Cool kids need good food!

Malnutrition is one of the focus areas of i-MED Africa, we educate the importance of nutrition in our local communities. Limited availability of nutritional and healthy foods prevents a healthy physical, mental and emotional development of the children. By training our communities in the practices of urban gardening, the parents and caregivers learn to grow vegetables, cook healthy balanced meals and can thereby provide for their families’ wellbeing themselves.

Early childhood is when lifelong eating habits are established. To fuel their growth, older infants and toddlers need to eat a variety of protein-rich foods, fruits and vegetables, whole grains, unsweetened milk and other dairy products. A healthy diet is essential to ensuring a young child grows well and reach all their development phases.

Feeding toddlers can often be challenging. That's because several developmental changes are happening at this time. Toddlers are striving for independence and control. These changes can make mealtime difficult. It's important for parents and caregivers to provide structure and set limits for the toddler. These suggestions can help manage mealtimes so that your toddler gets the nutrition they need:

Helpful feeding tips for your toddler

• Provide regular healthy meals and snacks, control when and where food is eaten by your toddler by keeping regular daily meal times. Provide social interaction and model healthy eating behaviours.

• Limit juice intake. Encourage whole fruit and water instead.

• Make the food easy for your toddler to eat, involve children in choosing and preparing foods and teach them to make healthy choices by helping them select foods based on their nutritional value.

• Always supervising your child when they are eating and keep your child seated while eating.

Healthy food choices

Grains: Foods that are made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley, or another cereal grain are grain products. Examples include whole-wheat, brown rice, and oatmeal. Aim for mostly whole-grains.

Vegetables: Vary your vegetables. Choose a variety of colourful vegetables. Include dark green, red, and orange vegetables, legumes (peas and beans), and starchy vegetables.

Fruits: Fruits may be fresh, canned, frozen, or dried, and may be whole, cut up, or pureed.

Dairy: Milk products and many foods made from milk are considered part of this food group.

Protein: Go lean on protein. Choose low-fat or lean meats and poultry. Vary your protein routine. Choose more fish, seeds, peas, and beans.

Teach the importance of good nutrition, and help your children establish healthy eating habits. The more your child understands about nutrition, the more excited they will be about eating healthy.