Six Steps To A Healthy Diet For Your Kids
Family Meals
Getting children to eat healthily is a problem faced by millions of parents. Emily Gordon, founder of www.cafedesenfants.co.uk, offers advice on how to change their eating habits for the better...
• Let them see you eating and enjoying healthy food, kids learn from the adults around them and will do as you do.
• Don't make food too big a deal in your house. Obsessing and worrying about what they are or are not eating can have a negative effect on kids. Try to chill out and realise that in this day and age our kids very rarely go undernourished.
• Realise that balance is everything. If children often eat a healthy diet with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and protein it won't hurt them to have days when they don't eat so well.
• Encourage kids to cook with you in the kitchen. Children are so much keener to eat food which they have cooked themselves, so you can enjoy cooking healthy tasty dishes together.
• Sit down together and work out a weekly or monthly menu. That way you'll be able to compromise with meals that they want to eat and meals that you want them to eat. Your children will feel included and empowered that you've involved them in the organisation of meal times.
• Write a shopping list and go shopping together, asking your children to help find that elusive ingredient or choose the ripest berries, or juiciest fruit. There is nothing like being asked their opinion for raising self-esteem and ultimately children's interest in shopping, cooking and finally EATING the food!
