healthy diet and good oral health!

A healthy diet and good oral health go together hand in hand. While it is easy to prepare balanced, nutritious meals at home for your children, its not so easy when you are making school lunches.

Here are some helpful hints from the Kakar Dental Group on keeping meals and snacks healthy for students from pre-schoolers to teens.

School

School lunches are always a hot topic among moms. We all give in and throw in handy chips and chocolate-coated bars from time to time. We know children love to swap foods, so never truly know if they ate the home-made granola oat bars you spend all weekend preparing. And some days they come home and lunch hasn’t even been touched.

All we can do is send them off with a great lunch, which can include:

Sandwiches with wholegrain bread
Pasta salads with meat and vegetables
Soup and noodles
Cut up fresh fruits and vegetables
Nuts
Yogurt
Healthy bars filled with fiber
Water bottles

Keep lunch boxes colorful, varied and sugar-free as much as possible. Some sugar snacks are fine but save them for weekends when you can get your child to clean their teeth shortly after eating.

Put favorite foods in the lunchbox and ask your child what they would like on the lunch menu for the coming week. Explain to them you are trying to give them healthy options, so they have strong, cavity-free teeth and good energy to burn off at the playground.

Finally, please encourage your child to clean their teeth at school. Some schools require younger children to clean their teeth after eating, which is excellent. But if it is optional, getting straight to the playground looks more attractive to a 7-year-old than brushing their teeth. So remind them now and then and make sure they have a toothbrush and toothpaste at school.

Find The Best Pediatric Dentist in Northern Virginia

Tysons Corner, Falls Church, Fredericksburg and Manassas

If it has been over six months since your last cleaning or over a year since your last annual exam, it is time to schedule a routine check up at one of our pediatric dentistry in Tysons Corner, Falls Church, Fredericksburg and Manassas of Virginia and the surrounding areas.