Physiotherapists at the Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, asked children with an average age of 14 to perform a ten minute warm up of star jumps, side lunges and skipping twice a week before their PE sessions. At the start of the eight month study the children could only manage around 50 jumps but by the end they could do 300 and their bone and muscle strength had improved significantly as a result.

Approximately 80 percent of bone mass is accrued in the first 20 years of life and especially around puberty because of circulating hormones so, according to this new study, children should be encouraged to jump and skip as often as possible to boost the health of their bones.

Q: How do I get my kids to eat their vegetables?

A: Initially, by means of subterfuge. Add grated or mashed vegetables to pizzas, casseroles, pasta sauce and soups. As you are doing this help get your children involved in planning, shopping and cooking so that they take more interest in the world of fresh produce. Research by the British Food Council shows that children are more willing to eat the food they have themselves chosen. So try taking your children to the supermarket with you to pick out their own fruits and vegetables. Children also love colour, so appeal to this by introducing multi-coloured varieties – red beetroot, orange sweet potatoes and squash, yellow peppers, courgettes, pink and green chard, white and lime green chicory. Show them that vegetables mean more than broccoli.

Q: How many fruits and vegetables should my children eat each day?

A: I’m glad you asked this as a few months back there was a lot of noise in the media and newspapers about a new generation of children growing up undernourished because their parents have gone overboard with healthy eating and were giving them far too many fruits, vegetables and low fat products and not enough carbohydrates and protein for energy.

Children have high energy needs and that’s why, unless there is a serious weight problem, I don’t advise dieting or low fat products. Children, at least until the age of five, should be given full fat dairy products. As far as fruits and vegetables go I recommend 3 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit each day. Older children, over age 6 years should have 3-5 servings of foods from vegetables and 2-4 servings from fruit.  A serving of vegetables is 4 oz of cooked vegetables or 8 oz of raw vegetables or a glass of vegetable juice. A serving of fruit includes 1 medium apple, banana, orange, 4 oz of chopped, cooked, or tinned fruit (use unsweetened not tinned fruit in syrup) and a small glass of fruit juice. If your child eats a larger serving, such as 2 apples, then count it as two servings.

 

Remember that these are just general guidelines and your children don’t need to eat the exact number of recommended servings each day. Instead, his or her diet, over a period of a week or two, should average out to the recommended servings. So on some days they may eat more and some days less than the recommended number of fruit and vegetable servings.