How to avoid children’s overeating during the holidays

Why do we say this? Mainly because although we are the adults who commit the most excesses from food on these dates, boys and girls also suffer from our disorders. It is that boys and girls love parties, both Christmas, like New Year. Waiting for gifts from Santa Claus, and showing them to your relatives is part of your preferences. However, if we do not have control of their diet during these dates, this can be detrimental to them, and cause problems such as indigestion, vomiting, and even diarrhea.

As we can see, the parties require attention for our children, and also planning in terms of food and meals.

To get to the table on those days, it is necessary that we parents and adults previously plan the purchases, that is, what to eat and how to cook, the holiday menu. Understanding that all members of the family group should be part of this prior process. Thus taking advantage of these dates to involve the youngest sons and daughters of the home in all this action that can become one of the funniest activities to share in the run-up to the holidays.

Perhaps this can be the beginning so that together and as a family you can promote healthy eating at home. Looking for recipes that incorporate vegetables and fruits or other foods such as chicken and fish, as well as introducing a typical dish can help these combinations arouse interest in the youngest, and also in adults to encourage their daily consumption of the after parties.

An important fact to keep in mind is that if we take the opportunity to do this activity that involves buying and then cooking as a family, it will also make everyone feel part of something as important as food. And if we add to all this, cooking as a family will allow us to more easily introduce new foods and encourage the little ones in the house to try them. On the other hand, this whole process continues to be an opportunity to educate children on healthy habits and basic hygiene and food safety standards, such as cleaning and care in handling food by children.

The excesses and the little ones

The most common consequence in infants of abundant Christmas tables is given by indigestion. But to this we must add as we said before, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. All this is the product of the large amount of protein, sugar and fat that they usually eat on these dates, which saturate the body, preventing it from eliminating toxins and generating the different sensations of discomfort that are very recurring in children. Hence the importance of rethinking a balanced and healthy Christmas and New Year table. Reiterating that our children’s eating habits are formed by looking at mom and dad’s. Eating habits must be taught to sons and daughters from childhood, and parents and adults must follow by example, and the celebration of the holidays is no exception.

Nor should it be considered with all this that we should completely avoid our children’s intake of sweets and typical products of these holidays, but yes, that they eat only some and not in excess. For example we can have fruits over other desserts, fruit salad is ideal, thus minimizing the amount of sweets in desserts, nougats and others. To avoid industrialized products with flour and sugar, we can prepare and cook Christmas puddings and cookies with healthy ingredients as a family, thus being able to control the amount of sugar, fat and other unhealthy ingredients used in each of them by choosing for industrialized products.

To conclude, it is important to be able to enjoy and celebrate the holidays with the family and with our children, of course! It is something wonderful, and if we also eat healthy, rich and healthy, it will be much better not only for infants, but also for parents and adults.

Infant feeding specialist @serfarinelli