Healthy Eating for Kids

Teaching kids healthy eating is not a lecture, it is a parental practice through which children observe and learn. Further, although kids may whine and squirm and even outright reject what’s on the plate, parents must come to realize that being held hostage by childish control strategies only improperly empowers children and thus creates greater feeding difficulties in the long run.

It is the parents who are in control of what food comes into the house, how it is prepared and how it is served. Meal design, food purchases, preparation and service thus become the real feeding grounds for developing healthy eating by our kids as managed by parents.

Children can be involved in all the areas of meal design, food purchase, preparation and service – at parents and child’s discretion. While children may be involved at any step along the way, it is up to the parent to direct the options available to the child so that decisions are made within a range of healthy choices.

If parents haven’t managed the process of developing healthy eating habits, kids may come to think they are in charge or have more say than is appropriate. If this is the case, wrestling control back from the hands of the child, to the parent can be a challenge. Parents must understand that kids will chose not necessarily what is best, but what is most enjoyable from ease of preparation to overly salty or sugary foods. When parents look to change their child’s eating habits, they can expect objections and protests. Parents who give in to such behaviour only serve to teach their children that that behaviour pays off and thus the parent increases the likelihood that the child will continue to use those strategies whenever faced with things not to their liking. When parents seek to alter a child’s direction, the parent must be able to withstand the objections and protest and hold their own ground. Thus the child eventually learns that the parent means business and that the inappropriate strategies are futile.

Here are some tips for managing children’s healthy eating.

1. Depending on the age of the child, spend some time talking and constructing meal plans together. Remember though, parents guide the process and cannot be swayed or negotiated into poor decisions. Don’t use a poor decision to reinforce a good one.

2. Parents and child can go shopping together. When purchasing fruits and vegetables, ask the grocery clerk to help determine what is the freshest or ripest. Listen and learn with your child and go about smelling the produce and fruits together. Remember, it can’t come into the house if you the parent don’t buy it!

3. Unpack groceries together. This serves to teach your children the efforts involved in getting food from the store to home. Thank your child for their assistance. Let your child know how much they are appreciated.

4. Prepare snacks and meals together. Let the kids participate and have fun along the way. Think of meal preparation as a science experiment or art class. Wonder how flavours will go together or how things might look when cooked or put to the plate. Use the time to enjoy each other’s company. This will be very new territory for many kids and parents alike. However, it remains the parent’s responsibility to show their appreciation and love to their child during the process, regardless of how much or little the child actually participates. Their mere presence, for however long, is to be reinforced.

5. Finally, sit down and enjoy the eating together. Statistically, the more meals a family enjoys together, the better behaved and adjusted the children tend to be. Further, parents are more in touch with their children’s lives and together they have better rapport. As a result of the better rapport, parents actually hold more influence with their children than do the children’s peers. This becomes an essential element come the child’s adolescence when parents seek to protect their kids from more serious social issues.

Throughout, remember that developing healthy eating habits is not a race or a destination. It is a process over time. Ignore the setbacks and build on each day’s successes. Successes are there if you concentrate on finding them as opposed to being distracted by upsets.

Bon Appetite!

What parent doesn’t want their kids to eat healthier? We’ve all had to bribe, cajole, threaten and manipulate our children at least once, but wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to stoop to such heavy handed tactics? Here are some tips to help you out.

Start early! Don’t wait until it’s too late and your child’s already ruined by sweets and treats. Once they’ve tasted ice cream, it’s harder to get them to eat broccoli. And if you’ve waited too long then you’ll just have to be strong and realize your kids might not like you for a few days.

Make sure you have a good variety of healthy foods available to your children. This prevents them from latching on to one food or one food group. Sure they’ll still have their favorites, but a variety of vegetables and fruits will help them to get used to all of their varied tastes.

Try combing foods they like with foods they don’t. For example, stir-frying onions with zucchini, broccoli, carrots, and snow peas isn’t as bad as sitting down to a whole plate of broccoli. It also helps to make sure the pieces are small enough so your child gets some carrots with her zucchini.

Be strong! This is very important for teaching a child to eat what’s good for them. Tell them that this is what we’re having for dinner and there’s nothing else for them to eat. They’ll get hungry enough to eat what’s served them if there are no other options available.

Which reminds me. Don’t bring any food in the house that isn’t part of a healthy food plan. That’s right! No snacks, cookies, sweetened cereals, pastries, treats – whatever – are permitted. This might seem harsh, but you have to decide who you’re raising; healthy, smart kids who don’t get sick or fat or sick kids with learning disabilities who grow up to suffer degenerative diseases.

Stay away from people hell-bent on corrupting your children with candy and treats. It’s amazing to me how so many well-meaning people like a bank teller or a relative offer my children lollipops or cookies. Teach your children to smile and politely say,

“No thank you.” And if it’s a relative that’s always offering your child a treat, then ask them to stop or stop visiting them (a third option is to make them take care of your kid during his sugar buzz and subsequent crash – they’ll never do it again).

Here’s another free tip for kids and healthy eating that might fall into the harsh category, but if you think about it seriously you’ll see how important it is. Don’t let your kids watch commercial TV. Yes! You read this correctly. The majority of the ads on TV are about food and getting your children to eat these unhealthy foods. TV commercials are the nutritional education for 95% of the population and virtually nothing advertised on TV has any nutrition in it. You’ll see a huge decrease in your child’s food cravings when you turn off the tube.

And finally, the most important tip of all is for you to set a great example. How can you expect your children to eat fish, vegetables and whole wheat bread when you don’t? How can you get them to give up ice cream when you won’t? They look to you as a role model so you might as well live like one because if you don’t, then you have no right to complain about their poor eating habits, obesity, ADHD and the time you have to take off work to care for a sick child.

One of the most important things we do as parents is teach healthy eating habits to our kids. The best way to do that is by setting a good example. Our children like to emulate us, so if we are eating healthy then our kids are more likely to have healthy eating habits. Perhaps healthy eating is a new venture for the entire family and trying to convince the little ones to eat healthy foods has been a bit of a struggle.

First you need to know an important little trick, nutritionists have stated that in order for a child to try a new food they need to see it four or five times. This means that just because the avoided the broccoli at dinner tonight, doesn’t mean that in a week or two they won’t try it if you keep showing it to them at meals. You can also try making a rule, similar to what we have in our home, and that is called the “No Thank You Bite.” Everyone at the table has to have one bite of everything on their plate. If they don’t try it how will then ever know if they like it?

Knowing that kids prefer the sweeter things in life, try introducing them to the sweeter healthy foods such as corn, tomatoes, sweet peas, mandarin oranges, cherries and strawberries. You can also mix these sweeter foods with other healthy foods that may be less appealing such as brussel sprouts. Make an apple and brussel sprout side salad. Get creative and make it fun, give the dishes you create names that kids will think are funny.

You can also let your children help in the process of preparing meals, buying groceries and picking foods, let them come up with their own recipes. If your kids are apprehensive about trying the healthier foods consider playing food tricks. Chopping veggies and fruits finely and mixing them in their favorite dishes will help. Carrots can be chopped finely and mixed in with your favorite spaghetti sauce and so can spinach and broccoli.

If burgers are a favorite in your house, finely chop or puree veggies and mix them into the burger meat when you patty the burgers. Use turkey or ground sirloin as healthier alternatives to hamburger. Casseroles can also be a fun new dish. Casseroles are fun because you can throw whatever you want in there for a really healthy and tasty meal.

Other healthy eating options for kids can include making fruit breads, such as banana and apple. Use real fruit, even if you buy a premixed box, you can still add real fruits to enhance flavor and nutritional value.

Healthy eating habits for kids means kids that are not overweight and are healthy. The sooner you can start practicing healthy eating habits for the family the better, but know that it is never to late to start. Making healthy eating choices can help the entire family get in shape and trim down and decrease the risk of many diseases. To learn more about making sure your kids are eating healthy visit Healthy Eating for kids.