Encouraging healthy living in young people with Sainsbury's Active Kids

Sainsbury's recently released findings from their 'Eat Well. Move Well. Live Well' * report , showing some shocking statistics about the health and nutritional beliefs of children aged 11 - 14 years old.

Although 84% of children agreed that it is important to lead a healthy lifestyle and knew what steps needed to be taken, many of them failed to eat enough fruit and vegetables, drink enough water, exercise enough or limit their junk food intake. 13% of those surveyed said that they didn't even think it was important to eat healthily when young, 21% believed that fast food was a healthy option and 71% said they did not limit their sweet and chocolate consumption. 31% of the 11 to 14 year olds surveyed, admitted they didn't even think about whether the food they ate was healthy or not.

Factors influencing children living increasingly unhealthy lifestyles include the rise in social media, the increased availability of junk food and the move away from home cooking. Children of this age have greater freedom to make decisions but often lack the proper information, leading to poor judgment. Skipping meals, cutting out food groups, avoiding exercise and eating too much fast food is leading many young people into unhealthy lifestyles.

31% of young people said healthy food is boring and cited that as a reason for not eating more healthily. While 48% of children said they'd rather be doing other things than getting exercise including using social media and playing video games.

Young people need to be educated and empowered into taking positive steps towards a healthier lifestyle. To get my children interested in nutrition and to give them the tools they require to make good choices, I've always included them in the kitchen and encouraged them to help out with meal planning and food preparation. Kezia, is now 14 and has a few good meals that she can make in her repertoire, including a really delicious and healthy lentil and sweet potato curry. Healthy eating most definitely does not have to be boring!

Lentil and Sweet Potato Curry Recipe

2 medium onions

2 cloves of garlic

2 medium carrots

1 sweet potato

1 large white potato

1 cup of red lentils

3 cups of water

vegetable stock cube

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

ground black pepper

1 small can coconut milk

coconut oil

Chop the onions and gently fry in coconut oil until softened.

Add the chopped garlic and spices and fry for a further few minutes.

Add peeled and chopped carrots, potato and sweet potato and lentils.

Stir to coat.

Add water and the stock cube.

Bring to boil and then simmer for about 20-25 minutes.

(Add more water if it needs it.)

Once the vegetables are cooked through add the coconut milk and stir through.

Serve with rice for a wholesome meal.

When it comes to exercise, 41% of kids say that they 'could do more'. We lead increasingly sedentary lifestyles sat behind computer screens or on our phones for hours on end. Although my 7 year old does after school gymnastics and swimming lessons, my 14 year old is no longer interested in doing any extra-curricular sports. As a family, we try to go walking a few times a month. It is a fun way to get some gentle exercise and to spend time together free from technology. As the weather improves, I'm hoping that we will get to do a lot more of this, helping my children be more active and keeping us all fit.

*Sainsbury’s will use the findings of this research to evolve their Active Kids programme for 2018 and help to continue to progress towards responsible measures that help young people and their families eat well, move well and live well.

Baking with Kids - Bigjigs Young Chef's Baking Set

Bigjigs have sent Freddy a Young Chef's Set so he can have some fun cooking up a storm in the kitchen making some tasty treats.  Freddy really enjoys cooking with me, so he was excited to have his very own set of cookery items including a cake tray, loaf tin, shape cutters, rolling pin, whisk, cake cases, measuring spoons and oven glove. Everything is just the right size for little budding chefs to use easily, it's fully functional and good quality.

The set comes in a net bag and is suitable for ages three and up. Everything is made using responsibly sourced materials and conforms to EU safety standards.  It encourages interactive and creative play sessions with parents in the kitchen, as children learn a whole host of important skills.  It can also be used for imaginative role play.

Cooking in itself is an important life skill.  My three eldest children are now all self-sufficient adults who thankfully know their way around a kitchen!  Teaching basic cookery to children and letting them help you in the kitchen is a great first step towards helping them become competent and confident adults who know how to cook for themselves.

Cooking also helps develop a wide range of other important skills too.  Using a recipe allows little ones to practice their reading and teaches them how to follow instructions. They can learn vocabulary and find out about different ingredients and their uses.

Measuring, weighing and counting are all important maths skills that are used when cooking. The science of mixing things, heating things and exploring the textures and consistencies of ingredients gets children thinking scientifically.

We decided to make Fairy Cakes, which is a nice, quick and simple thing to make with kids, giving a delicious end result to reward them for their hard work.

Fine motor skills are put to the test with all the different techniques needed when baking a cake. Freddy is a dab hand at cracking eggs and stirring with a wooden spoon!

Children need to use logic and problem solving when it comes to working out how to divide the mixture out between the cake cases (while leaving a little cake mix so you can lick the bowl afterwards!)

Kitchen safety is also an important lesson as children understand the dangers of hot ovens and other potentially risky things such as electricity and sharp knives.

Putting the cakes in the oven is a chance to brush up on telling the time and thinking about how many minutes they will take to cook.

Exercising patience while the cakes cook and cool can be quite tricky, but with a little help from big sister Kezia to decorate them with frosting and fudge pieces, the end result was well worth waiting for!

We all enjoyed Freddy's cakes and he had a great time in the kitchen, having lots of fun while learning lots of new skills.

The Bigjigs Little Chef's Set is £11.99 and can be found at : http://www.bigjigstoys.co.uk/p/young-chefs-baking-set

Pop Chef Review

Pop Chef is the funky gadget that allows you to make 'pop out treats in seconds'.  Consisting of six shape cutters that attach to the device, it allows you to cut shapes from food, like melon, cheese, bread or apple, and then pop them out of with a squeeze of the popper.  It is safe and simple to use and allows you to have fun with food and create some fancy food bouquets and sandwich masterpieces.

You don't need to use sharp knives or cutters so Pop Chef is perfect for little ones to experiment and create edible food creations.  I let Freddy make himself some mini cheese sandwiches.  He chose the heart shaped cutter and was able to cut and pop out the shapes to make an adorable quadruple decker treat which he stuck onto a skewer and thoroughly enjoyed!  I liked that the Pop Chef was simple enough for Freddy to use independently, and it encouraged him to eat his sandwich with gusto.  He is a very fussy eater so anything that gets him actively interested in eating gets a thumbs up from me!

For Valentine's day, the girls made some heart shaped cookie treats.  They cut the shapes out and made cookie lollies and iced a little 'I <3 U' message on some.  We used some to decorate desserts making an attractive decorative effect.

The Pop Chef would be an excellent way to add interest to fruit salads or to regular salads by including stars, hearts and flowers to the mix.  It would also be useful in cake decorating, allowing you to cut shapes from fondant icing to use as cupcake toppers.  It would be far less fiddly than using a metal cutter on a work surface, as you don't have to handle the icing shapes.

I used the Pop Chef to add some heart shaped cut-outs to the top of my Mushroom Pie.  It is lovely to use for pastry as the pop out function keeps the shape perfectly intact. The bulb allows you to pop the cut foods out of the cutting tube really easily so you don't have to handle them. No more having to scrape them up from the work surface or poke them out of cutters with knives.  I look forward to experimenting more with this gadget, because quite frankly it's a lot of fun!

Pop chef is a great way to involve the kids in the kitchen, developing their creativity and encouraging an interest in healthy eating by making fruit and vegetables fun.  With some practice, kids could make some elaborate fruit bouquets by threading shapes onto skewers and arranging in a pretty display.  a great idea for parties!

           

It comes with six shapes, the popping bulb, a pack of skewers and a recipe booklet.  For approximately £10 it is good value for money and a really fun way to get the kids involved in food preparation.

Find out more here:  Pop-Chef