Back To School
Just as school is starting, the stress of school lunches is starting to get to you. You think about the days when you were in school and what you used to eat, and then you think of the rules you’ve set at home for your kid’s meals and you realize you’ve somehow shot yourself in the foot. Don’t worry, there are ways to get your kids to eat well in school and still make it fun. With a child of my own, I find it so hard to create a variety for him so that he doesn’t start dipping into his Maha AlRashed
Maha AlRashed is a CHEK Certified Exercise Coach and a regular contributor for CityPages magazine.
46
citypageskuwait.com
friend’s food. So this year I’ve taken a new approach to school lunches. School lunches are divided into two types; the morning snack and the actual lunch before home. So not only do you need healthy options, you need two of them! Then applying the principles of having fat, protein and carb, while trying to control the amount of sugar he takes in during the day has taken packing a school lunch to a new level! This is by no means an article on parenting, but rather an article on how to manage to pack a healthy lunch for your kids even though you aren’t there to watch what they eat. It's tough to have a child that’s having healthy food or is gluten free when all they can see is their friends having packaged croissants, or cupcakes and cookies; so this year it's been decided that we are making healthy food fun. I’ve realized that my son really has no idea what he’s eating most of the time, he just
looks at it and if he likes the way it looks, we’re golden! So he can now have sandwiches; I buy gluten free toast or make my own, so now he can have the regular PB&J (organic that is), he gets to have his gluten free muffins, and his cheese and cucumber snack is cool and refreshing in this heat, and since he has to unwrap the cheese, it’s a bit more exciting than just plain old cheese. Fruits are usually the problem so this year our melons, watermelons, apples and bananas are cut with mini cookie cutters and stuck on a toothpick so that it looks tempting! So as long as your lunchbox is packed with cute little messages from mom and dad, and your food looks like it's cool to eat, then I guarantee you that you’ll no longer have to deal with packing the same lunch or a sugar packed one for that matter. Healthy can be the new cool without them even knowing it!