Healthy eating plan for primary school students

The core plan of a healthy diet suitable for primary school students aged 6-12 years old is actually not a rigid list accurate to the gram circulated on the Internet, but "the energy ratio of three meals is about 3:4:3, covering more than 12 kinds of ingredients in four categories including cereals and potatoes, vegetables and fruits, meat and eggs, and milk and beans every day, and gathering together every week Enough for 25 kinds of ingredients, and the specific intake can be flexibly adjusted according to the child’s physical activity and digestion status.” This is the most practical conclusion I came up with after working as a volunteer lecturer on food education in primary schools for four years, working with doctors from the Municipal Nutrition Society, and helping more than 300 families adjust their diets.

To be honest, I met a second-grade mother last year who posted an online plan with "each dish is accurate to a gram" on the refrigerator. For breakfast, she had 200g of millet porridge, 50g of boiled spinach, and 40g of chicken breast. The grams were so stuck. , but the baby couldn’t bear it after half a month. She secretly stuffed the hard-boiled egg she took a bite into in the middle of her school bag in the morning and took it out after school. It smelled bad. The mother was so angry that she shed tears and said that she got up half an hour early every day to prepare meals, but why did she end up like this?

In fact, there are two different schools of thought on the diet of primary school students: The academic group gives clear weight standards according to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)": 200-250g of cereals and potatoes, 300-400g of vegetables, 200-300g of fruits, 100-150g of animal foods, and 300-4 of milk and dairy products per day. 00g, soybeans and nuts 25-35g. This data comes from a large-sample nutrition survey, and there is no problem with its accuracy. However, most of us who are engaged in front-line food education will recommend weakening the gram requirements and prioritizing the types of ingredients. How can ordinary families use a scale to weigh vegetables for every meal?

Believe it or not, the first pitfall for many families is to mess up their breakfast. They either buy hand pancakes with thick shortening on the roadside, or plain porridge with pickles. It’s good if they can last until the second period. In the third period, their stomachs start growling and their attention wanders out of the window. In fact, there is really no need to make a fancy meal for breakfast. It can meet the standard if it has dry and thin food, staple food and protein. If you are in a hurry, spread some peanut butter on a piece of whole wheat toast, add a fried egg, a carton of milk and an apple, and you can eat it on the way out. It is much better than spending an hour making a table full of babies and refusing to touch it. Oh, yes, there is another point that has been controversial for a long time: can I eat cold fruit in the morning? In fact, as long as the baby drinks cold milk and eats cold fruits without diarrhea, there is no need to steam them specially. On the contrary, steamed fruits lose a lot of vitamins, so there is no need to bother with "health preservation".

If your child eats school meals or small dining tables, don’t worry too much about the lack of ingredients. Just teach your child a little trick: put half of the vegetables into the bowl when cooking, and then eat the meat and staple food after eating the vegetables. Don’t drink egg drop soup or tomato soup that are too oily. They are full of oil. Drinking too much will make you fat and full, and you will not be able to eat serious dishes. There is also a lot of controversy about eating meat. Some people say that primary school students should eat more red meat to supplement iron. Some people say that eating too much red meat will lead to premature puberty. In fact, it is not that extreme. Eat lean beef and pork liver 3-4 times a week. Each time, about half the size of a child’s fist is enough. I In the past, I met a child from a pure vegetarian family who was diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia in the second grade. He could not sit still in class and was always distracted. I also met a child who was fed braised pork every meal. In the third grade, he weighed 20 pounds more than his peers. Going to extremes is the biggest problem.

Don’t overdo it for dinner. Many parents don’t have time to cook delicious food for their children during the day. They stew a table of ribs and elbows at night. After eating, the children collapse on the sofa and watch cartoons. Within two hours, they complain of bloating. In the long run, poor spleen and stomach can easily accumulate food. If there are no extracurricular activities in the evening, just cook something light, such as steamed fish, stir-fried vegetables and multi-grain rice. If there are physical classes such as basketball and dance in the evening, prepare a small bun or half a corn in advance. If the child is hungry after exercise, don’t eat too much and affect his sleep.

Many parents ask whether snacks are completely untouchable? This is also the point where the two groups quarrel fiercely: some people say that refined sugar should be completely eliminated, and cakes, biscuits, and potato chips are not allowed to be touched. Others think that it is unnecessary and are allowed to eat their favorite high-sugar snacks 1-2 times a week, which can prevent children from having excessive cravings for sweets. I have actually compared it with the students I teach. The children who are not allowed to touch sweets at all, but often save their pocket money to secretly go to the canteen to buy saccharine snacks for 50 cents each. The ingredient list is full of additives. On the contrary, the children who are allowed to eat cream cakes once a week are not so obsessed with sweets and rarely take the initiative to ask for sweets. If you really want to take care of it, it is better to replace the regular snacks at home with plain nuts, sugar-free yogurt, steamed sweet potatoes, etc. Eat these first when you get hungry after coming home from school. It is perfectly fine to eat high-sugar snacks once a week, and there is no need to face a big enemy.

The reference combinations I usually give to parents can be modified at will, as long as the broad categories are enough. For example, for middle and lower grade students who have a normal amount of exercise (about 1 hour of outdoor exercise every day), you don’t need to copy them strictly. If you don’t like fish, you can replace it with shrimps, and if you don’t like corn, you can replace it with yams. Use whatever is convenient:

> Breakfast (7:30-8:00): Steamed pumpkin + boiled eggs + warm milk + 3 strawberries. If the child has a poor appetite in the morning, save the strawberries for the break.

> Lunch (12:00-12:30): Stir-fried spinach + soy sauce beef + cold lotus root slices + white rice, eat as much as you can, don’t overcrowd it

> Dinner (18:30-19:00): Shrimp and smooth eggs + garlic lettuce + millet porridge. If you have an exercise class in the evening, prepare an extra bun

>Snack: Eat an orange in the morning between classes, and drink half a box of sugar-free yogurt after school in the afternoon. Don’t eat too much to affect dinner.

Oh, by the way, there is another point that people tend to forget: drink enough 1000-1500ml of boiled water every day, and don’t replace it with milk tea or juice. This is much more important than worrying about how many grams of vegetables to eat every day.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there is no 100% perfect diet plan for primary school students. You don’t need to worry because you ate an extra bite of potato chips today, and you don’t need to blame yourself because you didn’t get enough 12 kinds of ingredients. The best plan is the one that suits your child. The one that eats healthy food, doesn’t get sick often, and can run and jump energetically is the best plan, right?