Getting Your Children To Love Healthy Eating

How many of feel like your parents taught you everything you need to know about nutrition? I certainly don’t think mine did. I can remember my mother giving me Coke and Pepsi out of a bottle. Granted these were the days when everyone smoked and ate whatever they wanted. My mother didn’t have the skills, or the knowledge of proper nutrition to be able to teach me. Growing up in poverty didn’t help either. There were a lot of days when the only meal I had was a free school lunch, and don’t even get me started on nutrition in schools, that is a whole other blog. This set me up for an adult life riddled with terrible habits like drinking a 6 pack of Coke every day and McDonalds being my restaurant of choice. I would go weeks at a time eating Kraft Mac and Cheese almost every meal. Do any of these things sound familiar to you? Who out there wants to give their children a better, healthier palette than you had? How many of you want to educate them to make healthy food choices so that their lunch in high school doesn’t consist of a bag of chips and a soft drink from the vending machines on campus?

When I began my competition prep I did not realize that one of the benefits of my prep was going to be an education on nutrition that my entire family would use. On a daily basis, I was learning about the benefits of foods nutritional contents, how to combine foods for peak energy and mental clarity, and when your body needs to be feed. I wanted to fuel my children’s growing bodies with foods to keep them ready for any adventure that came their way. I figured out early on that if I was going to be able to maintain my goal weight and compete year after year I was going to have to get my family eating the same way. It was very time consuming to prepare 2 meals every night. When I made the change in my house my children were 5 and 2. I’m not going to say it was the easiest thing to do but if you are persistent you can educated your children and get healthy foods into them at the same time. Here are some of the things I used to get my children started.

1. Clean out your pantry

I like to call this one “Shock and Awe”. The easiest way for you as a parent to get your children on a healthy track is to get everything out of your house that you don’t want them to eat. This will limit the tantrums and arguments over foods they want to eat that may not be the healthiest choices. You will be surprised how this will also keep your cravings at bay too. Replace these food choices with healthy picks like Organic Peanut butter, Part skim milk cheese sticks, whole grain cereals, yogurt, hummus, salt free pretzels, rice cakes, raisins, whole grain waffles, rice works chips, carrots and other veggies they can dip, and a variety of fruits set out within there reach. Prepare healthy baked goods like banana bread and zucchini muffins.

2. Lead by example

How can you expect your children to eat healthy if you don’t? Let them see you eat and enjoy healthy food. Discuss the foods on your plate and how they make you healthier and stronger. Put it into terms they can relate to. My boys like it when I relate, “Super foods” to “Super Heroes”. Hey, whatever works! I remember the first Christmas after I made the change, my family came to visit and I served a platter of meats and cheeses and my 5 year old asked “Mommy, What are the healthy foods on this plate”? My family couldn’t believe a child so young was concerned about what healthy foods were! The more they see you eating these foods the more apt they will be to try them.

3. Put it on their plate

It takes 7 to 10 times for a child to have a food on his plate before he will try it. Don’t get discourage, encourage them to try the foods without making a big deal about it.

4. Get them when they are hungry

I don’t know about your but when I pick my children up from school they act like they haven’t had a thing to eat all day. I find this is the best time to get them to try something new. My oldest son’s school is 25 minutes from our house so I will take a healthy snack and bottle of water with me when I pick him up. This gets him by until we get home. When I get them home I make a healthy snack with at least on thing I want them to try.

5. Provide a disciplined eating structure

Children typically don’t like changes so expect them to express their dislike to the new changes. Now I cook one meal for dinner and remind my children that our kitchen is not an eat-on-demand cafeteria! If they refuse to eat what I am serving for dinner, I simply cover it and save it for when they are hungry. If they don’t eat it later that night, I don’t have any problem sending them to bed without dinner. No child ever starved by missing dinner. When they get really hungry they will eat what you serve and they will soon realize you are not playing around.

6. Get your children involved

Take them to the grocery or better yet the farmers market with you. This is a great place to educate them on healthy vs. not so healthy foods. There are always samples for them to try, and you will be shocked at what they will eat if it is a sample! I also enjoy cooking with my children. We have a great children’s cookbook that was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa. It has pictures of all the foods and even pictures for the directions. I let them go through it and pick out things they want to make. They feel in control and so grown up, and love to eat the foods they helped make. I’ve gotten them to try so many foods they would never have eaten had it not been in that cookbook. There are some great websites where you could download kid friendly recipes. Try these for starters!

www.parenting.com/recipes

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes_menus/collections/healthy_eating_kids

http://www.foodnetwork.com/topics/for-kids/index.html

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