With your kids back in school, how do you ensure they are eating nutritious meals?

I was wondering the same thing. I can't pack my lunch for personal reasons, but I do buy lunch. Seriously, all we had one day was a bread stick and a milk box. Maybe we should call First Lady Michelle Obama and get her to help. She's always talking about eating healthy.

The best thing to do is to pack your child's lunch, don't give them money to buy lunch at school and they cannot buy from the vending machines, though u cannot prevent everything as kids may switch lunches with another child but likely if u pack something u know they will eat then they won't trade. A little sugar won't hurt a child so if they trade something for a muffin or a twinkie it's not a big deal. Just make sure that your child is eating healthy at home, make sure to include vitamins in their diet (they have a good selection of gummies that taste great that are vitamins which your child won't know aren't candy) and make sure they are getting plenty of exercise at home which will help u and your child to know that they are doing the right things.

There are no vending machines in my kid's elementary school. I send them with a lunch. The cafeteria food isn't horrible, but there aren't a lot of fries. It's some sort of entree and a salad bar with carrot sticks and celery etc.....my daughter piles on the cucumbers. The high school doesn't have vending machines either. There is snack bar run by the DECA club. (marketing) that sells stuff like frozen gogurt and bagels and cream cheese. It's not great, go-gurt is full of sugar, but it could be worse too. This is pretty basic, but most kids are eating 2 meals a day at home and one at school. For the two meals I make, I make one that is nutritious.

You really can't.

Point said, didn't you trade your apple for a twinkie to the kid across the table when you were in school? This has been going on forever and granted that there are vending machines now, you will never be able to control what they eat when you are away.

Best thing is to encourage proper eating and they wont WANT to eat the crap offered to them.

Additionally, if you feed them all the nutrients they need at home, their bodies can deal with the toxins they eat while away from home.

JM

There is a few things you can do. Although most schools are making sure that children and teens are provided with nutrition. When i was in school and it was free we had to take one of everything that was provided and it was all nutritious, rather you ate it or not it was provided, rather schools do that now or not I don't know. Schools that have vending machines are usually turned off at lunch so kids eat healthy. And most times they are filled with nutrition.

You can make sure by feeding them at home and making sure they eat it and giving Multi vitamins every morning. You can pack their lunches and or give them snacks for school that are healthy. The older they get the harder it will be to control what they eat and do at school. Your best bet is to have a converstion with them and see how their habits are. Never force or get angry if you do see them eatting unhealthy because they will only keep doing it. Good eatting habits start at home limit smacks and sugar intake during the day but dont be to controlling.

Apparently Obama has or is putting through a school lunch thing - you can order things like pizza & french fries together, you'd have to order a salad. So i think thats taking a step in the right direction.

You can keep talking with the children about the importance of nurticious meals - and you can find things that taste good - but are good for you too. Instead of buying regular chocoloate - buy carab* (however you spell it) Use more natural things.

The more you push them to not eat the junk, the more they are going to want it. So I think the best way in teaching your children to eat healthy, is to have healthy eating practices at home. Then, they are more likely to choose better meal options while away.

How about giving them all the right nutrients for breakfast every day, dinner every day, snacks every day. and lunches on weekends. There are 168 hours in a week, and only 35 or so of them are spent at school. Seems like whatever you do will balance out whatever they do at school. If you're really worried about it, pack their lunch and make sure they have no cash for the vending machines, etc.

show them with pictures a timeline of what happens to the body when you eat junk and what happens to the body when you eat right, then ask them what they'd prefer to look/feel like. Teach them right, and they will make the right choices themselves. Make sure your timeline has changes by the year, because kids can't fathom what life will be like in their 30s anyway.

If they're still in elementary school, pack them a lunch that is healthy yet tasty, that also won't get gross by lunch time, because I know when I was a kid, if that sandwich bread got soggy, or the strawberries got warm, I wasn't eating it. I'd much rather get a hot dish of pizza or burger and fries, or grab a candy bar, or go hungry even, all because my packed lunch went bad. It'd certainly be nice if kids could refrigerate their lunches like adults can at their jobs. Would you want to eat a sandwich you made 5 hours ago that's been sitting at room temperature and smashed by books when you can smell pizza in the air? Ice packs in the lunch box don't work, they just don't last that long, and it gets everything wet. By middle school, it's "not cool" to have a lunch box, and "being cool" is always more important than feeding yourself at that age, so when they reach that age, do what my mom did and pre-pay the cafeteria, that way your kid will eat, (refer to the first paragraph about helping your kids make the right choices).

My daughter is in Elementary school and so she only eats lunch at school and I pack her lunch thus ensuring she eats nutritiously. I also make sure she eats nutritiously at home and we almost never eat out (maybe once a month) so that if she were to have candy or french fries at school, it wouldn't hurt.

Parents have full supervision over what he kids eat at home, which should mean for breakfast and dinner. Kids have a great metabolism and can digest and survive practically anything. But there are a couple important factors at work here. First, every kid needs a decent exercise/athletic program. Not necessarily organized sports but some regular exercise type of activity. If they participate physically in some demanding type of program that helps offset junk food. The other factor is the home education and food supply. If the kids eat healthy foods at home and participate in a decent exercise program of some sort, the junk food they might eat outside of home won't hurt them.

I pack my child's lunch daily. She gets 'healthy' options such as garlic and herb goat cheese on WASA cracker bread, Nutella on organic multi-grain bread, veggies and/or fruit, soft-boiled organic egg, carrot sticks with dip, home-made all natural chicken noodle soup, Kashi cereal bars, Kashi cheddar cracker (like cheez-its, but healthy), Kashi or BearNaked granola and cookies, organic Hummus with tortilla or crackers, cold home-made pizza. At my daughter's school there is 'no sharing food' rules because of the common food allergies. So, she eats what I pack and there is no other option. She may order lunch once a month, as a treat. School lunches claim to be healthy, but how healthy can poultry be when the food is cooked in a factory, and refrozen, and doesn't spoil for 2 years? And the 'fruit' they serve is marinated in corn syrup? And veggies have more than 2 days worth of the Sodium intake a child needs? Too many -glicerides, too high carbohydrates, too much MSG and other preservatives! I am a full time student, full time worker, and single parent to 2 children. If I have time to eat healthy, and pack healthy things for my children, anybody can... and should!