How to help your child make healthier choices at mealtimes.
If you’re finding it tough to introduce healthier food into your child’s daily diet, you may find these ideas useful.
They’ve been sent in from parents themselves, so they’ve already proven to be successful.
- Encourage kids to help with preparing the family meal, according to age. When they are cutting the vegetables, let them know where they come from and how they grow.
- Leave out a bowl of healthy snacks within easy reach, to prevent unhealthy snacking.
- Experiment with healthy food. For example, frozen banana chunks make a tasty alternative to ice cream or lollies and challenge a child’s perception that eating healthily means boring food.
- Make sure the adults and older children of the house eat healthily so they set a good example so younger children will want to copy them.
- Make cooking and baking fun – get your child involved and you’ll be raising their general knowledge of basic ingredients and cooking skills.
- Think about mashing vegetables with potatoes for younger children or allowing older children to arrange their fruit to make their plate look pretty.
- Your children might enjoy playing guessing games revolving around food. For example, what has more Vitamin C, an Orange or an Apple? What has more calories, an ice lolly or an ice cream?
- Introduce new foods gently…little by little.
- Involve your children in food shopping so they can see what you are buying and perhaps help you choose the fruit and vegetables.
- If all else fails there is always persistence as “taste buds do change over time”.
