Back-to-School Eating Rhythm: Setting up for Success
Back-to-school season is right around the corner. Among the general chaos of restocking on school supplies, setting the alarm for earlier, and adjusting your family’s weekday routine, another challenge may arise. During the summer, children’s mealtimes often become much more casual. It can be difficult for children to acclimate to the structured snack and lunch times once returning to school, causing rumbling stomachs and constant requests for snacks. Here are some ways to help your child adjust to the back-to-school eating rhythm!
Plan Ahead
If you know the general layout of your child’s scheduled snack and lunch times, try implementing a similar schedule at home before school starts. If school has already begun, stick close to the eating routine on the weekends to help your child adapt to the schedule easier. One thing to consider is that children are recommended to eat five to six times a day, or every two and a half to three hours. This means that at a minimum, children should have breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner.
Make Time for Breakfast
Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Research has found that there are many benefits to regularly eating breakfast. Breakfast provides the initial energy and satiation children need to start the school day strong. When considering breakfast, it is important to provide options that will create long lasting energy and avoid the crash that follows foods that are ultra-processed and high in sugar. Providing nutrient-dense foods for breakfast such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and eggs will help your child stay fulfilled until the next snack time.
Include Different Food Groups
To promote a balanced diet and ensure children are getting all the nutrients they need, each meal and snack should contain a minimum of the following foods:
One starch (bread, noodles, rice, crackers, cereal, potatoes, corn)
One protein (meat, fish, soy, nuts, eggs, dairy, dark beans, nut butter)
One fruit/vegetable (ex: apples, oranges, bananas, berries, melons, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, dill pickles)
A drink in a cup (milk, milk alternative, or water)
A good rule of thumb is to offer one tablespoon per year of age of each of these three foods.
Prepare for Afternoon Hunger
As stated above, children should eat every two and a half to three hours. You can anticipate that if your child has not eaten since lunch, they will be hungry at pick up. Come prepared with a balanced snack to avoid a hunger-related crisis on the drive home.
Other resources
Creating a Lifelong Healthy, Happy Eater - an SOS approach resource
A list of 30 different fruits, vegetables, carbs, proteins, and fats by Veggies & Virtue - Young & Well can only recommend this “cheat sheet” and is not responsible for or necessarily aligned with any other content from Veggies & Virtue
