Nutrition games for kids

Overview
Good nutrition is critical for your child's physical and emotional development and can help prevent chronic diseases that result from long-term poor nutritional choices. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are the leading causes of death in the United States. It is critical to start nutrition and exercise education early, and nutrition games are a fun way to teach children about healthy living and eating.

Nutrition Games
There are hundreds of nutrition games for kids that can be played at home, at school or online that can help combat poor dietary and exercise habits. The nutrition games and activities that children play ideally should involve some sort of physical activity, rather than sitting at a computer.

Where to Start
The latest version of the food guide pyramid, called MyPyramid, was released in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The MyPyramid for Kids represents the first adaptation directly targeted to children ages 6 to 11. The USDA website offers children an interactive computer game that can help them learn the importance of food and nutrition. It also contains free printable sheets of games and activities for kids and a wealth of resources for parents and teachers.

Games at Home or School
There are many simple nutrition games you can organize for your child's classroom or play at home. Try a fruit and vegetable guessing game, for example. Gather a variety of fruits and vegetables and place each one in a brown paper bag. Have children feel inside each bag and guess the fruit or vegetable.

To play a nutrition flash card game, cut out pictures of healthy foods from magazines. Glue each picture onto a large index card, and glue the index card to a Popsicle stick. Younger children can guess which food group each food belongs to (grains, dairy, vegetable, fruit, protein, fats and oils). Older children can guess what nutrients are in the food.

Your kids will have a blast playing the blind fruit taste test. Blindfold each child and have him taste various fruits. See if he can guess each fruit. You also can try the fruit and vegetable challenge. Challenge each child to eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Keep a chart so they can see their progress.

Get your child to try new fruits with the fruit combination game. Buy various fruits, and cut them into small pieces. Have your child combine two different fruits to make a new flavor. For example, use strawberries and bananas, blueberries and mangoes, grapes and cherries or apples and pears. Have your child come up with a creative name for the new fruit. Strawberries and bananas can become "strawnana."

Fun with Food
Children love to be involved with cooking and preparing meals and snacks. Make snack time and meal time fun while teaching your kids about good nutrition. Try making up fun names for snacks like "banana coins and peanut butter." Slice bananas into coin shapes and have your child dip the coins into peanut butter. Teach them that the bananas provide their body with energy that helps them run and play and that the peanut butter provides their body with protein that helps them grow. If your child is older, tell her bananas are high in potassium, which is a mineral that helps her heart and muscles function.

You also can engage your child with grocery shopping games. Challenge them to find five different colors of fruits and vegetables. When you get home, make sure to use the items they picked in their snacks and meals.

An article on AskDrSears.com, "The ABC's of Teaching Good Nutrition to your Kids," offers sensible ideas for making edible art with your child, such as cereal necklaces and a breakfast banana split, topping a cut banana with oatmeal, yogurt, fresh fruit and chopped nuts.

Printable Activities and Coloring Pages
An abundance of websites have nutrition games and activities for kids. Some of them have free printable activities and recipes you can make with your child. The Nutrition Fun For Kids site contains recipes such as Fruit pizza, Make-Your-Own Nachos, Reindeer Faces, Sandwich Art and Wormy Apples. You can keep your child busy with the printable coloring pages, crossword puzzles, word scrambles, word searches, mazes and more through the Produce for Better Health Foundation, Nourish Interactive and the Fruit and Veggie Guru.

References
Center for Science in the Public Interest
U.S. Department of Agriculture: MyPyramid
Ask Dr. Sears: The ABC's of Teaching Nutrition to your Kids

Nutrition games for kids was originally published on LIVESTRONG.COM.

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