Nutrition Tips & School Lunch Ideas for Tweens & Teens [VIDEO]

Fueling healthy habits and lunch packing for teenagers  

If you are a parent or caregiver of a tween or teenager, chances are you are fatigued by all the packed lunches you’ve made over many years for your child.  The teenage years add some additional challenges into the mix with teens having sometimes even stronger food preferences, purchase of food items outside of your control and sometimes skipped lunches while socially trying to fit in. 

Read on for some practical tips on strategies for feeding teenagers and some tasty school lunch ideas to try with your teens. 

What is the best way to get teenagers to eat healthy foods? 

As a mom of a teenager I know firsthand that nagging in general usually doesn’t work well to get my son to do anything.  The same applies to nutrition, nagging teenagers to eat healthy foods usually backfires.  

Replace nutrition nagging with nutrition nudging. This involves providing variety, choice and empowering teens to experiment and provide feedback. Repetition and exposure to a wide variety of foods is important in order to learn and accept new foods. 

Sometimes put favorites on the table or in the lunch bag and sometimes add in some not-so-favorite options.  Just because a food was not eaten once doesn’t mean it should never be offered again.  

Ask questions that offer choices such as…  

• “I know you are not a big fan of fruit but if you had to figure out a way to eat apples once in a while would it be: eaten whole, diced and tossed with cinnamon or sliced and mixed with granola?” 

• “You need to pack your lunch after supper and for fruit/veggie options to include we have cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, blueberries and grapes…which one are you going to add?” 

Why is variety in the food offered in lunches more important than many people realize?

While variety in your lunch is helpful to ensure a wide variety of nutrients are consumed for your health, there is another reason this is a good idea. Food psychology researchers have established what is known as sensory specific satiety which is a fancy term that means that our senses (taste, smell and sight) are overwhelmed and numbed by repetition.  

Variety matters to encourage lunches to be eaten and enjoyed.  Just like you, your teenager is unlikely to be excited about eating the same thing over and over.  If every day an apple or orange and sandwich is served, boredom sets in.  Even mixing up sandwiches to be altered on bread, pitas, bagels, wraps and buns is more exciting than the same sandwich bread daily.   

Another important aspect of combatting sensory specific satiety is to ensure you add more variety in categories of foods you want your teen to eat more of.  For example if your teen needs more protein in their lunch you may find it more successful to include Greek yogurt and a bit of meat or cheese in a bento box than only one of these options, since the more variety we have, the more we likely are excited to eat our lunch. 

Watch my segment on Global News:

What is the best way to encourage tweens and teens to pack a healthy lunch themselves?

Moving from packing your child’s lunch to getting your tween and teen to pack their lunch themselves and make sure it offers the balance they need for growth and development alongside fuel to help them concentrate and learn at school, is not an easy task for many families. Discuss lunch over dinner or while cleaning up dinner and create a routine to have them decide what they will pack before going to bed.  Let them decide but ensure you frame the choice that it must contain the 3 components of a balanced meal (grains/starches, vegetables/fruit and a source of protein) alongside snacks.  

Understand the pleasure path.  We are wired to seek pleasure and repel pain.  This means in lunch packing you may not be excited that as a parent or caregiver you are the person that chops up the carrots, cucumber sticks, melon, fresh pineapple or cubes of cheese BUT if these are chopped and ready to go you may find your teenager selects these as options to add to their lunch bag.  Expecting them to pull out these items from the fridge drawer is no surprise usually the last thing many teenagers choose to do.  In time you can also have your teenager involved in weekly chopping or assembly but to start to move from you packing it entirely to your teenager packing this independently, helping them brainstorm options and assisting with some of the chopping is indeed a good stepping stone.   

What is the best strategy to manage the pop, potato chips, candy and sweets my teen is obsessed with?

• Teach your kids that all foods fit.  There are no bad foods or so called good or bad foods, food is just food and it is your entire overall diet that counts. 
• Role model healthy eating and lunch packing yourself.  
• Get them involved in some aspects of shopping, preparing and cooking meals as this is an important life skill. 
• Role model non-dieting behavior as kids learn what they live.  
• Teach them about balancing foods needed for growth, physical health, mental health, concentration at school, sports performance and that soulful food (such as chocolate and cookies) chosen for non-nutrition reasons for taste and social fun, are absolutely part of a balanced diet. 

What are some healthy school lunch ideas for teens?

2. Loaded Pasta Salad

• No recipe is required to make a pasta salad: Simply add your favorite veggies (such as grape tomatoes, cucumber slices, chopped carrots, snap peas, diced bell peppers etc) and choice of protein (leftover rotisserie chicken or roast turkey, cubed tofu, grated/cubes of cheddar cheese, bocconcini cheese balls, diced ham etc) to pasta.  Enjoy with your favorite vinaigrette, creamy salad dressing or with pesto sauce.  Serve with canned or dried fruit. 
• Looking for a recipe to try?  Try this Mexican pasta salad recipe on our blog. 

 5. Smoothie and Energy Bites or Banana Bread/Muffin

• Bend together a smoothie containing banana, frozen berries/mango, Greek/skyr yogurt, milk and unsweetened juice.  Add to a thermos and send a straw for stirring and sipping (or place in a leak proof insulated large water bottle).  Partner this with energy bites/balls such as this recipe here: nut-free energy bites or best-ever banana bread. 

Check out more helpful family nutrition tips on our blog written by our team of Dietitians!