Parenting in itself is no cakewalk, but parenting an adolescent is more of a tightrope walk. For most parents adolescence has the word ‘trouble’ written large on it! Be it food, clothes, music or movies, studies or sleeping time, discord rules the roost at homes housing teenage children. So much so that celebrated American psychologist Granville Stanley Hall popularised the term ‘storm and stress’ in relation to adolescence to describe the decreased levels of self-control and increased levels of sensitivity exhibited by persons of this age group primarily due to an array of biological changes they experience.
From hormonal changes affecting mood to rapid physical growth creating discomfiture to neurological connections triggering a seeking of stimulation, adolescents have to deal with a lot during this volatile period of growth. And we all know that volatility breeds turbulence. Hence, it is important to take into consideration that children are adapting to some phenomenal changes and you might need to put in more effort to make their journey less challenging.
One area that needs parental care in this period is ensuring proper nutrition so that the body can support and make most of the changes happening within at a rapid space.
BEAT THE ‘ADO’ WITH BRAVADO
Kids in general are fussy eaters and when it comes to our teenage tornadoes the ado takes a dramatic proportion. Add to this, unhealthy dietary habits, sedentary lifestyles, skipping meals and irregular eating patterns, and what you get is poor food choice and poor nutrition.
(l-r) Get your teenager to help with grocery shopping, Puja Karnani Agarwal
This thwarts intake of essential nutrition in terms of macro and micronutrients which play a crucial role in ensuring optimal growth, supporting hormonal changes, building strong bones, enhancing cognitive function, and preventing chronic diseases later in life.
FOODS THAT ENSURE PROPER NUTRITION FOR ADOLESCENTS
Follow these simple yet effective steps to make sure that your children are getting the right nutrition according to their needs.
1. Emphasise whole foods: Whole and minimally-processed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats provide essential nutrients, fibre, and phytochemicals, while minimising the intake of additives and preservatives.
2. Nutrient diversity: Encourage teenagers to consume a wide variety of whole foods, including fruits, coloured vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and plant-based milk alternatives for a diverse array of micronutrients. Consciously adding a variety of superfoods like moringa leaves, spirulina, wheatgrass, amlas, saffron, coconuts, turmeric, ginger, etc., also help to meet the high micronutrient demands, but should be taken under the supervision of a healthcare provider.
3. Fortified foods: Incorporate fortified foods into the diet. To do so choose calcium-fortified plant-based milk, fortified cereals, iodised salt, and vitamin D-fortified products for adequate intake of nutrients.
4. Cooking methods: Opt for cooking methods that preserve the micronutrient content in foods. Steaming, grilling and sauteing are preferable to frying and boiling, as excessive heat and water may cause nutrient loss.
5. Snack on nutrient-dense foods: Woo your kids to snack on foods like nuts, fresh fruits, smoothies with seasonal fruits and protein supplements, vegetable sticks with dips, colourful salad bowls, nuts and seeds crackers with hummus, ghee-roasted foxnuts, homemade trail mixes with nuts and seeds, whole grain crackers or rice cakes with nut butters, homemade energy balls, yoghurt with seasonal fruits and buttermilk to get the essential micronutrients.
6. Avoid processed foods: Keeping your children totally away from processed foods and making them eat only fresh, whole, organic foods all the time is a pipe dream. While facing this situation, take the middle path and keep the processed treats for special occasions and stock the kitchen with unprocessed and nutrient-dense snacks.
7. Consider supplementation: In recent years, a host of factors including depleted soil nutrient content, limited dietary diversity, and ultra-processed foods have led to a potential shortfall in essential vitamins and minerals in children’s diets, making nutritional supplementation an important consideration. Given that children at this age have increased nutritional needs, meeting the requirements solely through food sources can be challenging, especially if the diet is lacking in nutrient-dense whole foods. By providing specific vitamins and minerals that teenagers may be lacking in their diets, supplementation can help bridge the nutritional gap. You can consult with a healthcare professional to figure whether a supplement is necessary, particularly for vitamin D and iron.
FUN TRICKS TO MAKE CHILDREN EAT HOME-COOKED MEALS
Taking a fun and creative route while dealing with the conundrum called ‘optimal nutrition’ can yield delightful results. That said, ensuring your child’s proper nutrition is an ongoing process where you need to keep encouraging your kids to have homemade nutritious meals on time. But given the ubiquitous restaurants, food joints and takeaways, not to mention delivery apps, this can be a daunting task. With this in mind let us explore some easy, handy, fun and creative tricks to make children eat cooked meals.
1. Start the day with a protein-rich breakfast: Scrambled eggs with sautéed vegetables, lentil pancakes stuffed with paneer and veggies, overnight soaked chia berry puddings, protein smoothies, quinoa upma with veggies, gluten-free vegetable and paneer wraps, unsweetened almond butter on gluten-free toast with a banana, plain Greek yoghurt with berries and nuts help regulate blood sugar and mood, cognitive function and attention, as well as reduce anxiety.
2. Camouflage vegetables: To make teens eat more fruit and vegetables add them to foods like salad bowls, vegetable juices, soups, smoothies, rice, wraps, and so on.
3. Meal prep: Planning, preparing and eating meals together is a great way to ensure that your kids eat homemade food for better control over ingredients, portion sizes, and nutrient content.
4. Junior chefs: Children are more likely to eat something they helped make. Allow your child to pick out one or two foods you cook for dinner, or once in a while allow them to prepare (under supervision) one dish for dinner.
5. Home gardening: Start a backyard garden and let your kids plant a vegetable or fruit sapling they love so they can watch it grow. The sense of pride that comes from growing their own food will encourage them to eat the food later.
ENSURING OPTIMUM NUTRITION FOR YOUNGSTERS LIVING IN OTHER CITIES AWAY FROM PARENTS
While the above is effective for children staying with parents, once they move out to other cities for education, it becomes difficult to have home-cooked meals. Establishing a strategy for easy meal planning to obtain optimum nutrition is the smart way out for them. Here are some effective strategies for easy meal planning in such situations.
1. Create a weekly meal plan that includes a variety of nutrient-dense foods.
2. Prepare large meals during free times and refrigerate them in containers to save time. Go grocery shopping accordingly to ensure availability of the necessary ingredients at home.
3. Choose simple and quick recipes like smoothies, one-pot meals, stirfries, sheet pan dinners, salad bowls and fruit yoghurt that require readily available ingredients and minimal cooking time.
4. Stock up on healthy snacks that require little to no preparation and can be hadon the go, like fresh fruits, granola bars, trail mixes, rice cakes, Greek yoghurt cups, roasted chickpeas, roasted chana and vegetable sticks.
5. If it’s challenging to meet specific nutrient requirements through meals alone, incorporate supplements. Don’t stress yourself out. You are doing fine as parents. Some little tweaks here and there, following the basic guidelines shared in this article and encouraging your kids to eat right can go a long way in making sure that your children are eating right and getting all the nutrition.