In our series of posts on Health and Fitness by our friend, nutritionist, coach and general guru Noel Sutton this is Part 2 on the physical and nutritional needs of children involved in sport. Extending the argument that children are not mini adults and that they are still growing vertically, should your child be on a weight loss diet? I would suggest that unless it is for medical reasons or you’re taking specific advice from a professional then the answer is absolutely not. You shouldn’t be removing foods and especially food groups without reason. Focusing on less junk food or processed food is obviously a good thing, encouraging more fruit and vegetables and a healthy relationship with all food is really important. It’s very easy though to set your child up with bad eating habits or a poor relationship with food, so be very careful around dieting while still growing. I have spoken before about allergy/food intolerance testing. It is not reliable and to use it as a way to remove a food group from your child’s diet is very wrong. If anyone tries to persuade you that you need to test your child for food intolerance's in order to put them on their ideal diet, please don’t. It is deeply unethical, and you can report them. It seems obvious but to remove for example bread, pasta and rice from your child’s diet for no reason when they provide a significant portion of their energy needs is a worry. The tests put out many false positives and false negatives, as things stand, they can’t be relied on so please don’t use them to remove important food groups from your kids’ diet. So, what can you do to improve your children’s relationship with food? And further to this how can you encourage them to engage with healthy eating? The first thing you can do is to set the right example. Your children can see very easily when you tell them to do something but don’t yourself. Lead by example by eating plenty of fruit and vegetables. Their relationship to junk food might very well be set by what they see you doing. By setting a good example, you then don’t need to, and I suggest you shouldn’t ever, reward your children for eating healthily. To offer them chocolate or a dessert for eating their veg, means that you are validating their opinion that there is something wrong or difficult with eating their vegetables. It should just be a normal part of daily eating. Eating healthily shouldn’t be something you force. Lead by example, don’t reward but equally don’t turn it into a battle. Encourage, nudge them along you don’t need too put pressure on them, if they feel forced into it their more likely to try and choose something different. You also don’t need to make healthy eating a bland and boring existence. Read cookbooks and recipes, take a cookery lesson. Even better teach your children how to cook. There is no better way for children to learn about new foods and ingredients than by cooking them themselves. One other good way of getting them to uncover new foods is to try gardening with your children. Engaging in the process of growing something, getting their/your hands dirty. Being able to feel and pick and smell real food from a garden or allotment will only increase the range of foods your child will try. As with adults, children will eat what is accessible to them. If you have cakes, biscuits and chocolate around the house they’ll eat it. Make healthy food available and accessible all the time. Your children are much more likely to eat fruit if its in a bowl in the kitchen and easy to grab on their way past. You’re not forcing them or putting pressure on them, its just what is immediately available and accessible for them. What your children eat during the day can be more difficult. If they have food that is prepared and cooked at school, you are at the mercy of the school’s canteen policy. You can make sure that all the food they eat at home is healthy and balanced and try to teach them how to make good choices. The alternative might be to prepare packed lunches, this isn’t ideal for some busy families, but does give you back some control or options if you do have time. This gives you the chance to be a bit creative, not necessarily with what food you prepare, but maybe in how its presented. A novelty lunch box, or cool packaging might be enough to keep your kids’ interest and excitement in what they’ll eat during school at lunchtime.