It’s not easy to find the time to provide a nutritious breakfast, never mind getting your children to eat it! Here are some excuse busting ideas:
I’m Not HungryNo TimeIt’s BoringBreakfast Food, Yuck!
- Offer a healthy milkshake. Just add fruit to milk and some ice, and blend until smooth.
- Pack a cereal bar, a sandwich or a bread roll. They can eat it on the way to school or save it until they gets there, when they have more of an appetite.
- Help organize your child the night before by preparing his clothes and getting his schoolbag ready.
- Save time by working together. Plan to share the breakfast preparation. Even young children can help in some way.
- Set the table for breakfast before going to bed, or let your child choose what they’d like for breakfast the next morning.
- Have pita pockets, tortillas and ice cream cones on hand for fill-and-go breakfasts.
- The night before put a selection of cereal toppings (such as sliced fruit, nuts, raisins, cinnamon and sugar, or wheat germ) in a muffin tray. Place the selection on the table with the cereal in the morning.
- Make waffles, pancakes, or muffins on the weekend. Freeze for the week, or two, ahead.
- Foods like quiche can be made the night before, and heated in the morning.
- Check out all our quick breakfast ideas for breakfast on-the-go.
- Forget the snooze button and wake up 10 minutes earlier.
- Check out your child’s school breakfast plan. Many schools offer breakfast at school.
- Break up the breakfast routine by serving non-traditional foods such as Asian noodles, vegetable sticks or a baked pasta dish. Leftovers are another fast and non-traditional breakfast idea.
- Make smiley faces on toast using sliced fruit.
- Put yogurt in a squeeze bottle so that your child can decorate pancakes or waffles with it.
- Check out Think Breakfast’s Breakfast Calendar. Keep track of what you’re eating and check off everyday you eat breakfast.
- Planning out what to have the night or week before will insure that kids will like what they eat.
- Celebrate birthdays or special days at breakfast with the special foods you would normally serve later in the day.
- Celebrate different cultures by learning about what people in other countries eat for breakfast and trying that.
- Help your children get more fruit in their diet by adding baby food into hot cereal, pancakes, muffins, and yogurt.
- Instead of buying sweetened cereal, give your kids a packet of sugar or brown sugar to add their own sweetness to low-sugar cereals. This can reduce the amount of sugar by as much as 2/3.
Not convinced? Here are some more great reasons to eat breakfast:
Academic Benefits
- Eating breakfast can help improve math, reading, and standardized test scores.
- Children who eat breakfast are more likely to behave better in school and get along with their peers than those who do not.
- Breakfast helps children pay attention, perform problem-solving tasks, and improves memory
- Children who eat school breakfast are likely to have fewer absences and incidents of tardiness than those who do not.
- Behavioral and emotional problems are less prevalent among children who consistently have access to regular meals.
- Schools that provide breakfast in the classroom to all students have shown decreases in tardiness and suspensions as well as improved student behavior and attentiveness.
- Eating of breakfast improves children’s performance on demanding mental tasks and reaction to frustration.
Nutritional Benefits
- Children who eat breakfast tend to have more adequate nutrient intakes than children who do not.
- Adolescents who eat breakfast tend to have a lower body mass index (BMI). Higher BMIs can indicate overweight and obesity.
- By eating breakfast, students get more of important nutrients, vitamins and minerals such as calcium, dietary fiber, folate and protein.
- Low-income elementary school girls who participate in the School Breakfast, School Lunch, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formally known as the Food Stamp Program) have significantly less risk of being overweight.
- Students participating in the School Breakfast Program have shown what you eat for breakfast can have an impact on learning. One study showed that eating breakfast foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar for breakfast help students sustain the cognitive effects of breakfast.
- Studies have shown that children who eat breakfast on a regular basis are less likely to be overweight.
- Eating breakfast as a child is important for establishing healthy habits for later in life.