Lack of proper nutrition can negatively affect a child's ability to learn and 80 percent of children do not consume enough foods throughout their day to provide them with the nutrition they need to stay healthy, reports Nourish Interactive website. Therefore, the more kids learn about nutrition, the more capable they will be to make healthy food choices. Nutrition games can help kids effectively learn how to eat healthy.
Body And Food
Teach kids how the nutrition found in different foods affects the body. Use a large drawing of a human body that has labels for organs, muscles and various other body parts. Then, have different foods cut out with tape placed on the back to help them stick to the large human body cut out. Possible foods to use include various fruits, vegetables, whole grains, drinks and proteins.
Have children work to place these different foods on areas of the human body that the food specifically helps. As the child places different foods on different body parts, ask her say to vocalize how the nutrition contained in each food positively affects that part of the body. A child could place a jar of peanut butter on a muscle and then say that the protein in peanut butter helps build muscles.
Trash Or Refrigerator
Trash or refrigerator will help children understand what foods they should be eating and what foods they should be avoiding. Children can play this game individually or in pairs. Give children a basket full of various plastic foods. Set each child or pair of children up with their own basket of food. Tell the children that they will need to separate the food into the trash can or the refrigerator based on whether the foods are healthy or unhealthy. Unhealthy foods should go into the trash can and healthy foods should be placed in the refrigerator. Tell the children that the winner will be based on who finishes first with the most correctly placed items.
Tell the kids to start placing their items and have the teams or individuals let you know when they are finished. Avoid stopping the game until all the teams or individuals have stated that they are finished. Then, begin checking each team for correct placement and go over with the group why foods were correctly placed and why foods where incorrectly placed. Give the winning team or individual a nutritious reward.
Roll Dice
Help kids to eat their vegetables by having them roll the dice. Disney Family Fun suggests that kids roll a dice and the number they roll will designate how many vegetables they eat. The kid who finishes his vegetables first wins the game, reports Disney Family Fun. Therefore, the object of the game is to roll the higher numbers on the dice; this will allow kids to eat the most vegetables each time and finish first.
Parents can get involved in this game and play it with their kids at the dinner table. Make sure to refrain from flavoring vegetables with high fat and calories seasons such as butter, bacon grease or ranch dressing.
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