Daily Meal Plans for Children

Ensuring that kids get adequate portions of vegetables is always a top priority in meal planning.

A daily meal plan for your children ensures that they are always obtaining proper nutrition. If you throw meals together at the last minute, it can be easy to fall into the trap of making quick and unhealthy meals. With a little planning, you can be sure that your kids not only get meals that are good for them, but that they enjoy.

Nutritional Requirements

One of the keys to create your daily meal plans is to make sure that your children are receiving the appropriate number of nutrients for their age, size and activity level. Obviously, children are going to require more nutrition as they age, so you will have to change the way you formulate your daily meal plans as they grow. Use the federal food pyramid guidelines to see how many servings from each food group your child should eat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's MyPyramid.gov website has a calculator that you can use to see how many servings of each type of food your child should eat.

Variety

Kids can easily get bored when made to eat the same thing on a regular basis. The more you can vary their foods in terms of the appearance, texture and flavor of your recipes, the more likely they are to enjoy it. This is a very important strategy to use when you make a daily meal plan. Children may not want to eat repetitive meals, but if you find a new way to keep it interesting and fresh every day, they will be more likely to not complain about what you serve them.

Planning Ahead

You should create a daily meal plan that extends several days ahead each time you create a new plan. It can be helpful to plan out meals for a whole week. That way, you can do all of your grocery shopping at one time and save yourself multiple trips to the store. You can also save money with meal plans because you can buy in bulk and avoid waste when you know how much of each ingredient you will need for the week.

Kid-Friendly Meals

The ultimate challenge after nutrition is making sure that kids actually enjoy their meals. Bright colors, varied textures and interesting presentations can all be useful tools when trying to make sure that younger kids enjoy their meals. Instead of giving into the pressure of feeding kids the types of "junk" foods that they often desire, spend some time researching healthy alternatives that they will still enjoy. For example, hamburgers are a perennial favorite among children. A burger from a fast-food restaurant is among the least healthy things a person can eat. But a homemade burger made with lean ground beef served on a whole-grain bun with fresh vegetables is not only delicious and usually embraced by children, butit is also an extremely nutritious meal. Ask your kids to help come up with the meal plans with you. This can make sure that there are healthy choices on the menu that they will enjoy.

References

• My Pyramid: Home
• Diet Health Club: Kids Diet Plan
• Uncultterer: Creating a Weekly Meal Plan
• PBS: Encourage Kids to Eat Healthy Foods

Resources

• Eating Well: Healthy Eating for Kids Recipes and Menus
• Today's Parent: Fit Family Seven-Day Meal Plan
• Meals Matter: Kids Healthy Eating Tips