Healthy packed lunches for children

Young children are not mini adults ? they have different needs and require the right kinds of tasty, nutritious foods to encourage healthy growth.

A recent report from Organix Brands ? called Carrots or Chemistry? Snacking and Child Health ? found that on average, snacks are eaten two to three times a day with some children eating six or more. Some children are consuming up to 80 different additives a day ? 50 of which come from snack foods.

Organix found that one area of concern to parents is what their children eat at school; they feel their efforts to feed their children healthily at home is dampened by their lack of control over their feeding habits while they are out of sight.

Eating an average of five junk foods daily puts children at risk from diabetes, heart disease and cancer, but what we often overlook is that these poor quality diets are also very low in vitamins and minerals. As a result, a proportion of children will most likely suffer lethargy, impaired concentration, and possibly behavioural problems, or allergies such as eczema and asthma, that are linked at least in part to poor nutrient intakes.

One way parents can exercise some influence over their children?s diet at school is to provide a lunchbox. These are an ideal opportunity to ensure that good eating habits inculcated at home travel with children and give them the nutritious boost they need.

A recent Food Standards Agency survey found that 3 out of every 4 lunchboxes do not meet government nutritional standards, and this underlines the need for parents to find healthy alternatives to convenient snacks currently on the market. With 5.5 billion lunchboxes packed for children each year and child obesity rates rising², parents are searching for ways to provide nutritious lunchtime diets, and

Organix?s guiding philosophy is that all children?s food should be tasty and nutritious without using any unnecessary additives. All of its recipes are free from any colourings, flavourings, thickeners, added sugar and fillers.

Organix Brands? has launched a free “Mini Lunchbox” guide for parents, to make planning the back-to-school lunchbox easy. It includes a 5-day menu planner that is consistent with the government?s guidelines for healthy lunchboxes as well as other useful ideas for five healthy days of lunchtime food for children.

Lizzie Vann, founder of Organix Brands, and a committed food campaigner, says, “Enabling children to make healthy choices at a young age will help them develop the right eating patterns to take them through life. This guide is designed to highlight how nutritious options can be convenient for parents to prepare and varied enough for children to enjoy.”

The “Mini Lunchbox” guide is available free copy; please call freephone 0800 393511 or go to www.goodies.uk.com

References

Government Nutritional Standards set in 2001. Survey developed from 688 lunchboxes inspected in 28 schools across England

2 British Heart Foundation Statistics Factsheet 2004