This post is from Clayton Curtis of Instawares Restaurant Supplies Company. They specialize in kitchen equipment, restaurant supplies, and flatware.
Raising children is a challenge, a challenge that parents welcome and address every day. As a parent, you consistently worry about your kids’ security, their future, and their health. The first two priorities take time to achieve, but the third one can be accomplished readily—if you know how to do it.
Instill healthy eating habits in your kids as early as possible. Healthy eating habits are instrumental in preventing obesity and a range of illnesses.
Here are six techniques to do that.
Turn every mealtime into a pleasant affair
Foster fun-filled mealtimes. If possible, dedicate breakfasts or dinner times as family get-togethers. To promote a healthy eating atmosphere, do not discuss unpleasant topics in the dinner table. Turn off the television and converse with family members. Tell jokes. Your kids will look forward to mealtimes because they know that it is a pleasant affair—one that involves engaging conversation and good food.
Lead by example
Munch fresh fruits and fork in platefuls of salad veggies in front of your kids. Leading by example and walking the talk gets your message across. Colorful fruits and vegetables on every meal make quite an impression on kids, and more so if you eat them. Picky eaters may go through lengths resisting certain healthy foods, but they cannot do that forever. They are kids, and they are impressionable. Use that knowledge to turn your kids into healthy eaters. Before you know it, they will start reaching for the fruit bowl and the vegetable dishes.
No cheating
Talk to your kids about the foods that you are giving them, most especially the reasons their bodies need such foods. If your kids understand how a certain veggie can help them, then it becomes easy for them to appreciate eating it. Sneaky tactics of disguising broccoli as something else sends a wrong signal to your kids. Why do you need to make an effort to hide it? Is it that horrid-tasting?
Introduce variety
Serve a wide variety of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables every meal. It will not take time for your kids to begin recognizing their favorites. Eating a diverse mix of whole foods introduces your kids to the sumptuous textures and tastes of healthy foods. Starting early with whole baby foods and snacks, this is a helpful Serenity Kids’ carrot baby food guide.
Put healthy snacks within their reach
Fruits, nuts, yogurt, raisins, cheeses, or peanut butter on whole grain bread must be within reach when their after-school snack time approaches. If there are no processed sugary treats and other junk food visible in the house, then those types of food will be furthest from their mind.
Kids love to dunk finger foods into dips. So, a great snack idea would be baby carrot sticks with a low-fat dip. One more snack that your child will definitely love is Glutamine Apple Crumble. It’s a good option for children’s lunch at school. Also, this healthy apple crumble recipe is the ideal option to keep the immune system functioning optimally during the winter months, while allowing you to enjoy a delicious treat.
This dentist who does orthodontics in Upper East Side also adds that avoiding sugary treats is also beneficial to your child’s dental health.
Turn your kids into kitchen assistants
Put your kids restless hands to good use. Anoint them as kitchen assistants for kid-friendly cooking tasks. Commando-style, role-play and order them to tear the lettuce. Have them break the eggs. They will enjoy doing kitchen tasks more than you think. Plus, they will appreciate seeing the cooked food afterwards on the dinner table. They will be more inclined to eat the food because they were involved in the process of preparing and cooking it.
