Q: Good afternoon, Dr. Can you please, help me with my children’s daily time table for eating because my five years old boy is looking very smallish in stature and he hates eating fruits.

A: I’m sure this resonates with a lot of people! But guess what? Your son is not the boss. You are! And your job is to ensure that he eats nourishing foods as opposed to all the sweets that he would love to.

Try blending the fruits and feeding him. If you’ve got a smoothie maker, use that. It’s fruit juice…only this time without the refined sugars. That’s one way of encouraging him to take fruits. You can cut up or mash bananas and add to his cereal for breakfast and milk, of course. Focus on complex carbohydrates like Ofada/brown/local rice, sweet potatoes, oats, whole wheat meals, beans etc. Make your beans delicious and if you’re not a specialist at this, you can cook it white and then serve it with fish or egg stew. You can boil sweet potatoes and on top of the pot, put a stainless steel plate with one egg, some tomatoes and a drop of oil. When the potatoes are nice and soft, mash all together and season with salt and then serve. Always include veggies. This is the right time to start. In fact, when he starts taking the blended fruits, sneak in some veggies into it like carrots, spinach, pumpkin leaves (ugu) etc. Remember to try one at a time and then build from there.

All foods served should have some colour…that’s one quick and easy way of being sure it’s balanced 😀

For more information, please click on the link below: https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/02/01/daily-health-tips-should-my-children-be-on-a-diet/

https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/02/27/daily-health-tips-i-think-my-daughter-is-small-for-her-age/

Cheers 😀