Print this newsletter

Breakfast: A Healthy Start
Susan Randolph, M.S., R.D.

Ready to help your kids succeed in school? You can boost their brain power, improve their behavior, and give them steady energy to help them stay alert. And it’s easy to do: Just start them off with a good breakfast every day.

Research has consistently shown that a healthy breakfast has a positive impact on a child’s brain function, behavior, and energy level. Here are some important conclusions:

• Improved attendance. Children who eat breakfast are absent from school fewer days and are tardy less often than kids who skip the morning meal.
• Better behavior. Kids who eat a morning meal have more energy, are less likely to be aggressive, and have a better attitude toward school.
• Higher test scores. Children who eat breakfast consistently score higher in most academic areas.
• Better nutrition. Breakfast eaters get more fiber, vitamin C, calcium, and folic acid in their diets. Most important, children who skip breakfast don’t make up for lost nutrients later in the day.
• Lifelong weight control. Eating breakfast helps establish routine eating patterns. Regular meals and snacks are key to maintaining a healthy weight throughout life.

Create healthy breakfast habits
Here are tips to help you fit breakfast into your busy schedule:

• Set the alarm a few minutes early to allow time for breakfast.
• Prepare the night before by laying out the next day’s clothes and backpack.
• Say “no” to TV, video games, and computers in the morning.
• Choose foods you can whip up in minutes: fresh and canned fruit, milk, yogurt, string cheese, hard-boiled eggs, whole grain cereal, or instant oatmeal.
• If your child has little appetite in the morning, offer a breakfast bar.
• Try something different, like cold pizza or leftovers from dinner.

Be a role model
Your kids pay close attention to what you do, so if they don’t see you eat breakfast, they won’t either. You can encourage your children to eat breakfast by having them help plan the week’s breakfast menu, keeping breakfast foods within easy reach in the kitchen, and putting fresh fruit on the counter.

Build a better breakfast
To power up your kids’ brains, the first meal of the day should be rich in protein and good carbohydrates – the whole-grain kind that will nourish them for at least a couple of hours rather than the sugary kind that will push their blood sugar up, then bring them crashing down.

Brain-building fats
You might not think that fat is a good thing – but for growing brains, it’s essential. And just like the highest-quality oil and gas keeps a race car at its peak, the right fats can help a kid’s brain like nothing else. The best fat for your child’s brain is called DHA.

DHA is especially important with your younger children, when their brain and eyes are developing very fast.

What scientists say

• The brain is 60% fat.
• This fat is essential for healthy brain growth and top performance.
• Up to 97% of the omega-3 fats in a child’s brain consist of DHA.
• DHA is very concentrated in the part of the brain that does complex thinking.
• DHA is necessary for eyes, too, helping nerve cells in your child’s eyes grow and do better.

Studies also show that young children taking DHA supplements had advantages over children who did not, including:

• Improved vision.
• Lower levels of fats in the blood and improved blood vessel function in children with high cholesterol levels.
• Significantly lower blood pressure at age 6, which may reduce the risk of heart disease later in life.
• Higher scores on standardized intelligence and achievement tests at age 4.

Got DHA?
Natural food sources of DHA – mackerel, herring, salmon, tuna, sardines, and algae – are probably not on your kids’ list of favorites. Flaxseed and walnuts contain another omega-3 fat that is converted into DHA, but only in tiny amounts. So it's no surprise that kids don't get much DHA in their diets. If your children are picky eaters or have unbalanced eating habits or food allergies, you may find it challenging to give them enough DHA.

How much is enough?
Experts are still debating how much DHA kids should eat for optimal health – there is currently no recommended daily requirement set by the Institute of Medicine.

However, in 1999, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommended that children should eat 150 milligrams (mg) DHA per day. They also estimated that the average child consumes only about 20 mg DHA per day, leaving a gap of 130 mg. Talk with your health-care provider about giving your child a DHA supplement to help bridge that nutritional gap.

Ready, set, breakfast!
Make your child (and yourself) a member of the better breakfast club. Keep it simple, tasty, and nutritious. It’s a habit worth getting into.

Sign up for your free monthly issue, and forward it to anyone on your list who might appreciate your help. And for Independent Business Owners, there’s even more …

Email us at wellnesswire@quixtar.com with your comments and questions.


Contact Us | Change Your Email Subscription Preferences | Read Our Privacy Policy

To ensure you continue to receive this email, please add us to your address book. You can also mail in your request to Change Your Email Subscription Preferences to:
Amway Copr., Email Preference Change, 7575 Fulton Street East, 58C-2A, Ada, MI 49355