Feeling down about starting school? Eat whole grains as your staple food to improve your concentration

School has started, and many students are experiencing "back-to-school syndrome", feeling depressed, listless, and even having a bad figure! The Tung Foundation recommends that schoolchildren adjust their diet after the winter vacation and the Spring Festival, and switch their staple food to whole grains. This can help improve children's concentration and increase their sense of fullness, helping to maintain health and avoid obesity.

The happy winter vacation is over. Does your baby have symptoms of "back-to-back syndrome" such as depression, lack of energy, and out-of-shape body?

Xu Huiyu, director of the nutrition group of the Tung Foundation, said that whole grains are rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, which can help increase and prolong satiety, maintain and control weight, reduce cardiovascular disease, the incidence of intestinal cancer and prevent type 2 diabetes.

There is a reason for getting fat! Study: Eating too little whole grains can make you fat

Eating too little whole grains can make you fat! A 2013 study by Tufts University in the United States recorded the dietary habits of 792 elementary school students in grades 3 to 6 and found that children who ate less than one serving of whole grains a day had a 40% higher chance of obesity than those who ate 1.5 servings a day. The study gave an example that two 10-year-old boys with the same height of 136 cm would weigh 1.2 kg more if they ate less than one serving of whole grains than those who ate 1.5 servings. This study defines one serving of whole grains as a bowl of 100% whole grain breakfast cereal, half a bowl of cooked oatmeal, or a slice of 100% whole grain bread, which is equivalent to half a bowl of brown rice in Taiwan.

It is worth noting that in 2010, the Tung Foundation surveyed nearly 5,000 parents of first and second grade elementary school students in the country and found that nearly 50% of the children had no whole grains in their daily diet, and nearly 70% of parents rarely or never provided whole grains at home, of which about 60% did not provide them because they thought their children did not like to eat them; in addition, only 35% of the children ate vegetables every day, and 24% ate fruits every day.

Adding an appropriate amount of brown rice to the three meals and cooking it into brown rice is a good way of eating.

The child “responds to soft things but not hard things”? Eating whole grains helps language development

Director Xu Huiyu said that modern children's diet is too refined and they are accustomed to eating soft food rather than hard food. When they first come into contact with whole grains, they often feel that they taste "dry, hard, and difficult to chew". However, parents should never stop supplying them completely, because food tastes and preferences can be developed from an early age.

Parents may wish to start with a small amount and slowly increase the whole grain ratio to allow children to gradually get used to the chewier texture of whole grains. Chewing more can increase saliva secretion to aid digestion, massage the gums to help periodontal health, and stimulate brain development to enhance children's learning ability. Chewing before school age will also affect the development of the oral teeth and jaws, the flexibility of oral organs such as the tongue and lips, and affect the development of future speaking ability.

The Tung Foundation recommends that it is best to eat brown rice instead, which is simple, oil-free and sugar-free. Purple rice, whole millet, whole oats, etc. can also be added to rice. Snacks can include purple rice and red bean soup, brown barley soup, etc., and whole wheat and whole grain bread should pay attention to the whole grain ratio and oil and sugar content.