YMCA Healthy Living Magazine, powered by n4 food and health Winter 2016 | страница 7

HANAN SALEH, APD
Hanan is a Sydney-based paediatric Dietitian, mother of three, and founder/
director of The Food Expert EST 2002, a professional Sydney-based nutrition
consultancy service for infants, toddlers and children. Learn more at
www.thefoodexpert.com.au or n4foodandhealth.com

PORTION
DISTORTION
n an ideal world, kids (and
adults) would eat only when
hungry and then only enough
until they feel full. Unfortunately, kids
often eat because the food simply looks
too good to pass up, or out of habit
because it’s time to eat, or simply
because they’re bored. Sometimes,
they’ll keep eating until they’re well past
full because they’ve gone on autopilot
with their eating and are focusing on
other things.

I

If you find your child heading to the
refrigerator when she or he has just
eaten a good meal, stop and ask them
if they’re eating because they are
hungry or because they are bored. If
the answer is the latter, take a time out,
and go and find something to do
together. More importantly, talk with
your child about hunger, every time
they go into snack-seeking mode.

Mindful eating
Eating while performing other tasks, such
as watching television, playing video
games, or talking on the phone, can
short-circuit feelings of satiety. If you are
distracted by other things, it’s possible to
miss that feeling of fullness that tells you
when your stomach has had enough.
This is the same phenomenon that
causes you to eat an entire family-sized
bucket of buttered popcorn by yourself,
while watching a movie at the cinema.
Encourage your children to practice
mindful eating. Ask that all meals and
snacks be eaten around the kitchen
table. Meals and snacks should be
eaten with the television off and in the
company of the family, where possible.

Portion sizes for children are predicted by parental
characteristics and the amounts parents serve themselves.
Nutrition expert Hanan Saleh explains.
Listening to your child’s cues

These include:

Through their well-intentioned efforts to
make sure children eat well, parents
often ignore their children’s hunger and
satiety cues. If dinner is on the stove
and your child says she’s hungry for a
snack, do you allow her to have a
nutritious bite to eat, or does she have
to wait until dinner? If she says she’s
full but has only eaten half her dinner,
and hasn’t touched her broccoli, do you
excuse her from the table or demand
she take a bite or two of the veggies?

• steak, vegetables including sweet
potato, green beans, mushroom
• stir fry brown rice with vegetables,
tofu and chicken
• spinach and feta frittata served with
salad
• chicken or meatballs served with
pita
• beef eye fillet served with high fibre
pasta and peas/corn
• spaghetti bolognaise made on high
fibre pasta and vegetable infused
sauce

If you insist on judging adequate nutrition
by the clock or the quantity of food left on
a plate, and you ignore your child when
she says she’s hungry or full, you’re
reinforcing the idea that her hunger cues
are not important. As a result, she may
start disregarding them herself.
Choose foods that will help kids feel
fuller for longer. Options include:
• low GI, high protein foods to keep
fuller for longer
• nuts
• yoghurt
• low fat milk
• melted cheese on wholemeal bread
• fresh fruits – apples, mandarins,
pear, bananas, grapes & berries
• hummus with cucumber, carrot,
celery sticks
• wholemeal raisin toast
• low fat smoothie with milk and fruits
Similarly, meal ideas that are also based
on high protein and low GI, will
contribute to helping you feel fuller for
longer.

There is a strong relationship
between portions offered by
caregivers, and the
amounts children consume
at a meal, and this
research suggests that
factors unrelated to the
child (e.g. the amount a
parent serves himself or
herself) are also
important
predictors of
children’s
consumption.
For this
reason,
improving
parents’
recognition of
appropriate
portions for
young children,
could be useful
to help prevent
obesity occurring
in the future.

WINTER 2016 YMCA HEALTHY LIVING MAGAZINE

7