The number of children who are classified as obese has increased twofold since the 80s, making childhood obesity one of the country’s top health concerns. According to the Centers for Disease control this is an even bigger problem amongst adolescents where rates of obesity have more than tripled in the same period. This means 
that more children today are at risk of Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease than before.
Making sure that your child eats a healthy lunch can help to keep them on the right path. Many people think that a home made pack lunch must be far healthier for kids than school dinners, but that is not always true.
Thanks in part to Jamie Oliver school dinners have had a serious overhaul in recent years and are getting healthier. School dinners must conform to guidelines set by the government and have to offer children a balanced diet of protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and fruit. They have to follow strict limits for the salt and fat content of each meal and can’t include any confectionary or drinks containing artificial sweeteners.
So while school dinners are getting more nutritious, the same can’t be said for all packed lunches. In fact a survey carried out during 2010 found that only a frightening 1% of packed lunches were as healthy as school dinners. Most of the packed lunches failed the test as they included sweets, sugary drinks and snacks that contained a lot of salt and fat.
The challenge of creating a healthy packed lunch
Once you have decided that you are going to make packed lunches there are three main challenges that you will face. Giving in to pressure from your kids to include ‘naughty’ food and drinks such as sweets and sugary drinks. It is also hard to avoid running out of ideas, and too easy to send your kids to school with boring, repetitive lunches. You might think that packed lunches would be far cheaper than paying for school dinners. However, once you have added up the cost of the extra food in your weekly shopping, as well as the inevitable emergency top up shops when you have run out of sandwich ingredients or bread etc, you might actually find that you are spending more than you used to for school dinners.
8 Tips for Healthy Hassle Free Packed Lunches
Start at Breakfast:
Start their day the way you want it to continue by giving them a healthy, filling and balanced breakfast. As well as helping them stay full till lunchtime and to avoid the urge to snack, eating breakfast can also helo them concentrate for longer in their lessons.
Make it Fun:
Food can be more appealing to children when it looks attractive and interesting. For younger children you could try cutting their sandwiches into shapes. While special sandwich cutters exist in a range of shapes you could just use a large cookie cutter.
Chill It:
To keep food cool and fresh especially in summer, you could use a thermal-lined lunch box. Or, why not include a small frozen carton of milk, juice or a bottle of water> The drink will keep the food cool and be defrost nicely in time for lunch.
Finger Food:
Children love eating food with their fingers. So they are more likely to eat fruit and veg when they are in bite sized pieces. You could even include houmous or cottage cheese for them to dip the vegetable into.
Include healthy snacks and treats:
Include sweet tasting treats such as raisins, apricots or dates. While you can buy small packs of dried fruit it would be far cheaper to measure out some fruit from a larger bag. Wholemeal crackers spread with a low-fat cream cheese can also be a tasty treat.
Avoid a Soggy Mess:
There is nothing less appealing than a soggy packed lunch. To avoid this make sure that you have proper packaging and that nothing can leek. Tomatoes and cucumber can make sandwiches go mushy, so why not try grated carrot or lettuce to add texture and crunch.
Get them Involved:
Let you child be involved choosing what they want. To helo them stick to healthy options, offer them a choice, for example orage or apple juice etc. You could even get you children to help you with the shopping. Encourage your children to learn to cook and help out. If they are too young to help you cook yet, let them make play lets pretend in a toy kitchen of their own.
Use up Leftovers:
Plan to cook too much food for dinner the night before that can be used as a packed lunch. For example pasta can make a great cold salad the next day. This will help you save money as well as saving you time in the morning.
This article has been written by Carol from www.anaratoys.co.uk where you can find a range of further useful tips as well as information about traditional children’s toys such as wooden train sets to modern toys like the popular Harry Potter Lego sets.