What is the right way to feed a schoolchild?

A schoolchild's academic success largely depends on what the child eats. But many parents are too busy to provide their child with a balanced, nutritious diet. They either underfeed the child, giving him or her only vegetables and fruits, or overfeed, trying to put more meat on their son or daughter's plate. How to feed a schoolchild correctly?

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Schoolchildren's nutritional mistakes

As a child grows up, his school workload increases. A growing organism requires more food, and more filling, but there is no time. That is why children buy food in advertised fast food restaurants. This makes them fat, cholesterol accumulates in the blood, and fats accumulate under the skin.

There is another extreme: schoolgirls, concerned about their less than ideal figure (and how can it be ideal, girls are still developing), are obsessed with the idea of losing weight. So they reduce their diet as much as they can, living from diet to diet. The result is improper development, lack of nutrients, paleness, lethargy and apathy. To prevent this from happening, parents should clearly know what and how to feed a schoolchild, and be sure to explain this to their children.

Schoolchildren's calorie needs

To properly compose a schoolchild’s diet, you need to take into account several important things:

• Number of calories per day
• What dishes contain how many calories
• Weight and height of the child
• Child's food cravings
• Schoolchildren's tendency to allergies

Calorie table for schoolchildren

Age	Calories per day	Proteins per day - g	Fat per day - g	Carbohydrates per day - g
6 years	up to 2000	up to 75	up to 49	up to 280
7-10 years	up to 2300	up to 87	up to 52	up to 322
11-13 years old (boys)	2400-2700	up to 102	up to 61	up to 378
11-13 years old (girls)	2300-2500	up to 94	up to 56	up to 350
14-17 years old (boys)	2800-3000	up to 113	up to 68	up to 420
14-17 years old (girls)	2400-2600	up to 98	up to 58	up to 384

Protein in a schoolchild's diet

The diet of a child who is growing and at the same time spending a lot of time and effort on studying must include protein. If protein is consumed in combination with fats, these dishes remain in the stomach longer and need more time to digest. This means that the student will stay full longer.

Among such products containing both protein and fat, meat is, first of all. But there is a nuance: meat should be eaten in the first half of the day, and not in the evening. The fact is that meat products contain nitrogen compounds that can excite the central nervous system. If you eat meat for dinner, the child will not be able to fall asleep for a long time, his sleep will be full of nightmares, and why do you need this. It is worth learning that meat dishes include all types of meat, including dietary ones, from rabbits or poultry. A schoolchild's dinner should ideally consist of plants and milk or plant-milk dishes. On the contrary, they have the property of calming the child's nervous system, frayed during the day. It is not for nothing that since ancient times doctors have advised: "If you want to calm down, drink a glass of milk."

Plant-based and dairy foods should be left for the evening also because they are digested faster, much faster than meat. That is, by avoiding meat at night, you protect your child's digestive system, which will rest at night. And filled with meat dishes, it would not know a break all night, because meat can be digested from 5-7 hours to 10, depending on how it is cooked.

Eggs are a unique product that cooks very quickly. Just 5-7 minutes - and you have a boiled egg, tasty and nutritious. Add a salad to it - and your favorite schoolchild's breakfast is ready. The number of eggs for a child must be calculated correctly. He is supposed to have no more than 5 eggs per week, so you should not get carried away with them, so as not to cause allergies and not overload the little body with cholesterol. If the child really loves eggs, but does not digest them very well, you can use only the white, and throw the yolk into baking.

To give your child a quick and tasty snack at school, you can give them some nut kernels (nutritious and very good for brain function). An excellent source of protein! Supplemented with dried fruits, nuts also boost immunity.

Meat and fish bonuses

Meat is not only tasty, but also a healthy product. It contains a lot of iron, which is necessary for hematopoiesis. It is no secret that many schoolchildren are diagnosed with anemia and iron deficiency in the blood. This can be avoided if you include meat and buckwheat in your diet. Iron is also found in vegetables and fruits, but taken from meat, it is absorbed much easier.

Fish is also a great source of protein. It is very well broken down and absorbed by the child's body, much better than meat proteins. The protein that fish consists of has a unique structure: it does not contain connective tissue fibers - elastin, which delays absorption. In addition, fish contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, which help fight enemy agents from the environment, in particular, bacteria and viruses that provoke diseases. Methionine in fish helps to absorb protein, and it also promotes better absorption of fats, rather than their accumulation.

True, fish should also be chosen carefully. Baked, boiled or steamed fish is very good. It is easily digested. But fish that has been smoked, dried or canned brings harmful uric acid into the student's body, which causes kidney stones and gallstones, and joint inflammation. Sodium in such fish also has a destructive effect: it retains fluid in the body and increases the risk of hypertension.

Sea fish contains a lot of iodine, which is necessary for the development of the thyroid gland of children and the proper functioning of the entire endocrine system. Iodine also increases the level of intellectual development of a schoolchild and helps to get rid of diseases associated with goiter.

Seaweed as a gift from the sea is also very good in addition to meat and fish (better to fish). It can be added dried to porridges and salads - it is an excellent source of iodine. True, these products are not salted then - the cabbage replaces salt.

A very useful tip for mothers who love to cook: to kill the smell of fish, which not everyone likes when frying with its aromas throughout the entire apartment, you need to add a few slices of raw potato to the frying pan.

Is milk necessary in a schoolchild's diet?

A schoolchild's menu should contain at least 60% protein food - this is the building material for the body's cells, especially for nerve cells. Milk protein is very good for absorption, so if the child is not lactose intolerant, he can drink at least one glass of milk per day. This volume can be increased to a liter if the child likes dairy products.

Milk cannot be replaced by anything – it is such a unique product. But it is necessary to take into account that milk from a cow bought at the market and milk in the supermarket contain different amounts of calories. The difference can be double the norm, because cow's milk has more fat. It is also necessary to take into account that in terms of calories, 12 grams of dry milk is 100 grams of liquid milk or 25 grams of condensed milk. It is very good if the child drinks natural dairy products enriched with vitamins, minerals, iodized protein. To make sure that the product does not contain flavors and dyes, you need to carefully read its contents on the label.

It is better not to give boiled milk to a schoolchild, because when boiled, almost all useful substances are destroyed, in particular, amino acids. You should also pay attention to low-fat products or those with the lowest fat content. They are better absorbed, and in terms of useful substances, they are as rich as fatty dairy products.

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Why does a schoolchild need amino acids?

Amino acids are necessary for a schoolchild for good growth and development. The most important and necessary amino acids for a child are histidine, tryptophan and lysine. They are contained in very tasty and necessary products: fish, eggs, meat, cheese, seafood (in particular, squid), legumes, cottage cheese.

The best solution for a proper schoolchild menu is to make different days: day - fish. day - meat. This will diversify the child's menu and give him a set of all the substances necessary for development and growth. Plus it's delicious.

Nutritionists recommend allocating 3 days a week for meat and 2-3 days a week for fish. It is better to offer the child fillet dishes, not with bones, and preferably baked, not fried. Or steamed - for dietary purposes. Sausage and smoked products, as well as heavily salted fish and corned beef, are best not included in the schoolchild's diet at all. Smoked products may contain preservatives and flavorings, they have a large number of calories. Salty foods retain fluid in the body, which leads to excess weight, problems with the kidneys and urine outflow.

When parents cook chicken or turkey, goose or duck, they need to remove the skin because it is not good for digestion. If you still want to treat your child to fried meat, cook it in a frying pan with a grate so that the fat can drain. Excess fried fat is absolutely useless for a child - it is poorly digested, very high in calories, contains harmful carcinogens, and plus it increases the level of bad cholesterol in the blood, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

If soups or borscht are cooked in fat, you need to wait until they cool down and remove the fatty film from their surface. In general, it is better to cook such dishes in refined oil - vegetable oils are absorbed much better and are not nearly as caloric.

What is the danger of a lack of fat in a schoolchild’s menu?

In order for a child to receive all the necessary substances, it is not necessary to exclude fats from his diet. Fats do not make you fat, as many people mistakenly believe. On the contrary, fat helps many fat-soluble vitamins to be better absorbed, in particular, carotenoids, which are simply necessary for good vision and saturation of the blood with useful substances. And where would a modern schoolchild be without good vision? The school workload is great, and in order to cope with it, you need to feed the schoolchild properly.

If a schoolchild's diet is low in fat, his body does not cope well with colds. The immune system weakens and malfunctions. This is especially dangerous in the autumn-winter season. In addition, a fat layer is needed to produce sex hormones. The reproductive system of schoolgirls can only form correctly if there is sufficient fatty tissue. Too thin models and athletes have problems with conceiving and carrying a child precisely because of the lack of fatty tissue.

The fat under the skin in the child's body also works as a depot, necessary for warming the body. If there is a lack of fat, the child will constantly be cold and sick. Lack of fat also leads to disruptions in the digestive tract of schoolchildren. And the health of the whole body depends on its work. Therefore, parents should ensure that the body of a child who is carried away by school lessons receives no less fat than the norm.

Sources of easily digestible fats are the same sea fish, meat and dairy products, vegetable oils, cakes and pies with cream (you shouldn't get carried away with the latter). Fats can be animal and vegetable. Give preference to vegetable fats - they are better digested. Avoid margarine - it will not bring any benefit to the body, but will add calories to the maximum.

Where can a schoolchild get carbohydrates?

Children have been told that they need to eat vegetables and fruits because they contain healthy carbohydrates. In practice, not all children eat vegetables and fruits – either they don’t have time to process them, or they are expensive, or they don’t want to. It is much easier to use another source of carbohydrates – a bun or a pie, and eat it quickly during recess. But there is a nuance: a bun and a pie add much fewer useful substances to a schoolchild’s body than vegetables and fruits.

If you really want to include carbohydrates in your child's diet no less than the norm, then know: to comply with it, a schoolchild must eat no less than 400 grams of vegetables or fruits per day. You need to pay attention to the color of these products. Yellow, green and red colors of fruits and vegetables should be your guides, because they contain the maximum amount of useful substances. And carbohydrates, of course. And with them vitamins and minerals.

Vegetables and fruits should definitely be served as a side dish to meat and fish – this way the protein will be absorbed much better. Juicy spinach, cabbage in all its forms, zucchini of different colors and shapes. Radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions – are excellent helpers for a child in his development. Consider one important subtlety: do not prepare a salad of cucumbers and tomatoes together, because the useful substances of tomatoes (in particular, ascorbic acid) are suppressed by the juice of cucumbers, which is released when slicing and salting.

In addition, the golden rule of salads is to prepare and eat immediately. You can't let the salad stand for a long time, even if it doesn't go sour in the refrigerator. Freshly cut salads contain much more nutrients than salads that have already stood. Their nutrients can destroy each other or reduce their properties when in contact with oxygen.

How many and what nutrients does a schoolchild need per day?

Pediatric nutritionists have long determined that a schoolchild's diet should consist of the correct ratio of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. The number of calories is divided depending on the time of day. For example, breakfast should cover a quarter of a schoolchild's calorie needs. A student's lunch is 35% of the daily calorie intake. Dinner accounts for up to 40% of the calories a child needs per day. Moreover, a child should have dinner no later than 2 hours before going to bed.

The diet of a child who is intensively studying at school is also very important. Before going to school, the student should have breakfast. The second breakfast - at the time provided for by the school break - between 10 and 11 o'clock. This will give the child strength, restore his energy, which he spent on the most difficult lessons - the first ones. Then lunch at about 13-14.00. It would not hurt the child and an afternoon snack - about 3 hours after lunch. And, finally, dinner - no later than 120 minutes before bedtime.

Ideally, a child eats food in small portions – 5 times a day. Older schoolchildren (starting from the 7th-8th grade) can eat less often – 4 times a day. This will distribute the food portions evenly, give the teenager the necessary energy and will not overload his digestive system.

It is important to know that the breakfast that a child eats at school should preferably be eaten hot. A special time should be provided for this so that the student has time to eat everything without burning himself.

How to feed a schoolchild correctly? A nutritionist can also help you answer this question. When choosing a diet for a child, it is important to take into account his taste preferences and individual characteristics of the body. Loving parents will certainly cope with this.