Preparing healthy snacks for your active kids can be easy and fun, all it takes is a little prep work! We’ve created a list of seven healthy snacks for active kids below. Each snack is quick to prepare and packed with nutrition that can help with the healthy development of your active children.
One of the most important things we can do for our children’s eating habits is to adopt a long-term mindset.
Before we dive into our healthy snack recommendations, let’s touch on some commercial sports food and drink, and how they affect children in sports. If you’d like to read more about this, we also touch sugary drinks in our article about how the new Canada Food Guide affects your active kids.
Sugary Sports Drinks and Kids
Products like sugary sports drinks, energy drinks, energy gels and power bars are constantly being promoted by superstar athletes. These products are advertised as providing a boost of energy or aiding in post-activity recovery.
While their benefits may be true, these products are typically designed for the adult body, and specifically for high performing endurance athletes.
Which means they are not designed with the healthy long-term development of children in mind.
In September 2017, the Canadian Pediatric Society released a position statement claiming that, “Sports and caffeinated energy drinks can pose serious health risks to children and youth and should be avoided.”
The statement sites sugary drinks leading to obesity and dental issues. Furthermore, it explains that caffeinated energy drinks can have a more severe effect on children because they are smaller. Which means the average caffeine infused energy drink exposes children to more caffeine stimulant, relative to their body size.
Many of us drink coffee or tea on a daily basis, so we’re desensitized to caffeine. However, it’s important for us to keep in mind that caffeine is an addictive substance that can cause heart palpitations, insomnia, anxiety, digestion issues and more.
In 2014, The World Health Organization felt so strongly about the dangers of caffeinated energy drinks for youth that they released a statement of concern. In that statement they noted that “[i]ncreased consumption of energy drinks may pose danger to public health, especially among young people.”
So, although grabbing commercial sports food and drink may seem like a short-term fix, it may amount to negative long-term issues for our children.
Fuel Active Kids with Healthy Snacks
Luckily, there are lots of natural foods that can act as quick and healthy snacks. These foods are packed with energy, vitamins and nutrients. They’re a win-win-win!
Here’s a look at 7 of our favorite healthy snacks for kids:
1) Bananas, Oranges and Apples
Two out of three of these delicious fruits come with built-in packaging, we’re looking at you, Banana and Orange. Yet oddly enough, the apple is often most resilient for travel.
Regardless of their outsides, each of these fruits is high in nutritional value and all three are great sources of fiber.
Bananas are high in potassium, which helps with cardiovascular health, bone strength and muscle strength. Oranges are high in Vitamin C which helps with the growth and repair of all body tissue, including an athlete’s muscle tissue! Lastly, apples are high in antioxidants which help protect the body from disease.
2) Mixed Nuts
A handful of mixed nuts can provide a quality dose of calories, protein and healthy fats. Nuts are densely packed with nutrients but they’re also a little heavy on the stomach so be sure your child doesn’t go nuts (sorry, pun intended).
3) Natural Yogurts
Many yogurt products available today are loaded with sugar. So, make sure you check the sugar content of the yogurt you buy for your children.
A good rule of thumb to use when purchasing yogurt is to stay away from flavoured yogurt! If you’re active kids really wants some added flavor, just slice up some fruit and add it to their yogurt.
Lastly, consider reaching for Greek yogurt next time you’re in the dairy isle.
Greek yogurt has less than half the sodium, and half the sugar of regular yogurt. It also offers nearly double the protein which is great for active kids!
If your kids don’t like Greek yogurt, Regular yogurt is still a great option. In fact it offers roughly twice the daily calcium and potassium that Greek yogurt offers.
If your active kids like both, then make an informed choice. Grab regular yogurt if you think they need a calcium and potassium kick, or Greek yogurt if you feel that a bigger does of protein is best.
4) Whole Grain Crackers with Cheese
This snack will have you doing the most reading because not all whole grain crackers are created equal. Just like when buying yogurt, be sure to read the label when shopping for whole grain crackers.
Some cracker packages shout their benefits on the cover of their box but a closer look can reveal less desirable ingredients.
Look out for high levels of sodium and added sugar.
Lastly, make sure to find out exactly how much whole grain is included in the cracker. There are a lot of good crackers that use 100% whole grains but some merely offer a small percentage, while supplementing with refined flours. When choosing between two crackers like this, it’s better to choose the cracker made with 100% whole grains.
Remember, whole grain crackers with cheese can be a great snack but cheese can also be heavy so make sure to limit the serving size for your active kids.
5) Mixed Berries
Who doesn’t love mixed berries? They’re sweet, delicious and packed with health benefits.
Mixed berries offer some of the highest levels of anti-oxidants in any food. These anti-oxidants help your body decrease free radicals and ward off disease. Plus, berries are high in fiber which aids digestion!
Pack a small Tupperware container full of mixed berries for your active kids or consider combining them with Greek yogurt for an extra healthy snack!
6) Hard-boiled egg
A hard-boiled egg is not only extremely nutritious but it’s also filling which makes it a great snack for active kids on the go.
Hard boiled eggs deliver a quality dose of protein and healthy HDL cholesterol. They also provide the body with a rare nutrient Choline, and anti-oxidants Lutein and Zeaxanthin. All three of these are important for the healthy development of children.
7) Celery Sticks with Peanut Butter
Just like our recommendations with yogurt, we suggest you pay close attention to the amount of sugar in your peanut butter. Not all peanut butter has added sugar. In fact, the best brands often have only one ingredient: peanuts.
Peanut butter is high in protein and healthy fats! It’s also packed with a good number of vitamins and minerals including Vitamin B3, Magnesium, Copper and Manganese to name only some.
Adding peanut butter to celery sticks is a win-win.
When you fill the natural concave shape of celery with a layer of peanut butter, you’ll also benefit from the nutritional benefits of celery. Celery is a good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin K, and Folate along with several other vitamins and minerals.
This healthy snack can be a little messy but we think the mess is worth the nutritional value!
A Quick Guide to Healthy Snacks
Here’s a handy guide with quick nutritional and travel ratings, along with consumption guidelines. If you find it helpful, considering taking a screenshot with your phone, or printing it off on your desktop and putting it on the fridge.
| Healthy Snacks | Nutritional Rating | Travel Rating | When to consume? |
| Banana, Orange, Apple | 5/5 | 4/5 | Before/During/After |
| Mixed Nuts | 5/5 | 5/5 | Before/After |
| Natural Yogurts | 4/5 | 4/5 | Before/After |
| Whole Grain Crackers with Cheese | 4/5 | 3/5 | Before/After |
| Mixed Berries | 5/5 | 3/5 | Before/During/After |
| Hard Boiled Egg | 5/5 | 4/5 | Before/After |
| Celery Sticks with Peanut Butter | 5/5 | 3/5 | Before/After |
Mental Health and Appetite
Each year we’re all learning more about mental health, and how it affects children and youth. We’ve written about mental health and bullying in sports in the past. Unfortunately, the same sports that can give our children an opportunity to build confidence and social skills, can also take them away. Bullying can create a toxic environment for our children and these environments can often feel all-consuming.
For this reason, it’s important that all parents keep an eye open for signs of bullying in sports.
This means being on the look out for both the act of bullying and depression. It’s not uncommon for a bullied child to slip into depression. And one indicator for depression can be a loss of appetite.
So, if you notice any of your active kids suddenly showing a loss of appetite, it might be time to have a conversation about their experiences in sport and at school. If you’re looking for some advice about discussing depression with your child, consider the tips in this article by Lauren DiMaria, a child psychology expert.
