Eliminate school lunches
Compared with eating a packed lunch, eating school food was tied with lower mental health scores, although this wasn’t statistically significant, according to researchers.
Instead of allowing your child to eat school lunches, try to pack your child’s lunch that way you can control how many fruits and vegetables they get on a daily. If you are short on time in the morning try packing the lunches at night or meal prepping for the whole week.
Make sure your child gets a full breakfast
It may take getting up a little earlier, but giving your child a nutritional breakfast is well worth it. Eating a full breakfast, and not just a snack, breakfast bar or energy drink, was also tied to better mental well-being. Having just an energy drink for breakfast was linked to low mental health scores.
Additionally, younger kids who had a snack or non-energy drink to start the day also had lower mental health scores as did those who skipped breakfast.
Make sure your child isn’t skipping lunch
As you know not packing your child’s lunch can cause them to consume unhealthy foods, but it can also cause them to skip lunch altogether because their school’s lunch menu may not offer anything they like.
Not only do children need food to be able to function throughout the school day, they also need it for their mental well-being.
Skipping lunch was associated with lower mental health scores than brown-bagging. You can easily eliminate this by packing your child’s lunch with some of their favorite foods and incorporating some healthy fruits and vegetables in them.
Although nutrition isn’t the sole factor of bettering your child’s mental health, it is highly relevant to childhood mental well-being. For an added bonus, think of it as a way to get your child involved in what goes into their body by allowing them to plan meals or even harvest their own foods.