El Paso dietician shares tips for packing healthy, kid-friendly lunches

EL PASO, TX (KVIA) -- As the school year begins, many parents will be packing lunches for their children. Having healthy, kid-approved meals can be challenging at times.

ABC-7 spoke to Leticia Diaz, registered dietician at Del Sol Medical Center to get tips for parents battling with picky-eaters. 

“Packaging different food groups such as vegetables, fruits, a dairy, a protein or whole grains is very important for them to be more proactive at school,” says Diaz. “If you make fun shapes from the food by using a cookie cutter, there will be more interest spread and they will be more motivated to go ahead and eat it.”

Diaz recommends engaging children in the lunch preparation, “Let them give them choices like peanut butter, yogurt, fruits, vegetables. They'll be a little bit more willing to go ahead and try it because they were involved and they could choose what they wanted it on their lunch box,” she advises. 

Building healthy eating habits early on is crucial to long term health, experts warn that processed foods, high in sodium and saturated fats can lead to chronic health issues if consumed regularly. “I would recommend if it's possible for parents to start with their healthy whole foods early in childhood and then all the way until they're a little bit more grown up, like teenage years” says Diaz. 

Balance is important, while treats are okay occasionally, the focus should be on giving them the right nutrients to grow and develop a healthy life style.

Diaz also says making healthy food accessible for children can prevent them from choosing junk food, “I know moms are very, very in a very limited time. They have to prepare quick and easy meals. But having, for example, a fruit already cut, a vegetable already cut up, everything ready where the child goes and opens the fridge and can have that ready and easy to eat helps a lot for them to enjoy those nutritious foods that you can offer.” 

“I would highly recommend to limit, for example, the sugary drinks,” says Diaz. “When kids are thirsty, they want to have something flavored, so they want to have a juice first, offer water when they're very thirsty and limit the juice or diluted as well so we can decrease the calories and the sugars.” 

Diaz says it’s important to have a structure and schedule meals and snacks to ensure they are hungry for lunch and dinner time. “When kids are hungry, they tend to ask for milk because the milk provides carbohydrate proteins and fats,” she says. “Try to limit it to four ounces, three times per day. That way you can encourage them to eat a little more at meal time because they can they can get full with milk.”