It is easy for parents to avoid preparing a proper meal for their child with all the pre-cooked lunch boxes out there. But, it is time to say ‘no’ to all those chemicals and cook a healthy meal for your child.
It may take longer for parents to cook these meals, but not only will they provide a sufficient amount of nutrients and vitamins, but they will also be prepared with love. This is how we can inspire children to choose to eat a healthy meal on a daily basis.
But why should we do this? Why should we replace packaged foods with homemade dishes?
Difference Between Processed and Healthy Foods
According to Dr. Robert Lustig from the University Of California (UCSF), this way of life is just the start of many more illnesses in the child’s body. The cause of these new illnesses will be processed food.
Therefore, people need to learn and understand what is crucial for their child’s health.
Of course, every child loves sweets, and it is not a bad idea to eat them, but the most important meal of the day needs to be a healthy one, not replaced by sweets. This meal needs to help the child’s body adapt and properly use energy.
According to Lustig, if the child eats too much-processed cakes, they will crave them even more. Moreover, these kinds of cakes contain an excessive amount of dietary sugars and hedonic substances which cause such behavior.
This new metabolic syndrome may result in diabetes. However, Lustig claims that not all people who are obese have diabetes; there are thin people who also have it.
According to Dr. Lustig, there is a 25% chance that people who are obese and who aren’t, are prone to developing diabetes. Therefore, he believes that this is the reason why obesity is not the only cause of diabetes.
Besides, it is not about how much calories a person consumes daily, but what kind of calories that person eats. The chemically produced ones that are a part of every packaged meal can cause problems for the overall health of the body.
One of the factors that may cause diabetes is sugar; therefore it is closely linked with heart disease, diabetes type 2, teeth decay, and fatty liver disease.
Dr. Lustig’s Experiment
Plus most of the people nowadays have forgotten how to cook a healthy meal, because there is an easier way to buy already prepared food. So, the children are the ones that are now most prone to diseases. They depend on this kind of food to feed them throughout the day.
For that reason, parents need to change their habits and concentrate on their child’s health. In order to prove his theory, Lustig conducted an experiment. The children that participated drank milk, water, regular soda, or diet soda every day for 6 months.
The result of his study was that the children who drank milk kept their regular weight, the children who drank water lost weight, the ones who focused on regular soda gained 10 kg more, whereas the children who drank diet soda gained 1.5 kg.
So, it is clear how sugar affects our body, but chemicals also have a huge part in this process. Maybe this will inspire you to cook your own healthy food. It is far cheaper than fast food; you just need to know how to cook it, store it and enjoy it.
Source: GMA News Online | Mercola
