healthyD.com (14/04/21)(in Chinese)
Expert Decoding｜Can’t stop snacking at home? Experts recommend a list of low-sugar healthy snacks for parents and children to make
Dr. Tong Yueling, a pediatric endocrinologist, shares some tips for fighting the epidemic. Let’s stay healthy together!
Due to the epidemic, children cannot go out often for activities/exercises, which leads to high blood sugar levels. What can parents do?
Dr. Tong: We understand that children cannot go out for exercise due to the pneumonia epidemic. Parents can encourage their children to do small exercises and play light games at home. You can go to the website or Facebook of Playright (Children’s Play Association) for reference. They will also recommend some small games to play at home every day. You can try them. In addition, parents can also take their children to the countryside for hiking to exercise and breathe fresh air during holidays.
Dr. Tong: Parents can encourage their children to do small exercises and play light games at home. On the other hand, parents can also try to let their children participate in some simple cleaning tasks at home, such as sweeping the floor, wiping the table or putting away toys. This can increase the amount of exercise for children and at the same time, make children more aware of the importance of home cleaning in alleviating the pneumonia epidemic.
As children do not have to go to school, they also go to bed later and their blood sugar levels rise. What can parents do?
Dr. Tong: Parents should first help their children get back on track and let them know that their daily routine is closely related to their blood sugar. It is important to understand that hormones have a significant impact on blood sugar. At the same time, since children’s daily routines may be different from before, children need to keep a good record of their blood sugar levels, rest time, diet records, and daily exercise. This will help them better understand the relationship between blood sugar and daily routines and the impact of each other.
Parents hope to enhance their children’s immunity. Besides taking vitamin C, what other methods are there?
Dr. Tong: We all want to enhance our immunity to reduce the chance of getting sick. In addition to taking vitamin C, we can also eat more fresh vegetables, fruits and other antioxidant foods, go to bed early and get up early, exercise enough every day, maintain personal hygiene and participate in home cleaning activities.
As children don’t have to go to school recently and stay at home, they have been eating more snacks, and even more so, midnight snacks. Do you have any suggestions?
Dr. Tong: In fact, it is most important to maintain a regular routine. At the same time, because we don’t have to go to school, we eat more snacks at home, which is also a good learning opportunity. Children learn to adjust the amount of insulin injection according to the amount of food they eat and record all the details. In addition, parents can make low-carbohydrate and low-sugar foods with their children, such as low-sugar carrot cookies, cucumber fish snacks, noodles made with vegetables, etc., and share healthy and delicious snacks without putting too much burden on the body.
Data provided by: Children’s Diabetes Association, Pediatric Endocrinologist Dr. Tong Yueling