If your child loves eating sugary treats, do not worry, they are not the only ones. Candies, soft drinks, cakes, and packaged juices must make your child’s list of favorite snacks. All of these items have one thing in common: they contain unhealthy amounts of sugar that can ruin your child’s teeth before you know it.
Apart from damaging oral health, excessive sugar intake can cause obesity, weight gain, and long-term health disorders, such as Type 2 Diabetes and hypertension. By following a few tips, you can create a healthy diet for your kid. For more information on how to keep your child’s teeth healthy, visit a dentist office on 5th street today.
Tips to reduce sugar in your kid’s diet
- Eat healthy as a family.
You are your child’s biggest role model. Your child follows their parents’ habits and sometimes follows your habits and behaviors. Instead of keeping junk food in the house, stock your fridge with only healthy items.
Encourage the adults and older members of the family to eat healthy items, at least in front of the younger ones. Your kid will try to follow you by copying the items you eat.
- Eliminate sugary drinks completely.
Sugary drinks are some of the most commonly consumed sweet items that ruin your dental health. This includes sports drinks, sodas, lemonade, fruit punch, and even 100% fruit juice that you find in the grocery stores.
Do not believe manufacturers who write 100% fruit juice on the package as even they put some sugar in their products. Even if there is no sugar in it, processing fruit juice eliminates the healthy fiber in them. Instead, make homemade juices and drink more milk and water.
- Limit consumption of biscuits and cookies.
Whether packaged or homemade, biscuits and cookies contain a large amount of sugar. You can try making cookies at home without sugar, but making them appealing to kids can be challenging. Instead of serving your kids biscuits and cookies, try to come up with healthier ideas. You can find many easy recipes online made with whole wheat.
- Serve vegetables and fruits.
Some kids may like fruit, but it can be a challenge to feed them vegetables. Children do not usually like vegetables, so it is not unusual to find that your kid does not either. However, you should still serve it to them even if they do not like it. Children should eat 5-9 servings of produce every day. Moreover, doctors say that chewing is an important exercise for satiety.