Need help feeding your children healthy meals?

This week I met with a client- a friend and a mom herself- who wanted help in feeding her children healthy foods.  While this a BIG topic and one that I like to work on with clients one-on-one over a period of time, there are a few tips that can help with creating healthy habits around food for your children.

Here are my TOP 10 TIPS for creating HEALTHY EATING HABITS in children:

1. Have FAMILY MEALS as much as possible.Make eating together as a family a priority.  It may not be possible every day, but do it as much as you can.  If one parent or child is home late, have dinner with the family members that are there and leave a hot plate for the late one. According to a 2011 study in Pediatrics, families that share at least 3 meals per week have children who eat healthier, are at healthier weights, and are less likely to have disordered eating than families who eat together less often.
   
   
2. DON’T INTERFERE with eating.
   Parents should take charge of the when, where and what of eating and children get to decide whether and how much to eat.  Ellyn Satter’s "Division of Responsibility" helps children preserve their food regulation skills, builds trust and allows kids to move along food acceptance at their own pace. That means no bribing with dessert, asking for more bites, restricting portions, eating between structured meals or short-order cooking.
   
   
3. Expose children to a VARIETY of nutritious food.
   Aim to slowly add meals to your rotation that include a variety of food groups- lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, dairy or non-dairy alternatives, grains and fat. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that offering a variety of vegetables or fruit instead of one type increased kids’ consumption by 24% (94% vs. 70%).
   
   
4. Teach kids about FOOD before nutrition.
   Children learn the most about food and nutrition with hands-on experiences, like going to the store or the farmer’s market, growing food and/or helping prepare meals.  When you gradually teach a child to cook, you teach them a vital self-care skill they will use for life. According to a 2012 study in Public Health with 5th grade students, “Higher frequency of helping prepare and cook food at home was associated with higher fruit and vegetable preference and with higher self-efficacy for selecting and eating healthy foods."
   
   
5. Eat WHOLE FOODS.
   This mostly means, serve a fruit and/or a vegetable at every meal and every snack—every-single-day. And be satisfied with one happy bite!
   
   
6. Teach kids to TUNE IN to their body.  
   Researchers at the University of Minnesota found that young adults who use hunger and fullness to guide eating not only have a lower body mass index but are less likely to have disordered eating (the girls who listened to their body were also less likely to binge-eat and diet). This goes with #10 and many of us were raised to "eat the whole plate" but this way, we never learn to follow our hunger and fullness cues to guide us in eating. Honor your child's feelings of hunger and fullness.
   
   
7. Serve food with an EXPECTANT ATTITUDE.
   No matter how many times your child has refused a food, always serve it with the expectation
   
   that they will eat it. When parents avoid the “picky eating” label and raise their expectations without exerting force, kids eventually follow suit.
   
   
8. Embrace COOKING.
   As parents we spend a huge chunk of time shopping, preparing, and serving meals.  As I see it, we have a choice.  We can hate every minute of it or embrace our role as provider.  I choose to embrace and have fun with it!
   
   
9. STRUCTURE meals and snacks.Having regular meals and snack times in designated areas, instead of grazing or giving in to food requests, on demand, helps children regulate their food intake, ask for food less often, and feel secure about eating. It also helps them feel hungry (which is OK, by the way!) and come to the table more eager to eat the structured meal.
   
   
10. Make PEACE with waste.Oooh, this is the hardest for me!  If you were raised “not to waste food”, try to ignore the well-intentioned lesson. The truth is, children are allowed not to like some things (just like you don’t like everything, right?) and yes, it might have to go to waste.  Also, if you push food into children just for the sake of not wasting, it will teach them to finish their meals even if they are not hungry anymore (believe me, I still personally struggle with this!), so make peace with wasting some food- or better yet- save it for later, compost, or eat it yourself! :)

If you'd like further help and would like to see me for a FREE intake meeting, let me know! 

xo,