Eat at home or in the school cafeteria, what is best for the children?

When it is time to start school, we parents have many decisions to make, always thinking about the good of our children, one of which is the school cafeteria. Does a child eat better in the school cafeteria than in the school? home? Or maybe it's better to eat at the grandparents' house? Eat at home

Eat at home or in the school canteen: advantages and disadvantages

Some of the advantages of school canteens are:

- The school canteen makes food something social among classmates, which is very beneficial for children , seeing what they eat others can be encouraged to do the same. Los - The menus are planned in advance, so it allows us to supplement the dinners with what is most appropriate, facilitating our family organization, which is to be thankful for how busy life is with children.

- Their menus are made by nutritionists, which can ensure that they are healthy and balanced.

- The diet that is usually proposed is quite close to the Mediterranean diet, known to be one of the most recommended for health.

- The only drink offered is water, the best option to keep children hydrated.

As drawbacks, however, we can highlight:

- Sometimes in the dining room it is incited - it forces, even - the child to finish the dish, which does not benefit at all to their nutritional habits. It is beneficial to be encouraged to try new foods, but children are very capable of deciding when they have finished eating, when they are full, and making them overcome that limit is but the first step towards obesity.

- Desserts are not always the healthiest. The fruit is replaced by yoghurts, sometimes flavors, petit suisse or dairy desserts that are far from what is considered advisable in childhood, because of its high content of simple sugars.

- The caloric intake is usually excessive, especially for the smallest, for which it may not meet the needs of micronutrients. Los - Fried, breaded and / or precooked foods, although very well accepted by children, are present more than recommended. A - Sometimes, trying to reduce costs, includes cold meats and meat preparations in excess, whose content in fat and salt is much higher than that of fresh meat, whose benefits against it are nil.

While many parents have no choice but to leave the children in the cafeteria because their work schedules do not allow them to pick them up after school, others can decide whether or not to do so, so the benefits that can be obtained from each one of the available options, while adapting the rest of the child's food - breakfast, snack and dinner - to offer the best possible diet.