Show Your Kids You Love Them Through Food

Show your kids your love by helping them build healthy nutrition habits that they will bring with them into adulthood.

Loving your children means wanting and doing the best for them, and this is primarily true when health is the issue. Parents encourage children to eat healthy so they will develop healthy eating patterns for life. Their eating habits now can affect the state of their health today and in the future.

Children, especially younger ones, will eat mostly what’s available at home. It is also true that they follow role models, and that’s you! It’s very important for parents to be conscious of what they buy, what they cook and serve, and what they eat themselves. Consider these 5 guidelines on how to encourage healthy eating among children.

1. Have regular family meals. Make it a family ritual where you catch up with each other. Grab this chance, too, to introduce kids to new foods and to show them how to eat healthy. It’s best to do this daily, possibly dinner, but if that’s difficult, you can have Sunday lunch together. Parents, avoid lectures and arguments during mealtimes. Keep the atmosphere calm and congenial.
2. Be a role model by eating healthy yourself. What they see you eat is the key here. So make sure you choose the healthy food options. Show them, too, that you are conscious of portion sizes and tell them why overeating isn’t healthy.
3. Avoid battles over food. Don’t use food as a bribe or a prize, or give them something every time they eat healthy. Rather, limit the food choices at home and allow them some control over what they eat by letting them choose from what’s available. Let them decide, too, when to eat and when to stop eating, but make sure you are able to establish a schedule for meals and snacks.
4. Involve kids in the process. You can do this by asking their help when planning meals, bringing them to market or the grocery, or by asking them to help out in the kitchen. Show your appreciation about the good choices they made, or how they helped buy or cook the food. When kids are involved, it helps prepare them to make good decisions on their own about the foods they want to eat. And this usually leads to a lifetime of healthier choices.
5. Stock up on healthy foods. Always include fruits and vegetables into your daily meals—remember to aim for at least 5 servings a day. And keep healthy snacks available at all times: cut-up carrot sticks or celery sticks, yogurt, whole-grain crackers/bread and cheese, nuts, whole-grain cereal, milk, juices, etc. Limit purchase of unhealthy chips, cookies and candy—but don’t ban them entirely so your kids don’t feel deprived.

Sources:
Kidshealth.org
Kaboose.com