Children and Healthy Breakfast Cereals

By now, we've all heard the news that kids' breakfast cereals are full of unhealthy sugars and unrefined grains. But is this news really so new? When I was a kid, breakfast cereals had names like Sugar Smacks and Sugar Crisp. Now the names have been changed to sound more health-conscious (Honey Smacks and Golden Crisp), but these still remain two of the least healthy children's breakfast cereals, each containing 50% sugar by weight.

Enticed by colorful cartoon characters and cheap plastic toy premiums, children beg their parents to buy the bright, multicolored rings or puffed cereals made of refined grains and sugar. It's hard to say no to their pleading (especially in the grocery store where we don't want to make a scene), but a regular diet of sugary foods can lead to obesity and related complications such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. As custodians of our children's health, we must help them choose healthier alternatives to sugary sweet breakfast cereals with little nutritional value and too many calories.

In a study of 161 popular breakfast cereals, it was found that 46% of them were marketed to children. The children's breakfast cereals were higher in sugar and sodium, and less dense in protein and fiber as compared to cereals marketed to adults. Sixty-six percent of the children's cereals studied did not even meet national nutrition standards. While many children's cereal manufacturers have jumped on the health bandwagon and now offer cereals made from whole grains, the cereal may still contain high amounts of sugar.

Tips for Choosing a Healthy Breakfast Cereal for your Children

Choose a cereal that has whole grain as the first ingredient on the nutritional label. Whole grains contain higher amounts of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fiber than refined grains. The extra fiber is more filling, and will keep your child from becoming hungry again quickly. Research has shown that children who eat a filling breakfast perform better at school, so you are giving your child an added benefit in addition to the health benefits a whole-grain cereal provides.

A breakfast cereal should contain 25% or less of its calories from sugar to be considered "healthy." The nutritional label won't provide this information for you; you'll have to use your own brain (or a calculator) to find this figure. To figure out how much of the cereal's calories come from sugar, you need to multiply the grams of sugar per serving by four. The grams/serving should be on the nutritional label, and since each gram of sugar has four calories, this will tell you how many calories per serving are from sugar. Divide this number by the number of calories per serving, then multiply the resulting number by 100 to get the percentage of calories from sugar.

The best choices will contain a low percentage of sugar calories per serving, but may the figure is allowed to be a bit higher if the cereal contains dried fruits and nuts, which will increase the sugar content of the cereal but also provide valuable nutrients.

Tips for Getting Your Kids to Eat a Healthy Cereal

Children who are used to a diet of colorful, sweet, cereal will naturally balk when you place that first bowl of Shredded Wheat or Grape Nuts in front of them. Taste is definitely a factor in choosing a breakfast cereal, so you may have to trade off some sugar calories to find a healthy breakfast cereal that your children will enjoy eating.

Break in your kids' taste buds to healthy cereals by mixing their favorite cereals with a whole grain variety, in equal amounts. You'll cut the amount of sugar your children are consuming in half, while they are getting some additional fiber to carry them through the morning.

Add a sprinkling of table sugar to lure the child into eating the healthy cereal. Sugar in moderation isn't bad, just in excess. Adding sweeteners at home gives you a certain amount of control over how much in used, as long as you don't let the kids sugar their own cereal!

Add dried fruit, sliced fresh fruits, or chopped nuts to whole-grain cereals to add color, texture, and flavor to the healthy breakfast cereal.

Encourage youngsters to eat a healthy cereal by adding a few pastel-colored marshmallows for color and sweetness.

Get the kids involved in picking a healthy cereal. Let them help you calculate the sugar calories per serving while you are making your choices. Just as kids are more likely to eat what they have helped to cook, having some say in the choice of a healthy cereal will encourage them to eat it.

New parents can prevent their children from ever becoming hooked on sugary-sweet children's cereals by never buying them to begin with. Children aren't born with a natural sweet tooth! Choose your own healthy breakfast cereal and serve it to your children when they begin to eat solid foods. Setting a good example with your own healthy food choices, and teaching good eating habits at an early age, will result in healthy children who grow up to be healthy adults!

Resources:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?orig_db=PubMed&db=pubmed&cmd=Search&term=%22Journal%20of%20the%20American%20Dietetic%20Association%22%5BJour%5D%20AND%20702%5Bpage%5D%20AND%202008%5Bpdat%5D

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/choosing-healthy-breakfast-cereal