Kids Need Seafood Too!

Children’s seafood consumption

With rates of childhood obesity, diabetes and other serious children’s health issues skyrocketing, it is more important than ever that you pay attention to your kids’ diet and nutrition. Seafood is a great way to add more nutrition to your children’s diets because it is a great source of lean protein, excellent for essential minerals, low in saturated fats and has the highest level of Omega 3’s you will obtain from a food source.

Encouraging your children to eat seafood at a young age contributes to their health and development. One of the best ways to make sure your children grow up to lead healthy lives is to give them a good balance of nutrients, vitamins, proteins and minerals. Fortunately, seafood fits the bill – and should be an integral part of every child’s diet.

Research has shown that eating seafood as a young child leads to improved brain development as well as better motor, visual, communication and social skills. As more and more research is conducted on the benefits of seafood and Omega-3, we are realizing just how big an effect it can play on the health of our children.

Results from a recent children’s study in the UK indicate that awareness and consumption of seafood are directly related; in other words, children who are aware of a greater variety of seafood are likely to eat more seafood more often.

On the whole however, the types of seafood consumed by children tend to be restricted to coated and shaped products (fish fingers, fish cakes, etc.) which do not boost awareness of seafood generally as they are indistinguishable from other coated products (e.g. chicken nuggets). It is important to introduce fish early in your baby’s life as it will help nurture not just babies’ brains, but their palates too.

As children become accustomed to regularly eating such products, it is more difficult to try and encourage them to eat different types of food. Often the greatest hurdle in encouraging children to eat seafood is the fact that it is quite distinct in terms of its appearance, smell and texture. The study found that children often ‘eat with their eyes’.

Parents need to experiment in finding how to entice their children to eat more seafood. Sushi and sashimi are proving very popular and whilst they are fairly new for items for Australians they have been popular in Japan for many hundreds of years and it should be noted that the average Japanese person consumes 4 times as much seafood than the average Australian. The impact on health relevant to seafood consumption is why it is so important to get your child into good seafood habits.

So get some fish onto your kids plates…after all, it’s ‘Brain food’!

For more info about seafoods go to: http://www.australianseafood.com.au/home/

Roy Palmer