Make Healthy Meals

Kids love to eat, and they’ll eat pretty much anything you give them. Unfortunately all too often it can be easy to get them hooked on unhealthy treats. Fortunately it may be possible to persuade them to enjoy healthier foods.

One simple tactic is to just talk about it. At my daughter’s preschool the children generally know which foods are considered to be grow foods, which they are to eat first, while the less healthy options are treated as desserts, to be eaten last. When in doubt the kids ask. But they are generally very excited to eat their grow foods immediately.

Talking about it in ways like that seems to be very effective at that age. Young children love to grow, so telling them which foods are best for growing really helps.

Talking isn’t going to solve every food problem. There are just individual food tastes and preferences, and some kids are just plain stubborn about changing what they will eat.

However, sometimes kids do actually listen when you discuss food options with them. My preschool daughter has even asked me to remind her when she asks for candy that it’s junk.

One of the tricks that I find works for getting kids to eat more vegetables is to get them involved in the process. Gardening is one way. Another is to have them help make salads. Both of my kids love to help make salads, and they will snack on the ingredients as they go along. They may eat a little less of their dinners, but I wouldn’t exactly call letting them eat such healthy things spoiling their dinners.

The older kids get the harder it can be to get them to change their habits or even to eat well sometimes. As kids get older they have more and more control over what they eat, even when they eat primarily at home from foods you buy. This makes it very important to build healthy habits early and to have favorite healthy options regularly available.

Even kids who love junk foods will have little choice but to eat healthy foods if you make it harder to eat junk foods. Simply don’t buy it! Replace the junk foods in your home with your children’s favorite healthy snacks… most have several healthy options they do enjoy if you just ask.

A favorite for my kids is frozen berries. We get them at Costco for about $10 for 4 pounds. That’s cheaper than many junk foods, yet children and adults alike will often tremendously enjoy them. It can be simple tricks like that which make it possible to change eating habits around for the better.

Technorati Tags: children, healthy eating, healthy snacks, snack foods

One Response to “Change Your Child's Eating Habits”

1. Carmine Says:
   May 8th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

   I don’t know. I have trouble picturing this working on my kids. They’re pretty set in their ways. They always want juice or soda and I don’t know if I have the patience to break those habits. And getting them to eat vegetables is next to impossible!

   But I do like the idea about frozen berries. I can see that one working at least.

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