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Tips for When Your Diabetic Child Doesn’t Want to Eat

Meal planning can be difficult enough when you are not diabetic, but it can be doubly hard when you do have diabetes type 1 or type 2. Whether you are cooking for yourself only or for your family also, you need to make appetizing meals that look tempting and taste good. If you have a child with juvenile diabetes, you also need to prepare appetizing meals that your child will want to eat.

As an adult, you can rationalize that you need to eat, even if food does not appeal to you. Sometimes no matter how attractively you prepare a meal, you will not feel like eating, but you know that you need to. Children, on the other hand are not so easy to reason with, when they don’t feel like eating. The following tips will help you make sure your child with juvenile diabetes will be nourished properly.

Of course it is important for juvenile diabetics to eat their meals, and parents may become worried about their children when they don’t want to eat what you have fixed. Most kids, not just kids with diabetes, like finger foods. Most kids like foods made similarly to their favorite fast foods. For instance, you child may eat better if you have foods like chicken nuggets, and a sugar free BBQ sauce or another type of sugar free dipping sauce. Your child might like healthy pizza made with whole grain crust. You can use low fat cheese and top with lots of vegetables rather than fatty meats.

Your growing child needs to have healthy fats in his/her diet. When your child is young, his/her brain requires at least 7 percent of his/her calories come from fat. The gats can come from nuts, peanut butter, eggs, and healthy oils. Kids like to snack, rather than sitting down to eat a big meal. If you fix 3 small meals and 3 snacks in a day, you child will get all the nourishment he/she needs.

In the event that your child doesn’t eat his/her meal, it is important to replace or supplement the calories of the missed meal in some other way. There are very good diabetic shakes and cereal bars on the market to use for the occasional missed meal or snack. You can make a “milkshake” out of the diabetic liquid meal replacement by putting some ice in a blender and whipping it up and serve with a straw. Some of the diabetic meal replacement bars taste like cookies and candy bars, so keep some on hand for when your child doesn’t want to eat. It is important to keep track of your child’s blood sugar level to be sure that his/her diabetes is under control.

Take into consideration your child’s likes and dislikes. To better get your child to eat, it might work well for you and your child, if you ask your diabetic child what he/she wants to eat. You could make a great meal, but your child could hate it and refuse to eat, so by consulting with your child before cooking would be a good choice. Giving your child a choice in what he/she wants to eat will ensure that your child gets the nourishment he/she needs while keeping his/her blood glucose levels in check.

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