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Healthy School Lunches Lead to Healthy Kids

Americans are alarmingly overweight, but the increasing number of overweight children are of particular concern to parents. The number of overweight children has gone us as much as 10 percent over the last few decades, so a healthy school lunch is more important than ever.

Consumer Reports can help give you a few tips to pack a lunch your kids will actually want to eat! Joyce Krasnow knows it's hard enough getting your kids to eat healthy food at home, let alone at school. Packing a nutritious lunch can be a real challenge, but Consumer Reports tested some kid-friendly foods to see whether they'd make good additions to your child's lunchbox.

Peanut butter and jelly is a go-to choice for many moms. It is quick and easy, and most kids love it. However, the fat in peanut butter can be a concern, and plenty of jellies and preserves are high in sugar.

Consumer Reports looked at 11 creamy peanut butter options and four strawberry perserves.

Kid tasters weighed in on some low-fat peanut butter options. The low-fat cream of the crop were Reduced Fat Jif and Reduced Fat Skippy.

As for jelly, Smucker's Strawberry Low Sugar Preserves has half the sugar and calories of regular and tastes great.

Kids' yogurt is another popular snack that is notoriously high in sugar, so Consumer Reports had kids taste lower-sugar options to see if any would measure up. Dannon Danimals 25 percent less sugar came out on top. While it still has 13 grams of sugar, Danimals has just 100 calories and 30 percent of the daily value for calcium.

Not all the healthy lunch food tested turned up winners. When we asked kids to try fruit snacks made with real fruit- no added sugar- many were not impressed. If you can't get your kid to eat any fruit at all, these are worth a try for an alternative. But if your kids are used to eating sugary fruit snacks, these could be a hard sell.

Packing healthy and tasty options is what Joyce does and she finds her kids are eating what she packs! These aren't the only options you have to try to get your kids to eat healthier foods. Add some cut-up vegetables with a low-fat peanut butter on the side for dipping. As for fruit, stick with the real thing. If your kids get bored with apples and bananas, mix it up and go for cut pineapple or a bowl of cherries.


For more healthy lunch ideas check out the following link:
"How to pack a healthy, safe lunch" (Consumer Reports)

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