Youth food should be clearly categorized

Today, the gates of many schools across the country have become a gathering place for unlicensed vendors. How to ensure children's food safety and guide them to a healthy diet?

Some children think that school canteens and home meals do not fit the taste, and they would like to eat off-campus snacks. Many parents will give their children pocket money, and the small snacks around the campus are dazzling and appealing to them. "Three free snacks" are very rare when you enter the campus. They are all cart vendors at the school gate. They are usually "there's nowhere to go."

First of all, these small snacks affect the child's dinner, the biggest problem is to interfere with the child's nutritional intake during dinner, so that nutrition can not be fully absorbed, affecting growth and development. For example, some people add a lot of cyclamate and salt to make small snacks sweet and salty. Like plum, squid, seaweed, etc., these very salty foods are the children love to eat, but they are high in salt, a little bit of food may exceed the child's daily sodium intake allowed.

Second, the safety of these snacks is worrying. Many small snacks are produced by Xiaochangzi as “three non-products”. There are problems with the use of additives in terms of over-range and over-use. For example, businesses will add colors to cater to their children's preferences. Some small candies look colorful, most likely they are using pigments that should not be used, or the amount of pigment used exceeds the prescribed amount.

Juvenile food should adopt a classification system to classify food. Some people suggest that snacks can be divided into three levels: "can be eaten regularly," "appropriately eaten," "restricted consumption." Snacks that can be eaten regularly are low-fat, low-sugar, and low-salt snacks that can be eaten daily, such as fruit, yogurt, and so on. Appropriately eaten snacks are moderate amounts of fat, salt, and sugar snacks that can be eaten once or twice a week, such as chocolate and ham. Limiting the consumption of snacks refers to high-sugar, high-salt, high-fat snacks. These snacks should allow children to eat less or not, such as plum sugar, fried chicken wings and so on.

Clearly classifying snacks and then strictly implementing them will help improve your child's eating habits.

Food safety requires the community to work together. In terms of education, it is important to let children know that some snacks should not be eaten. This requires school and parents to jointly educate them. In terms of management, in line with the attitude of being responsible for the health of young people, it is necessary not only to administer it on campus but also to control it outside the school. It can be led by the Ministry of Education and coordinated by the concern of the next generation work committee and some regulatory authorities. Combat the unqualified food around campus.

Another point is that families and schools should prepare more delicious foods, preferably with both nutrition and taste. Children love this kind of food and do not eat other foods. The family can prepare some healthy snacks for children to choose, they will not "back" parents to snack outside, so as to develop healthy eating habits.