Weary Parent: Parenting Tweens & Teens

Healthy Snacks for Teens

by Christine on June 10th, 2008

It’s summer. Do you know what your kids are eating?

Now that it’s summer many teens are on their own during the day. And they are making their own meal decisions. They can no longer rely on the school cafeteria to provide them with food from the major food groups. On their own, many teens turn to a new set of food groups; soda, sugar, salt and grease. You will often find teens sitting in front the television with a bag of chips or walking to the pool with candy in their mouths. Lunch consists of double cheeseburgers and french fries from the nearest fast food joint.

What can we do to get our teens to eat better?

1. Set a good example. It’s hard to convince kids to eat healthy when they see you skipping breakfast every morning and eating a bag of popcorn for dinner every night. Eat breakfast with your teen (if he’s up that early). Make a balanced dinner (with a veggie side dish) and eat together as a family as often as you can. If your teen is used to eating fruits and veggies then they will likely grab those from the crisper even when you aren’t home.
2. Talk to them about healthy eating. Do they know the major food groups? Do they know how many servings of fruit they should be eating each day? Check MyPyramid.gov for tips on what and how much to eat. There you can find what constitutes one serving. For example, one service of grain is one slice of bread.
3. Keep healthy beverages in the fridge. Throw out that soda. There is not one good thing in soda. There’s too much sugar. There’s too much caffeine. Kids don’t need to get full on all those empty calories. Instead stock the fridge with juice and milk. Have orange juice for breakfast. Keep jugs of 100% fruit juice in the door. Make sure there is cold milk on hand. Get some V8. If your teen isn’t to thrilled with tomato juice, get that new V8 that also includes fruit. I’ve tasted it. It’s pretty good. Also, get your teen a water bottle. That way she can take drinks or water with her and won’t be tempted to purchase a big slurpie at the convenience store on the way to the pool.
4. Make sure they eat breakfast. Even though they aren’t studying they still need to eat breakfast. It’s still the most important meal of the day. Leave a healthy breakfast for them; whole grain cereal and milk, a bagel with peanut butter, an english muffin with jam, oatmeal with raisins or yogurt and fresh fruit. Give them several options so they don’t turn to cold pizza or a can of Pepsi.
5. Leave them a healthy lunch. They will be more apt to eat something good for them if they don’t actually have to spend the time making it themselves. Kids are way too busy (or so they keep telling me) to have to spend a half hour making lunch. Make egg salad sandwiches, prepare a salad, brown hamburger so they can make their own tacos, leave chicken or turkey wraps in the fridge or put vegetable soup in individual one serving size Tupperware containers.
6. Make sure they have healthy choices for snacks. Throw out the potato chips and candy bars. Instead pack the cupboards and fridge with healthy foods. Cut up fruit and veggies and leave them in snack sized Ziploc bags so your teen can just grab it on the go. Instead of chips satisfy their salt craving with pretzels or tortilla chips and salsa. Make jello with fruit chunks the night before and leave in the fridge for the next day.

Here is a list of great foods to keep in the kitchen for snacks:

• milk
• yogurt
• pudding
• string cheese
• cheese slices (or slice cheese blocks ahead of time)
• carrot sticks (or baby carrots)
• celery sticks
• cut up broccoli
• cut up cauliflower
• sliced cucumbers
• cherry tomatoes
• vegetable juice
• apples
• bananas
• grapes
• cut up melon
• berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries)
• oranges
• peaches
• pears
• raisins
• dried fruit
• 100% fruit juice
• sunflower seeds
• nuts (chopped walnuts, pecans)
• peanut butter
• cereal
• pretzels
• popcorn
• crackers
• Chex Mix
• bagels
• english muffins
• whole grain bread
• animal crackers
• graham crackers
• trail mix

Still need more ideas? Here are some healthy snack recipes to try:

Ants on a Log
Spread peanut butter on a piece of celery and top with raisins.

Homemade Trail Mix
Combine 1 cup whole grain cereal with a 1/4 of chopped walnuts and 1/4 of dried fruit, such as cranberries or bananas.

Fruity Popsicles
Buy a cheap popsicle mold from the store. Pour 100% fruit juice (such as Juicy Juice) in to the mold and freeze.

Banana Pops
Peel bananas and cut in half. Dip each half in to yogurt. Place in cup and allow to freeze.

Peanut butter and banana sandwich
Spread peanut butter on a slice of whole grain bread. Top with banana pieces cut in to coins.

Breakfast Banana Split
Cut a banana lengthwise and place in bowl. Pour a cup of plain yogurt. Add 1/2 cup of fruit preserve. Top with fresh fruit.

Berry Smoothie
Combine one cup fruit yogurt with one cup mixed fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries) and 2 tablespoons orange juice in a blender. Blend.

What other healthy snack ideas do you have?

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