Helping Kids Eat Healthy

This is probably one of the most important and valuable gift you can give your child -- the power to eat healthy, including lots of veggies. Without health, all our other life dreams are more challenging to attain. The rewards of teaching this skill are well worth the effort. Below is a list of ideas that may help you in your quest to a healthier family. I am thankful to Dr. William Sears and many brilliant moms for many of these suggestions.

1. Discuss why it’s important. No child will ever embrace the idea of an apple instead of potato chips for a snack unless you start to educate them as to why they need to make that choice.

Fruits, vegetables and grains are “grow foods,” as Dr. Sears points out. Grow foods build healthy bodies. Factory foods don’t grow.

2. Motivate them. Ask them questions that would motivate them to eat healthier. For example, ask them how much more they think they’ll grow (for example, how much taller?). Then ask them what would be the best building materials to help them grow into the body they imagine. Do they want to fill their growing bodies with junk food, or do they want to fill it with nutrient-dense “grow” foods like broccoli, carrots, and apples?

3. Surround kids with healthy food. Keep only the foods that you want your family to eat in the house. Why tempt anyone with unhealthy foods? The first point of power is shopping right.

Healthy foods are primarily organic, fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain foods, legumes, nuts and seeds. If including meats and dairy, organic and free-range are best.

4. Have healthy snacks easily available. Since healthy food isn’t always as easy to grab as a bag or box of junk food, take a little time to prepare for the quick and healthy snack for later.

1. Wash and cut up fruits and veggies and keep them in an accessible place in the refrigerator.
2. Have containers with trail mix, nuts, dried fruit, etc. that either you or your child can get to easily.
3. Leave a ‘nibble tray’ on the table with healthy snacks for your child (and you) to snack on. See handout on healthy snacks.

5. Be a role model. Kids learn much more by what you do than by what you say. Be a good role-model and eat healthy foods yourself. You can’t expect your child to eat healthy when you are eating (whether openly or discreet) junk food.

6. Time it right. Serve vegetables & salads first at dinner time, when kids are hungriest. Offer the least nutritious (filler) foods last, when they are more full.

7. Give your child power & involve them. Let them make some decisions. Ask your kids to tell you which foods they want in the house for healthy snacks. While shopping or meal planning, give them a choice between healthy food “A” & healthy food” B”. (Do you want broccoli or carrots tonight?) Let them help you prepare & plan healthy meals, as they’ll be more likely to eat it if they’ve invested time into the food.

8. Make healthy foods visually appealing. When presenting snacks or meals, make them fun and appealing. Make veggie art by placing the produce in funny faces, pictures, or shapes. Give them fun names. Be creative!

9. Tailor the taste! Once they decide to try the healthy food, help them enjoy it! Give them dips for veggies that they’ll love. Put something they are still acquiring a taste for mixed in with a bunch of other healthy foods they do like. Sometimes, you can sweeten the healthy choice with cinnamon, agave, raisins, or honey.

10. It’s ok to play. Parents many times tell kids not to play with their food. However, sometimes “playing” with food is the best way to get it in their bellies. Make stories at the table with the food as the characters. Say “don’t eat me!”, and they’ll be very tempted to do just that! And when they do, continue the dialogue all the way to the belly (“It’s dark in here! What is that gooey thing next to me? I’m lonely!”). Or maybe the peas are little airplanes coming in for a landing. Ok. These games to depend on your child’s age. Mine is 4.

11. Have regular family meals. Family meals are a comforting ritual for both parents and kids. It allows for predictability, family time, and nourishment. Try to serve nutritious food at a time that everyone can be there, even if this means a later dinner. Kids who take part in regular family meals also tend to eat more fruits and vegetables, are less likely to snack on unhealthy foods. Let this environment be peaceful and calm, this is not a time for lectures.

12. Avoid battles over food. If you need to lecture your kids about something, save it until after meal or snack time. Let healthy foods be digested peacefully.

13. Expose kids to where their food comes from. Sometimes all it takes is a little education for children to see the value of nutritious whole foods. If they see the difference between food growing organically out of the ground vs. chemicals being mixed together and put in a bag, I think we’d know what they would choose. Especially when we refer back to “why” is healthy food important.

a. Grow your own fruits and veggies. This gives them not only an excellent education as how food grows, but they are more likely to eat foods that they’ve grown and cared for.

b. Go to local farms or farmer’s markets. This is a fun and informative way to show your children where foods come from and the people who grow them.

c. Read the ingredients. Reading the ingredients on food products can expose children to what they are really eating… chemicals or food?

14. Try something new. Try new fruits and vegetables – don’t assume your kids won’t like them. Sometimes a child needs to be exposed to a new food 14 times before they’ll eat it. Be creative on how you introduce it. Someone once said, play a game and blind fold your child and see if they can describe, as detailed as possible, what it is they are eating. They can even make up their own name for it.

15. Allow the occasional junk food. Occasionally allow your child to choose a “moderate junk food” for snack. Chronic deprivation will often backfire. Of course, make sure they aren’t going overboard on the type of junk food they choose. Avoid super sugary foods and trans-fat.

16. Be sneaky. If other attempts to incorporate healthy food and veggies fail, you can resort to being sneaky! Hide fruits, veggies and other healthy foods in other foods. Put fruit and even small amounts of veggies in fruit smoothies. Put finely shredded veggies (carrots, zucchini, bell peppers, etc.) in marinara sauces, casseroles, pastas, burritos, etc. Put veggies in soups and puree.

17. Be Patient. Avoid creating any disharmony about the new and improved menu items. You may hear some complaints. When kids know the plan, and it is a fair plan, they usually come around. Keep your goal in focus: to have your kids embrace these healthier food choices and smarter ways of eating, for a lifetime. You may want to make rapid changes, but children many times need their change in baby steps.

18. Supplement with whole food concentrates. Kid’s eating habits can be erratic. They can be picky. And let’s face it, they don’t always eat a large variety of fruits and vegetables, even with our best efforts. That’s why it’s good to know you can bridge the gap between what your kids should eat and what they do eat by giving them a high quality, well researched, whole food supplement containing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Thank you for your passion in helping shape children’s lives. I hope this information has been empowering to you. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions. I would love to hear from you!