10 Easy Ways To Get Your Kids To Eat Healthy
It is really not too difficult to turn your home into a healthy home.
Creating a nutritionally healthy home is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure the health of your kids. To start, make smart food choices, and help your kids develop a positive relationship with healthy food. Your children will learn their food smarts from your example.
The following are ten great tips to get your children to eat healthy food:
1. Never restrict food from your children. Doing so actually increases your children’s risk of developing eating disorders later in life, such as bulimia and anorexia. Also, food restriction tends to hinder growth and development, as well as leading to bing eating later in the day. Bing eating leads to weight gain.
2. Keep healthy food at hand. Children will eat what’s readily available. Keep fruit in a bowl on the counter, not buried in the crisper section of your fridge. Remember, your child can only choose foods that you stock in the house, by limiting ‘junk food’ you will, by default, teach your child how to choose healthier foods.
3. Don’t label foods as “good” or “bad.” Instead, tie foods to the things your child cares about, such as sports, academics and hobbies. Let your child know that lean protein such as turkey and calcium in dairy products give strength to their sports and academic performance, the antioxidants in fruits and vegetables add luster to skin and hair and the carbs in whole grains will give them energy to play.
4. Give you children credit for making healthy choices. Let them know that you are proud of them when they choose healthy foods over junk foods. Positive enforcement is important for your children.
5. Try not to get down on your children for unhealthy choices. If it is not a frequent occurrence, let it slide. Conversely, if your children are always choosing to eat unhealthy foods, then you need to steer their choices in the right direction. Replace candy with dried fruit. Instead of fries, try roasting potato sticks with a little bit of olive oil in the oven. Eventually, your children’s eating habits will change for the good.
6. Absolutely avoid rewarding children with food. Doing so often leads to weight problems later on in life. Rather, you should reward your children with a healthy activity, such as going swimming, or a trip to the park.
7. Sit down to family dinners at night. If this isn’t a tradition in your home, it should be. Research shows that children who eat dinners at the table with their parents have better nutrition and are less likely to get in serious trouble as teenagers. Start with one night a week, and then work up to three or four, to gradually build the habit.
8. Ration food portions for your children in the kitchen. This allows you to place healthy food portions on everyone’s plate. In time, your children will be able to determine what is a healthy portion size.
9. It is okay to give your child a choice in what they like to eat, and what they do not like to eat. However, when they like something healthy, take full advantage. Serve healthy foods which your children enjoy more frequently, and offer them the foods which they dislike less frequently. This gives your children a voice in deciding what they eat.
10. Consultation with a pediatrician prior to changing your child’s diet is recommended, if possible. If your child does need to change their weight, then make sure that you consult the proper literary resources to receive the help that you need.
Looking resources to assist in weight loss for kids, then visit Megan Hillard’s website to find the best advice on weight loss for children, your children.