Yoga helps kids eat healthier by building positive habits early on. Just like adults, children can develop cravings and habits over time. However, let’s explore how yoga helps introduce surprising benefits that can positively impact their choices. By integrating yoga into their lives, we can witness how it contributes to healthier eating habits for kids.
How Yoga Helps Kids Eat Healthier
It’s interesting to note that a study was done proving that children have stronger food cravings than adults do. At the same time, they have a cognitive strategy that allows them to handle cravings better than adults. Here’s how yoga helps: we can make the most of the situation by understanding the root cause of cravings and implementing effective ways to tackle them.
The Sweet Cravings Come from Instinct
Kids relate sweet things to safe energy. A sweet taste in nature indicates that the food will give you energy. This is necessary for growth and development. Did you know that breast milk is sweet? With that in mind, what kids are really looking for at a deeper level is energy. There are yoga poses that can produce the same feeling so kids are less prone to crave something sweet.
Carbs are Necessary but Yoga Helps Kids Make Good Choices
As development is occurring, the mind of a child cries out for carbs. As the brain develops, it requires twice as much glucose as an adult brain does. Kids are going to eat carbs, it’s something they need to do. However, they are more likely to choose a healthy carb after a yoga class. The more kids do yoga, the more they become conditioned to eat foods that will feel good in their bodies.
Yoga Makes Kids More Aware of How Junk Food Feels in the Body
With any healthy lifestyle, it’s going to be like a sliver when you add something unhealthy to the body. Putting your kids in sports or activities that allow them to move their body gives them the tools to make better choices. They know that eating heavy foods full of fat or too much candy will ruin their physical activities.
Yoga goes beyond other sports in that it teaches kids to listen to their bodies. When kids are conscious of how their body and mind feel, they will know that there’s a drastic change when they add junk food to the mix. Kids need sugar and they need carbs for growth but when you offer healthy alternatives, they are more likely to take them.
Self-Care
We learn very soon what self sabotage is and what self-care is. While kids might have different names for how they’re feelins, the result is the same. The more kids know how it feels to feel good, the more likely they are to chase that feeling. Yoga feels good for kids. It allows them to peel their eyes away from the computer or T.V. and get their bodies moving. While it may not be fun at first, in the end, they’ll have a good feeling about themselves afterwards. When you offer yourself love and care, you’re less likely to crave unhealthy foods. This is for kids and adults alike.
Alleviates Boredom
Kids are asked to put their focus on their body and the task at hand during yoga. This alleviates boredom at the time and also calms them so they don’t get bored as easily later. One of the main reasons kids will reach for foods that aren’t great for them is because they’re bored.
Nutritionists recommend allowing your kids some carbs and sugar so that they can feed the brain and develop the body. This doesn’t mean those choices need to be unhealthy. You will find that once your child gets more involves with yoga, they are likely to become more relaxed. They will also feel much less bored. All of these things are going to help them make healthier choices when they open the fridge.
Yoga poses not only build strength but they build brain muscle too. Kids may become more innovative and creative. This will shift their attention to something that is good for them after yoga. They may start a new project or pick up a puzzle to work on. At any rate, you can be assured that after a yoga class, they likely won’t be coming home, begging for a chocolate chip cookie!!
Author
Meera Watts is a yoga teacher, entrepreneur and mom. Her writing on yoga and holistic health has appeared in Elephant Journal, CureJoy, FunTimesGuide, OMtimes and others. She’s also the founder and owner of Siddhi Yoga International, a yoga teacher training school based in Singapore. Siddhi Yoga runs intensive, residential training in India (Rishikesh, Goa and Dharamshala) andIndonesia (Bali). You can also stay updated with her on YouTube, Instagram,Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Hey doctor..everything what she says is right but giving a little sugar is fine for the development of brain n bady i mean sugar is like poison and consuming it daily triggers many health diseases as it is unhealthy for adults and kids too..please kindly take a substitute for sugar in ur further recipes example we can use coconut sugar, honey , dates and fruit purees through out our age..i think giving sugar is really unhealthy..
Certainly agree, sugar is unhealthy. For kids we mostly try to substitute suggar with jaggery, dates syrup , coconut sugar etc.
When is the right age for a toddler to learn yoga???
The earlier the better dear. You can start as early as the little one is one year.