Busy Mums

Healthy Easting for children

Healthy Eating for Children

I was so pleased to see on TV last week, the school dinner ladies who had been invited to lunch with Prince Charles. Well done them.

It was also interesting listening to one deputy head being interviewed about the challenge of introducing healthy children's meals into school. As he put it and I certainly really empathise with this. "Children will sink to the lowest denominator with food".

My interpretation of that is simple. Offer children burger and chips or cottage pie and vegetables, and you will find the vast majority will choose the least healthy.

So you really do wonder whose bright idea it was to offer children so many choices?

When I was at junior school we used to have a cooked dinner and pudding. No choice - and although I do remember the odd dodgy menu. (Salad I never liked). No one ever starved to death.

Eating our lunch at set tables with the top year serving was an event. Now children have to queue for meals, sometimes have to eat their lunch in classrooms. So the whole "lunch" event has disappeared.

Of course it is the same in many offices. Lots of people grab something at the local sandwich shop and eat lunch a their desk. This has been proved not only to be pretty unhygienic but also a bad work practice. People need a break, especially if they are sat in front of a computer screen all day.

But as with the status that comes with the number of emails you receive, some offices work ethic is to work through your lunch hour - it shows you are busy. But the thing is, being busy, is not necessarily productive. Then of course, the other bad habit that creeps up, is sitting down in front of the telly to eat.

So perhaps we need to look at setting an example in the work place, as well as at home. After all how can we expect our children to have healthy habits if we do not set a half decent example ourselves.

There are loads of programs on television now which show us the damage we are doing to our own and our children's health. There is also a confirmed link between behaviour and diet, so lets stop taking the easy option on the food stakes.

And if you are not a good cook don't despair. All you need is a few "signature dishes" which you can rustle up easily. And to find these I would look to your favourite celebrity chef. My favourites are Jamie Oliver and Anthony Worrell Thomson - personally like their no fuss approach to cooking. Their enthusiasm and laid back approach has certainly given me the confidence to cook things which I probably would not have attempted to do for a week night supper.

So lets back Jamie Oliver and the healthy school meals by running our own healthy food campaign back home.

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Labels: healthy meals, jamie oliver, school dinners

posted by Diana and Steve @ 13:07