Getting children to eat healthy foods with lots of fresh fruit, veggies, and greens is often times no easy task. Many children just aren’t adventurous when it comes to food. It is also hard for us moms when so many of the foods children gravitate to these days are not the healthiest options. Why would they want to try that veggie omelet you made with pastured eggs and those funny things called leeks when the Leprechaun on TV has a more “charming” breakfast in mind for them. Add to this the fact that junky foods are artificially cheap and the healthier foods seem more expensive and we have a battle on our hands. Moms need some serious superpowers to navigate this treacherous territory…
Why though is this a battle we NEED to win? Well, we all know by now (I hope) how many health problems can be directly tied to our food choices. We don’t want that for our children. A new report from Save the Children called Food for Thought gives us a few more reasons. Malnutrition can be tied to their ability to learn and their prosperity when they reach adulthood. According to the report:
- Childhood malnutrition cuts future earnings by at least 20%
- Current childhood nutrition could end up costing the global economy $125 billion when today’s children are grown
- Malnourished children score 7% lower on math tests and 19% are delayed readers
It also has some alarming stats that show how this impacts non developed countries but there are plenty of children right here in the prosperous US who are malnourished. They are malnourished either because they don’t have access to healthy foods or they are being fed substandard, nutritionally devoid foods. Whatever the reason, children all over the world are suffering and being dealt a bad hand NOW that will effect their future and their ability to care for themselves and their own families down the line. We cannot allow this continue. President Obama and the world leaders who will come together at two global nutrition summits (known as the G8) in June, need to address this issue.
Mom Bloggers for Social Good are asking that moms try to raise some awareness via social media and get the attention of our leaders by tweeting our concerns. Here is an example of a prepared tweet:
Click the above and it will autofill a tweet for you. Addressing child malnutrition, especially in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life when their bodies and brains are growing rapidly, needs to be at the top of President Obama’s agenda.
In addition to asking our leaders to take this issue on we can all earn our own supermom capes by making sure our kids are getting the nutrition they need. I will kick things off with a healthy breakfast recipe because I hate to think of moms falling back on the sugary breakfast cereal I alluded to at the top of this post. I know we are all busy but that stuff is pure junk. This cereal uses nuts and fresh fruit so it is crunchy and sweet, but also packed with nutrients and healthy fats (brain food!). In honor of the G8 nutrition summits we will call it a Gr8 healthy recipe. It only has 8 ingredients.
Gr8 Apple/Coconut Cereal
1 sweet apple, grated
1 banana, chopped
¼ cup almonds, chopped
¼ cup sunflower seeds
Handful of shredded coconut
¼ cup coconut or almond milk
1 tsp raw honey
Pinch of ground cinnamon or nutmeg
Mix all ingredients in a cereal bowl and enjoy!
This post was written as a member of the Global Team of 200 a group of mom bloggers banding together to work for social good.
