Healthy Habits For Kids
7 Ways to Ensure Your Child Has a Healthy Relationship With Food
Cultivating a child's healthy relationship with food starts with building healthy lifestyle habits. Their experiences with food in their early years, which also happens to be when most kids go through their picky eating phase, can set the tone for the kinds of habits they form in their adult lives. Teaching familiarity and acceptance of real food can get kids to love eating fruits and vegetables, prevent childhood obesity, and most of all, cultivate long-lasting healthy eating. Here are seven research-proven tips for ensuring your tiny human fuels their bodies in the best way.
1 Surround Them With Real Food
As soon as a baby starts eating, make "real food," foods made with unprocessed, whole ingredients of varying flavors and textures, a part of their daily lives. Not only will they be developing a palate for superfoods, but they will also come to expect healthy food as a standard.
2 Practice Responsive Feeding
3 Relax
You can feel great knowing that when it comes to building a healthy relationship with food, you're the teacher, not the enforcer. Food is a tool, and mealtime is a learning opportunity. Whether your child ate none or all of the food, rest assured that you succeeded because you tried.
4 Be a Role Model
5 Let Them Play
Research shows that playing with fruits and vegetables, even if the food isn't consumed, can lead to acceptance. In other words, playing with your food builds healthy habits. For babies, this can mean smashing some steamed carrots or smearing purees onto the table. For older kids, this can be tending to a vegetable box or helping prep ingredients for a meal.
6 Have a New Food Ritual
7 Avoid These Phrases
Avoid stress-inducing statements like "You have to finish this plate," or "You need to eat this before you can eat that." Instead, ask the child to reflect on their feelings of hunger or satiety with questions such as "How does your stomach feel?" and "Are you still interested in eating?" In doing so, you'll avoid mealtime battles, keep the experience positive, and help them learn to self-regulate.
