolina bread because it seems hard to them, it is possible to wet it with a little water and season it with brown sugar or honey.

Jams. To choose, the rule applies: the more fruit, the better; the quantity of sugars, of any nature (including fructose and grape sugar), should not be excessive. The ideal, for those who have time, is to prepare jams at home.

Cereals. Are they really a valid alternative to snacks? It depends. On average, if it is true that generally the cereals sold for breakfast are low in fat, it is also true that they contain an excessive percentage of sugar and also of sale; yes: salt. If children like breakfast cereals, it is a good idea to carefully read the list of ingredients and choose carefully. Bread, however, is better than any cereal package.

Snacks and biscuits. The industrial snacks and biscuits that children like so much are often too rich in saturated and unsaturated fats, sugars and additives; they must therefore be introduced only sporadically in the diet of the little ones and in any case chosen with care, that is, by carefully reading the list of ingredients. Crackers and rusks, often thought to be healthier, also happen to contain a lot of fat. It would therefore be better to opt for baked goods (not industrial, therefore) that are usually healthier or have fun preparing simple cakes and biscuits at home by choosing the ingredients carefully.