Snack alternatives for kids

If I were to show up at your front door right this second, and you happen to have a live-at-home child, whether he/she is an adolescent, teenager or whatever age they may be, I would bet you $1 that I would find at least one unhealthy snack in your pantry.  Am I right, or am I right?  I mean come on, when I was growing up, I had my fair share of pickins’ from chips, cheese doodles, licorice, cookies, cakes, ice cream, pizza nuggets, and pretzels.  We would sometimes have Teddy Grahams (remember those?) and other new products that were like a one hit wonder.  Either way, as kids, we had it all.  Snack food was indeed our reward.

But, thank goodness, we were active as kids.  Sports during the day, gym class, tennis and hide and go seek at night.  We never sat still.  A pool in the back yard and cannon balls and rated dives until we were called in for the night.  We did yard work, laundry, dusted furniture (child slavery at its best-just kidding mom and dad), we were so active as kids that this junk got burned off.  Did we still need that worthless stuff though?  Never?  And, nowadays, the kids are so inactive that they really don’t need it. But, they are still having it.  What needs to change in this country where kids come home each day and they are jumping up and down to eat some cherries or carrot sticks?  What needs to happen to our adult population who has kids where they clean the pantries out of all the garbage and only stocks their kitchen (tool # 73) with foods they or their kids don’t crave?  Leadership in the house is in your control and all starts with you!  Is it too late?

No!  Health games, dinner talks, family fitness and healthy kitchens are excellent places to start.  For this post, I will provide you with some healthy alternatives for your kids.  Coming soon, on Flaghouse.com, I will be sharing my Fitness in 30 minutes workout under their Fitness Activity Guides that you can buy for your whole family.  This will be so much fun for your whole family and you to do together, even if you run through the workout once or twice.  Check it out and call Harry Lawson at Flaghouse or email me for more details.

So, healthy snack alternatives for kids. Check out the video below for 3 bags of chip alternatives.

Here is your list of snack alternatives for your kids:

Snappeas or seaweed chips (in video)

Sweet cherries dipped in low fat cottage cheese

Trail mix (3 different nuts) with some milk chocolate and white chocolate Ghiradelli chips, fresh grapes (refrigerate this mix)

Rice cracker (5) with 2 Laughing cow lite cheeses

Celery and Carrot sticks with Hummus (1/4 cup)

Celery sticks topped with White Chocolate peanut butter and raspberries or raisins

Sliced apple with 1 tbsp of honey dipped in nonfat Greek plain Chobani, Fage or Voskos yogurt.

So start there and see how this goes.  Teach your children how to eat well.  This is your job as a parent.  It starts with you.  Knowledge is power.  Teach your children that if they eat unhealthy, they can end up with heart disease, diabetes, and other undesirable disorders.  There are fun ways to teach them this message.  Let’s make learning fun and very informative where they understand why they no longer should do it and therefore don’t want to do it.  If you need help with this, let me know.  I am here to help.  For now, baby steps to big leaps!  Let’s break the chains of obesity in America, starting with your family!