Improvements You Can Make to Your Teens Diet, Without them Noticing

Keep Your Teens Tastebuds Happy With These Tasty but Healthy Alternatives

It’s a struggle every parent faces when their children start at secondary school. On the one hand you want them to be more independent on the other you still want some control over the choices they make.

When it comes to healthy eating there are two main ways you can influence their choices:-

Be a top role model – keep serving plenty of fresh fruit and veggies and other unprocessed foods at family meal times. Be the epitome of good health and they’ll want to follow suit.

Keep going with the healthy eating advice - It may feel like it just bounces back at you but you’ll be surprised how much is absorbed and put into practice at a later date.

There are some healthy foods you can sneak in almost without being noticed. Try these delicious alternatives to your usual teen fare:-

1. Swap regular chips for sweet potato fries. Many teens tell me they’re even tastier than the real thing!

2. Buy a cool fold up water bottle. Guaranteed to get your teen drinking more of the good stuff.

3. Serve eggs for breakfast. Who doesn’t love a fry up? You can prepare scrambled eggs on toast (or better still oatcakes) in the same time it’ll take to make a bowl of cereal yet the protein in them is guaranteed to keep your teen full until lunchtime and away from the vending machine at morning break.

4. If your teen takes sandwiches for lunch why not swap bread for rye bread or oatcakes? A change is as good as a rest and it’ll wake up their taste buds. Once they’re used to this idea introduce 1 or 2 salads or soup in a flask every week.

5. Does your teen struggle to east their greens? Green veggies are full of goodness for teens. Search for new and exciting recipes on Google or simply mix with a white sauce for the less adventurous teen.

6. Leave homemade snacks out for after school nibbles. Even the sweetest cake will be healthier if it is homemade rather than shop bought. Better still cook with your teen. Homemade popcorn is delicious for all ages and ready in minutes.

Maggie Ayre is the UKs leading Fitness Coach for Teen Girls. As well as one-to-one and small group nutrition and fitness work with teens she has developed the 3G Program designed to be run at schools as part of the PE curriculum. She also offers mentoring for PE departments on how to re-engage teen girls with PE and has recently published her third book; “Nutrition for Exam Success – A Parent’s Guide” which is now available as a Kindle and paperback at Amazon.