If you want to learn how to teach kids to eat healthy, don’t ask a dietitian. Let your child plan and make family meals. Teaching children about good nutrition starts at home with meal planning and includes shopping and cooking their favorites.
Start kids cooking early for healthy lifelong eating habits.
Get Kids Involved in Cooking
Include your children in buying and preparing the food your family eats. Kids react to responsibility with a sense of pride because it makes them feel that adults respect their input. Let your child help make the grocery list before the two of you head to the store. Compare similar food items, such as two different loaves of bread, and ask your child which one she thinks you should buy. Ask her what healthy foods she thinks her siblings and parents might like.
Once the food is home, have your child help plan dinner menus, making sure all of the food groups are covered. Plan several meals in advance. Have her pack her own school lunch, and occasionally, those for her siblings and working parents.
Make Healthier Version of their Favorites
Teach your kids how to make healthy versions of their favorites, including low-cal, low-fat and low-cholesterol (but great-tasting) spaghetti, pizza, chicken fingers, fries, tacos, burgers and mac and cheese. You’ll both be surprised at how easy it is to make healthy comfort food using a few, simple substitutions. Check out healthy holiday dishes to learn how to make a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast a fun parent/child activity.
Take Kids to Farmer’s Markets
Visit orchards, farms, dairies and nature preserves where your children can see how food is grown. Meet the people who grow food and the animals from which milk, cheese and eggs come, and pick their own berries.
Their meals will have more meaning if they see that their food didn’t start out in a box or can. These types of trips may encourage children to want to plant their own summer vegetable gardens and begin eating more whole, fresh foods.
Get Kids to Buy Into Healthy Eating
Don’t lecture your child about his bad eating habits or forbid certain foods. Kids are going to eat what their friends are eating when they are out of the house. Rather than focusing on what they shouldn’t eat, encourage them to eat healthy at home. As they get used to this, their preferences will likely change when they are out of the home.
Read Nutrition Labels With Your Kids
One important way how to teach kids to eat healthy is to how to read ingredients and nutrition labels. Let them see that what they think are fruit juices are often primarily water and sweeteners, with as little as 10 percent real fruit.
Explain the percentages on nutrition labels so they know how much of their recommended daily allowance of both good and bad nutrients (such as saturated fat) a serving of their favorite foods provides. Help them learn to calculate the amount of calories per serving a package or food offers.
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