Different youth have different food needs , and no one diet fits. Nutrition has to grow with the child. So for kids aged between 5 to 9 years. Start with nuts, overnight soap, nuts, almonds, raisins. Tiffen should have, um, like a stuffed parana or a mongdal chila with paneer stuffing that they should definitely include a moringa powder or a spirulina powder sprinkled over their meats. 

Understanding Age-Wise Nutrition

Well, every stage of childhood has its own growth demands. So, you know, a toddler will of course have, uh, his demands. So he will need soft meals or probably easily digestible meals and energy giving meals because he’s running all around in the day. Then, the schoolgoing kids need a lot of energy and a lot of mind building and brain development foods. So they need that kind of food. And then, you know, teenagers they have all the hormonal things going inside them.. So protein, good fats, that’s very important. So different food or different childhood ages have different food requirements and no one diet fits all. 

Avoid combination of food

One thing I want to tell you is that you should never mix dal and curd. Yes, they’ll cause bloating. They’ll cause a little bit of acidity inside your gut. So, that should be avoided. But otherwise, all the greens and all the vegetables that they like, they can have it with. Now, Todd outlets can definitely be given a fiber in their hand. Maybe a cucumber, maybe a carrot. So, after every bite, they can just chew that. not as a salad form. They can just hold it. It’s fun for them, right? Then evening snacks can be some energy giving foods like a banana pancake or a mango smoothie or they can have idlis. So that can be an evening snack and dinner similar to lunch. But here protein can be added and paneer, mushrooms, tofu, spinach, soya, anything that the mom can make.

Incorporating Different Flours in Roti

So with roti roti I say that you should definitely include some kind of other data like a millet into the normal data and then we should make the flour. You can probably also have flax seeds powder in it or oats powder in it. I’m not saying just just use the millet because the kids won’t like that but you can mix that with the normal data and make roties out of it. The kids won’t feel a difference. Very interesting. I’m actually making mental notes because I have a toddler. Oh lovely. So I’m going to really take this menu which you have given and I’m going to like to put it to use right away.

Understanding Hunger Cues and Avoiding Force Feeding

Definitely you know but with toddlers, uh, that’s the age between 2 to four it’s very difficult to understand their preference or hunger cues and that’s when we parents take over and we start dominating their meal times. How can parents understand hunger cues and not do force feeding instead? Well, that’s a very good question I may ask because, you know, a lot of parents think that forcing or bribing or manipulating the kid into eating is giving them sufficient nutrition but that’s the opposite. You know, uh when we do that the toddler actually tends to hate the food and he tends to probably eat the food without interest. And my main goal here is to tell you that when we don’t mind what we’re eating, when we’re not mindful of what we’re putting inside our bodies, the food does not give any nutrition. It’ll just go outside. It’ll just get evacuated from your body. So there’s one simple rule. You decide what to feed them. They decide how much to have. And the kid will definitely come to you, show you signs, or do something when he’s hungry. He will not stay hungry. The body needs energy.

Realistic Portion Sizes for Children

But overestimating what is on the plate should be over like a mission as parents. What is a realistic portion size at different ages? There is no portion size. Every body and every stomach is different. So, you know, they need to stop when they are not hungry and they will tell you when you overfeed them or probably when they’re watching television, they’ll keep on eating. That happens with my son. He’ll eat four chapati while watching television and he’ll not even eat like one and a half or two when he’s not. So, the routine has to be set. A balanced meal has to be set. Every stomach is different. You need to, you know, judge and see how your toddler, how your baby is responding, how much he wants and including a lot of colors in the diet, a lot of variety in the diet, making him happy and giving him nutrition. 

Trusting Children’s Hunger Signals

And I guess, uh, we need to trust them now that some days we are very hungry and then some days we just don’t feel that hungry. And I guess that’s what we need to sort of, uh, do the same thing with our kids, right? Uh now moving on to the age group which is, um, aged between 5 to 9 years. What’s a simple meal structure plan? See their day should definitely start with nuts, almonds, raisins, walnuts, another whatever they like a handful of. Then before going to school they can have a glass of milk. Mhm. and a bowl of curd, a bowl of Greek yogurt, like an ice cream, maybe a natural ice cream, whatever they like in summers.

Evening Snacks and Dinner for Kids

Um you do a lot of variety in the subject as well. So the roti subji dal is there for lunch. Then the evening snack. Now evening snacks again require some kind of brain development or a nice thing like that protein laddus. So nuts protein. So crush all the nuts and seeds that you have crushed them, bind it with raw honey and put some jaggery in italo give them to everyday filling and it is very good for health. Then dinners and again same as lunch roti subji dal curd I would definitely want you to not have in the dinners. Milk also should not be taken at night but, uh, the fiber, the protein and the carbs should definitely be there.

Nutrition Challenges for Teenagers

So what I understood is fancy so that they get used to the color the taste the texture and then we can move on to the normal roti subzi exactly that plate right very interesting but The next age group which I’m talking about which is teens nutritional intake especially age they are really inclined towards binge eating.

So the first and foremost thing that we require is protein which is, uh, for their muscle and tissue development. Then calcium and vitamin D for their bone density are very very important. iron especially in girls to prevent fatigue and for supporting their blood health as well. And then good fats you know the nuts, digi ghee, avocados, all these good fats, the oils that the mom is using for cooking, the olive oils and the virgin olive oils, flax seeds oil, all of these things they give their help in brain development. So this will help them a lot, the teenagers basically.

Full Day Eating Plan for Teenagers

Yeah. Can you break down a simple full day eating plan for a teenager? So they can have anything and everything in this childhood stage. What they need to take care about is binge eating. The late night eating snacks, the binge eating that they do between the meals. That is where everything goes wrong.

I have said it again and again in a lot of interviews or a lot of things that I say out of sight, out of mind. So you know you should not have anything junk in your kitchens. Please mommies please listen to me. You will also not have it. They will also not have it. And when they want to have it, when they are hungry, healthy options should be available.

Like you can have a peanut chart. Very tasty, right? Macana chart, sabu dana chart, uh pumpkin seed chart, you can put paneer and aloo in it. That’s okay. But a major portion should be these good fats for their development.

So as I told you initially when they wake up, uh, they should start a day with some nuts soaked nuts. A detox drink will be very beneficial for them. They can have for their brains they can have a jan and jeera water. Okay. So you just need to soak them up, boil it in the morning and drink this water.

Breakfast definitely can be paras, dosas, idlies, uttapam, chilas, anything but every meal should have the protein, calcium, vitamin D, iron and, uh, healthy fats. So you should take care of that. So paneer kapar if they’re not having anything probably they’re having idli which is like all carbs. So you give them a coconut chutney with it. healthy fat, right? Interesting. Then you can include veggies in that like chopped bell peppers or chopped carrots.

Lunch, uh, mid meals, sorry, let’s come to mid meals first. Mid meals can be a smoothie or a lemongrass water with a fruit or even a milk glass of milk with some fruit. You can have a smoothie as well in milk.

Then we came to lunch. Lunch, um, can be roti subji, dal rice, whatever you want to but protein is very important. So mushroom and spinach sandwich or, uh, you can have palap paneer with roti or any protein in the diet is very important. Fiber like salad is very important. Di ghee on the roti or dala playa is very important.

Evening snacks. Again, they don’t need to have heavy evening snacks. They can definitely go with the protein laddus that I told you or very light snacks like the peanut chart or the macana chart. They don’t need a meal here. They don’t require it.

Now, dinner. Dinners can be interestingly very very protein rich for them. If we do not stick to only roti subji here, we can try a lot of other things like, uh, a carrot crepe. You know, you just grate a carrot and you put it on baking paper. You bake it and then you stuff it with paneer. Paneer. You can add any kind of sauces that they like in it in a little quantity. Of course, carrot craps are very good.

Then you have spinach wraps. Spinach roti. If you’re non-vegetarian, add smoked chicken. Roll it up. It is like a subway but a healthier version of it.

Then healthy pasta. You do not have, you do not put any maida in it. Whole wheat pasta and then you’re mixing, uh, you’re boiling the bell peppers and the tomato and the, you can take carrots as well and you’re making the puri out of this not maida. So the veggies are also going inside and there’s no maida in it.

So different kinds of recipes can be tried in dinners for them so that they do not get bored, do not put hand on junk food and of course setting a routine is very important.

When you do it your kids follow right. So waking up at one time, eating food at one time, sleeping at one time, they will not follow it. But constantly when they see the parents doing it somewhere sometimes they also get a, you know, a zeal to actually follow exercise, which is very very important. consistency in exercise.

Whenever, uh, you will realize that, you know, once you’re giving all of these things to them now their focus, their concentration, their hormonal changes inside them, they will not retaliate to you like teenagers do they will not get angry very frequently and their scores will improve. So these are very beneficial for all these people.

Leading by Example and Healthy Habits

I loved so many points you mentioned like firstly you know keep cleaner stuff at home and lead by example because if you are following an unhealthy lifestyle and then you cannot expect your kids to follow a healthy one. Exactly.

Also I absolutely love the dinner menu you gave for teenagers. It’s very interesting so that you know it does not lead to midnight binge eating. So that’s why you made that dinner very interesting. It’s very tasty Zara.

Yeah, in the recipes you shared I mean yeah I guess this conversation is just making me hungrier with every question we spoke about macros like carbs, protein but there are so many micronutrients which are very important for kids especially growing kids and meal milk.

Tackling Picky Eaters

Now, let’s come to picky eaters because how can parents tackle picky eaters? Like we discussed earlier, you need to Tackle Picky Eaters and set a routine.

So when you once you set a routine and you give them food, you just give the food to them, you tell them you can eat how much ever, you know, even if they’re eating two bites of it in the starting, that is all complete. Okay.

But picky eaters generally are very easy to manipulate once they start eating their favorite foods at the right time.

The body needs energy. You know, it will not function. They will feel lethargic. They will feel so lazy that they will want to eat. Those hormones actually start jumping inside our bodies and they tell us that I need food. What are you doing?

So they will ask for food and at that time you just need to give them the right amount of food, the right, um, food ingredients, the nutrients, you know the proteins and the calcium and whatever we talked about earlier in the

Conclusion

These small things if we do, genuinely help our kids grow into better human beings and healthier human beings. Their immunity will increase. They will not fall sick all the time. So you need to have the right nutrition