Kids Health: children and minerals

We all say we want our children to be happy and healthy and the habits we, as parents, lay down now for our children can go a long way to provide a healthy life. This article shows the food sources of minerals that children are sometimes deficient in.

Children are often deficient in minerals for a variety of reasons.  Up to 6% of toddlers have iron deficiency anaemia, which can have long term effects on brain development.

Common mineral deficiencies are the following:

Practical food ideas for parents and carers

The Heart Foundation has so many free resources for healthy eating and activities with kids including family friendly recipes that the whole family can enjoy and ideas for cooking and preparing food with kids.
They have:

•  launched a new project called Mums United which has easy to make recipes including vegetarian food.
• Practical Ideas for parents and carers booklet for practical advice on healthy eating and physical activities for kids including games to get them active.
• Cooking activities for kids with 28 easy recipes for children to help to prepare with adult supervision, including helpful tips, food safety and hygiene advice.
• A family activity tracker to see the steps you are making together day by day.
• Suggestions for making recipes healthier

All these resources can be found on their site, ordered online or you can call  1300 36 27 87  to order over the phone.

Other recent food related suggestions from EARLY PLAY AUSTRALIA bloggers:

• Food with Honey: Fruity Frozen Yogurt Pops from baby bees house
• My favourite quick and simple pantry meal {Dahl recipe} from Little eco footprints
• Number Cookies at learning 4 kids
• food and fine motor from Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

Healthy eating and physical activity for early childhood

GET UP & GROW

Have you seen these resources? Are you using them and if so let us know what you think of them.

The Federal Government has committed $4.5 million over five years from 2007- 2012 to develop and distribute guidelines on healthy eating and physical activity in early childhood settings.

The Get Up & Grow resources consist of:

• a Directors /Coordinators Book;
• a Staff/Carers Book;
• a Cooking for Children Book;
• a Family Book;
• posters;
• stickers;
• flyers;
• a CD-ROM

The Murdoch Children's Research Institute Centre for Community Child Health, Early Childhood Australia and The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne developed the guidelines and resources. They are evidence-based and support a consistent, national approach to childhood nutrition and physical activity. Consultations with state and territory governments, child health experts, the early childhood sector and families informed the development of the resources. Field testing was also undertaken.

The Get Up & Grow resources have been translated into nine languages - Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, Indonesian, Malaysian, Arabic, Turkish and Spanish - to ensure they are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse groups.

For further information on the Get Up & Grow: Healthy eating and physical activity for early childhood guidelines and resources please email PHD Frontdesk or view and print them out.

National Nutrition Week 2011 from 16th - 22nd October

The goal of National Nutrition Week 2011 is to raise awareness about nutrition issues and what we can do to ensure a healthy future for ourselves and our planet. Nutrition Australia has developed the Healthy Food Healthy Planet—Helping Families to a Healthy Future Nutrition Week kit.  It includes resources to help families, teachers and carers address the important issues around healthy food choices, physical activity and looking after the environment. The kit outlines basic steps that everyone can follow to make a difference.

Fact Sheets include:
o Helping your fussy eater- to enjoy a wider range of foods (PDF 327 KB)
o Using Food as a Tool to Help Build Resilience in Children (PDF 248 KB

Here at EARLY PLAY AUSTRALIA please visit the following healthy food related posts:
Cook your own Beets at Gooseberry Jam
Strawberry farm excursion at SunSpirits Steiner Inspired Playgroup
Basic pancake recipe easy afternoon tea... from Journey to Bliss
Sushi and bean-curd thingies made by children at Bowerbird Blue