Six Easy Tips To Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy

It’s always a challenge to get kids to eat healthy. With their first introduction to food, kids are testing and learning about their environment.

Whether you’re feeding your baby their first food or trying to get your two-year-old to eat celery, these tips will help.

1. Start Early

Keep the food as close to nature as possible. Avoid added sugar, which can create early problems with weight and diabetes. Type II diabetes in children is on the rise.

2. Be the Parent

You have power over what your child eats and you know what’s healthy. Nurturing a helpless, dependent human being into an independent adult is not a job for the faint of heart! But allowing a 3-year-old to make the choice of what he will eat is not wise.

Even if you don’t like a certain vegetable, your child may love it! Avoid statements like, “I know you might not like broccoli, but…” The power of suggestion trumps all.

3. Make It Fun

Besides making the food look appealing by including a variety of color, cut the food to make it look fun. Cut green beans on a diagonal, carrots with a wavy cutter and celery into small C’s.

Be creative! Every kid loves ants on a stick: a piece of celery filled with peanut or almond butter sprinkled with raisins.

4. Provide Choices

Set up a buffet of healthy foods. Place the food on a small, low table where they can reach it. Then let them choose the food for their plate.

5. Leave Healthy Food Out For the Taking

Put out a small bowl of grapes or orange wedges, a small plate of cheese cubes and large bowl of cut-up veggies. Use olive oil vinaigrette or a simple bean dip, such as humus, for a healthy dressing. Including healthy oils helps satiate hunger.

Limit the amount of fruit or fruit juice your children consume. Fruit is mostly sugar. However, fruit is always better than a cookie or candy.

6. Get Kids Involved

Kids love to be helpers. Give them a role to play in making a meal, like rinsing vegetables, picking cherry tomatoes from the garden or mixing ingredients. It teaches and empowers them. Ask them to describe what the food reminds them of or what it tastes or smells like. It doesn’t take much for a child to see trees in broccoli.

Let us know some of your ideas to get your kids to eat healthy.

Photo Credit: www.JohnGetchel.com (boy), Chris Pedersen (food)