What are your child’s favourite sandwiches?

What are your child’s favourite sandwiches? Let me know in the comments section below!

I can answer this so easily because they have them everyday for school lunch – one likes Cheese and Vegemite, the other Ham and Cheese – that’s it, they would have peanut butter if they could but obviously most schools are nut free.  Tip Top have now given me a good understanding how to get them eating more exciting and healthy sandwiches.

I have teamed up with Tip Top to bring you ways to encourage and sustain healthy eating for our children with a focus on sandwiches of course.  Who remembers the iconic Tip Top ad – “Good on ya Mum”? I sure do remember it from when I was growing up and Tip Top have bought back this iconic jingle with their ‘The Food Dance” to make healthy eating fun.

Tip Top surveyed 1000 Australian parents and found that

• 81% of school children take a sandwich for lunch.
•  41% parents encourage their child to follow the same diet they do.
•  72% of school children have admitted to doing something other than eating their lunches including throwing it in the trash or leaving it to mould.

Tip Top found the following stats that showed that a child’s favourite sandwich is different from the most common sandwich fillings that parents pack for them.

School children’s favourite sandwich fillings are:  • Cheese 31% • Chicken 28%        • Ham 26%
Most common school children’s sandwich fillings: • Ham 39%   • Cheese 37% • Salad 20%

With that in mind Dr Happy (Dr Timothy Sharp), an Adjunct Professor in Positive Psychology, has partnered with Tip Top to his message for happy. healthy eating.

“Instead of pushing their own tastes, parents need to start conversations that encourages making healthy eating fun. All too often meal times are associated with negativity with healthy foods being viewed as something that has to be forced on children” he said.

Here are Dr Happy’s 5 Tip Top tips for parents so they can ensure their children continue to do The Food Dance and still eat healthily:

• Prioritise nutrition over behaviors. Don’t worry so much about old fashioned manners when it comes to your child’s eating
• Focus more on being playful and creative with food. If you make something fun, kids will be more likely to want to be part of it. For example make fun shapes. There is nothing tastier than eating a dinosaur shaped sandwich
• Open up the lines of communication. Ask your children what they like and don’t like and ask why?
• Involve your children in the purchasing and preparation of food. This will significantly boost the chances of them enjoying the (healthy and nutritious) food
• Let your child take ‘ownership’. Allow your children to make some choices about what goes in their lunchbox.

“It’s time to reclaim The Food Dance and ensure that meal times are fun. Having a healthy relationship with food increases our chances of enjoying and respecting what we eat and will hopefully lead to less wasted lunches,” Dr Happy adds.

HERE ARE THREE VARIATIONS TO FAVOURITE SANDWICHES FOR YOU TO TRY

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RECIPE Chicken-Lettuce-and-Home-Made-Mayonnaise-Sandwich.pdf (654 downloads)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RECIPE Chicken-Tomato-and-Baby-Spinach-Sandwich.pdf (625 downloads)

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RECIPE Delux-Ham-Cheese-Sandwich.pdf (642 downloads)

Don’t forget to let me know what you child’s/children’s favourite sandwiches are in the comments so we can all get some new ideas.

This is a sponsored post for Tip Top.  Follow Tip Top on Facebook and find more sandwich inspiration here.