It’s Back to School Time! Send Your Kid Off with a Healthy Breakfast

In Blog by Frances Largeman Roth

Makes 2 (8-ounce) servings

Putting Breakfast Front and Center for Back to School 

As summer comes to a close, my kids are super excited about heading back to school. It’s a time to reconnect with friends, explore their new classrooms and of course, show off some fun new gear.

Along with those shiny new backpacks and notebooks, it’s also a great time to focus on sending your children off to school with good nutrition. In fact, it’s one of the most important things you can do to help your kids have a successful start to the school year. Research shows that morning nutrition is critical to learning, performance and behavior in school. In fact, kids who eat breakfast have better memory, attention, test scores and attendance than those who skip the morning meal.

Of course, in our plugged-in world, there are plenty of things to distract kids from sitting down to breakfast. In addition to the old-fashioned TV, there are tablets, phones, Snapchat and the uber-addictive PokemanGo. It’s really getting tougher for parents to entice kids to slow down and focus on getting fueled up before they head out for their busy days. In fact, 50 percent of middle schoolers and 36 percent of high school kids skip breakfast. This is one trend you definitely don’t want your kids to follow!

Luckily, breakfast is one of the quickest meals to put together. And it’s the best chance to get fruit into your kid’s day. Tropicana 100% orange juice is a delicious and awesome way to pack breakfast full of the nutrients your kids need. Each 8-ounce glass has just one ingredient—oranges! And it contains two servings of fruit, more than a day’s worth of vitamin C, and as much potassium as a banana. One thing Tropicana OJ never has is added sugars.

My three kids really enjoy this tropical-inspired smoothie. You can even make it the night before and store it in an airtight container in the fridge. Here’s to adding some liquid sunshine to the day! See below for some additional tips for getting kids to focus on breakfast.

Orange Mango Tango Smoothie

Ingrediants:

  • 1 cup diced mango
  • 1 cup Tropicana orange juice
  • 1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon honey (optional)

Place all ingredients into a blender; blend until smooth. Pour into two glasses and serve.

Breakfast Tips for Growing Kids:

Preparation:

  1. 1. Kids can find it hard to make choices when there are too many options. Don’t just ask, “What do you want for breakfast?” Offer 2-3 choices and let your child pick from those.
  2. 2. Make sure breakfast comes before screen time. Kids will almost always choose their Kindle or TV over sitting down for a meal, so make it clear that breakfast time comes first.
  3. 3. Be a great example! Parents don’t always believe it, but we’re our kids’ number one influence when it comes to making food choices, so you need to show them that you’re making the same healthy choices you want them to make. That means eating breakfast too!

This post is sponsored by Tropicana. All opinions and thoughts expressed are my own.