5 Healthy Eating Tips For Kids and Kiwi Mango Popsicles

 

My colorful Kiwi Mango Popsicles are beautiful, tasty, and packed with nutrients!
 

I’m happy to be partnering with siggi’s dairy for this post! As always, all opinions expressed are my own.

Parents are always looking for ways to get their kids to eat healthier foods. With childhood obesity and diabetes rates on the rise, it’s definitely an important topic. About 1 out of 3 children in the US is overweight or obese. Dietary patterns are set early in life so it’s crucial to lay the foundation of healthy eating habits from the beginning.

Here are 5 Tips for Instilling Healthy Eating Habits in Your Kids from a young age:

1. Start early

Start exposing your child to a wide variety of nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains from an early age. Starting early is important because tastes develop early. Most kids go through a picky eater phase so you have a short but critical window of opportunity to train your child’s palate. Limit the amount of sugar, salt, and processed foods so that your child can learn to appreciate the flavors of real, wholesome food.

2. Be patient and persistent

If your child refuses to eat a certain food, don’t give up! It can take 10 or more attempts over several months before a young child will accept a new food. Keep preparing a variety of healthful foods and put them on the table even if they refuse to take a bite. Although this takes some patience, stick with it and it will likely pay off in the end!

3. Get them in the kitchen with you

Make your kids your sous chefs! If they participate in the cooking process, there’s a much higher chance that they’ll eat that food. Make healthy food fun! Give your food playful names like “dinosaur broccoli trees” or “x-ray vision carrots” so that your kids will be more excited to eat them. Have them cut their food into fun shapes using a cookie cutter or serve fruits and veggies with colorful dipping sauces. Let your creativity run wild! When you cook with your kids, not only are you teaching your children an important life skill, you’re also fostering independence, helping to instill good eating habits, and putting them on the path to lifelong good health.

4. Limit the added sugar

There’s a difference between naturally occurring sugars, which are found in foods such as fruit or milk and added sugars, which are put in food during processing or added at the table. Added sugars provide a lot of calories but no nutritional benefit and are commonly found in soft drinks, juice, and sugary snacks like candy and cookies. These are the ones you want to limit.

Providing healthy snacks is also important to boost your children’ nutrient intake and give them long-lasting energy throughout the day. Yogurt has always been one of my daughter’s favorite snacks and that’s one of the reasons that I’m excited about my partnership with siggi’s, a company that makes skyr, which is traditional Icelandic yogurt. I love siggi’s philosophy of making yogurt products with simple ingredients and not a lot of sugar. I recently tried their new whole milk drinkable yogurt (filmjölk) and not only did I love it, but my daughter Sienna did too! It’s really rich and creamy plus it’s high in protein and made with only five simple ingredients. You can drink it right out of the container so it’s perfect to take on the go!

5. Eat together

In today’s fast-paced world, it can be hard to take the time to sit down and enjoy a meal together as a family, especially when you’re juggling work, kids, after school activities, homework, etc. But remember that we are the best examples for our kids. Sitting together at the dinner table and sharing meals is an invaluable experience. Children take their cues from us and if they see us enjoying delicious, nutritious food, chances are they’ll be more likely to enjoy it too.

Here’s an easy, nutritious snack recipe that your kids will love! Now that the weather is starting to warm up, I’m definitely ready for popsicle season. My Kiwi Mango Popsicles are beautiful, tasty, and packed with nutrients. Plus, you can make a whole batch on the weekend so that you have an easy snack to give to your kids all throughout the week. I make them by layering pureed mango with siggi’s Mango 4% Skyr and slices of kiwi fruit for a pop of flavor and color. These popsicles provide a good mix of protein and fat to provide your kids with energy and keep them satiated.  I chose to use the 4% skyr instead of a non-fat flavor because healthy fats are important in growing children and serve many crucial functions including helping with brain development and the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.  Plus, the extra fat makes the popsicles creamier!  I used these cool popsicle molds but if don’t have something like this, you can use small paper cups.  Speaking from experience, the kids may have to fight mom and dad off for these treats!

Recipe

Kiwi Mango Popsicles

My colorful Kiwi Mango Popsicles are beautiful, tasty, and packed with nutrients!

5 from 1 vote

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Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 3 hours hours

Total Time: 3 hours hours

Servings: 10

Calories: 85kcal

Author: Dr. Sonali Ruder

Ingredients

• ▢ 3 containers siggi’s Mango 4% Skyr or any siggi's whole milk flavors
• ▢ ⅓ cup coconut milk or other type of milk
• ▢ 2 cups chopped mango
• ▢ 2 kiwi fruit, cut into 10 slices

US Customary - Metric

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Instructions

• Whisk the yogurt and milk together in a bowl.
• Puree the mango in a food processor or blender until smooth.
• Place one slice of kiwi in each popsicle mold. Spoon the mango puree and the yogurt mixture into the molds, alternating them to create layers. Continue until you reach the top of the popsicle molds.
• Place the popsicle sticks into the molds, cover, and freeze for a few hours or overnight until solid. Alternatively, if you don’t have popsicle molds, you can use small paper cups.
• To unmold, dip the popsicle molds in warm water and then pull the popsicles out.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 85kcal | Carbohydrates: 10.8g | Protein: 4.2g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 2.4g | Sodium: 18mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 8.2g

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