Healthy lunchbox ideas for young swimmers

Swimmers & Parents

To keep coming up with healthy lunchbox ideas for kids everyday is difficult enough, but when your children are competitive swimmers you add a new dimension to the problem.

So, to help out time-stretched swim parents across England here are a few lunchbox ideas to help you keep it fresh for your young Olympians or Paralympians.

Lunchbox ideas: neat nibbles

We know it’s essential for swimmers to eat and drink something immediately after each training session. Ideally this will be in the magic 20-minute window.

But it’s also important swimmers don’t arrive for a training session on an empty stomach, especially after a long day at school or college. So:

Pack your kid’s lunchbox with healthy nibbles or snacks

Ensuring your young swimmers always have healthy, nutritious snacks to hand throughout the day is key. It also reduces the risks of being pummelled with “Can I get a chocolate bar from the vending machine?” requests.

So, here are some nutritious options to mix into your kids lunchbox:

  • Fresh fruits e.g. Bananas, grapes, apples, plums, pears, berries etc.
  • Dried fruits e.g. raisins, apricots, mango
  • Crackers or rice cakes with bananas and/or honey
  • Mini-pancakes, fruit buns
  • Cereal bars, fruit bars, sesame snaps, elevenses, fruit and fibre bars, nutri-grain bars
  • Yoghurt and yoghurt drinks (Low sugar)
  • Small bags of unsalted nuts e.g. peanuts, cashews, almonds etc.
  • Prepared vegetable crudités e.g. carrots, peppers, cucumber, celery etc.
  • Low fat milkshakes
  • Fruit smoothie made with milk/ yoghurt
  • Pint of milk and a banana
  • Greek yoghurt with fruit and/or granola
  • Malt loaf (with natural butter is fine but definitely not margarine)
  • Fig rolls (or even figs on their own if they’re feeling adventurous!)

Three Healthy Lunchbox Ideas

So, now we have the general grazing dealt with let’s have a look at how we can put them some of them together.

Here are three swimmer designed lunchbox ideas to keep your kids going through the day

  1. Chicken and vegetable pasta with tomato sauce, Greek yoghurt, strawberries, cashew nuts, banana, and a fruit bun.
  2. Tuna and sweetcorn salad in a wholemeal baguette, milkshake, two clementines, unsalted mixed nuts, fig roll, carrot sticks and dip.
  3. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches on wholemeal, apple, raisins, yoghurt drink, chunk of cheese, small malt loaf.

For a range of general healthy lunchbox ideas for kids head over to the Change4Life website here.

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