How to Encourage Your Child’s Healthy Eating Habits?

Selecting and buying healthy food with children provides them a good foundation for making healthy food choices right through their lives. This article shows how you as a parent, can help your child make healthy food choices earlier in their life.

As a parent of a growing child, you might worry about whether your child is eating enough or you could be worried that your child is eating too much and going over a healthy weight. As a caring parent, you give your kid healthy food and opportunities to eat it and it’s up to the child to decide how much to eat or whether to eat it at all. It’s quite normal for children’s appetites to change from day to day. One day your kid might want to eat in excess, so just ensure that you fill it up with healthy food. On other day they may not want to eat. Don’t worry, as it’ll probably make up for it at the next meal or even the next day. It’s not good to force your child to eat food if they don’t want to eat, as forcing them will teach the child not to listen to its own appetite.

Healthy Eating with ‘Tummy Talk’

Knowing the way your child tummy speaks with their brain, can help you deal with worries about your child undereating or overeating. Your child’s brain understands its tummy is full for only about 20 minutes after the food goes inside. Also, the hunger of your child is partly determined by its tummy clock – how much they ate the previous day at the same time. Providing meals at regular times encourages an appetite at regular times. You can make use of this to set up a healthy eating routine.

Health Eating Habits for your Child  

Healthy eating habits begin at home. Providing your child healthy nutritious foods is imperative. It also helps to surround your child with messages about healthy eating habits and food. This can help your child make healthy food choices. Here are some ideas:

• Try having a bowl full of fresh fruit within easy view
• Have your kitchen and fridge full with lots of healthy, nutritious options
• Try selecting fruits and vegies of various colours, textures and tastes – the more variety you have, the more likely your child will find something that it’s interested in eating
• If possible, get your kid involved in planning and preparing meals. If your child has helped to make the meal, it’s more likely to eat it
• Ensure that you enjoy healthy meals together as a family as frequently as possible. Also, look for opportunities to eat together at breakfast and on weekends
• Make sure that you turn off your TV while eating as this way your child will pay attention to eating the fresh food choices you provide
• Go through some books that have healthy food messages for your kid – for instance, books with pictures of fruits and vegetables. Make your child to point out various types, colours, shapes and so on

Eating at regular intervals and in appropriate manner serves to be an important part of good nutrition for children. If you don’t know the ways to make it happen then consulting a good dietician or nutritionist might help a great deal.