How to get Hong Kong children eating healthily and off junk food – six expert tips on developing good habits before their teens

Encouraging children to adopt good eating habits and healthy attitudes to food early in life is crucial for their future well-being. This is especially so given doctors’ warnings that Hong Kong teenagers are at growing risk of suffering strokes later in life after a recent survey showed a “worrying” trend of youngsters rarely exercising and eating a poor diet.

The Hong Kong Stroke Fund survey of 12,405 secondary school pupils in September and October showed 56 per cent eat diets in which vegetables formed less than a third of their intake. Meanwhile, 4 per cent ate no fresh vegetables at all and 28 cent did not have a daily fruit habit – despite World Health Organisation guidelines that suggest individuals should eat five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

A sobering comment from one of the doctors involved in the study was that the youngest stroke patient he had treated was just 18.

“The diet of the young today tends towards the unhealthy, loaded with calories, fats, sugars and salt in general,” says accredited dietitian Danica Yau, who is also the Hong Kong Dietitians Association external affairs officer. “Local surveys have shown students regularly consume soft drinks, fast food and junk food.”

But Yau also warns of a paradox: “On the other end of the spectrum, there is a certain group that places too much focus on body image and goes to the extreme of dieting with all kinds of fad diets, which puts their nutritional status and health at risk.”

An excellent way to increase children’s interest in food early on is to involve them in the kitchen when they are young. “Not enough kids cook these days, unfortunately – they focus a lot of time on academic achievements instead,” Poon says.

She sees cooking as forming the heart of a healthy food culture. “As a keen cook as well as a dietitian myself, I know how important cooking is for health. It is a skill everyone should have, and it can be fun. Once kids can cook the basics, they will have the best survival tool to take them into adult life.

“Everyone should be eating good quality meals made from basic ingredients every day. I truly believe that home cooking is the key to health because you don’t need to rely on expensive, processed and additive-laden foods, which are also high in fat, sugar and salt.”