Creating a healthy eating habit for kids is always a daunting task for parents and caregivers as they have to go an extra mile to ensure that their toddler get to live a healthy life by introducing healthy foods in between their favorite meal or snack.
Most kids throw tantrums when it’s eating time, and because you would rather not create a fuss you easily fall for their unhealthy demands, and one unhealthy meal can turn into a habit. However, that should not worry you, removing unhealthy and processed foods from your home can be as easy as ABC! Here is a rundown of tips that can help you create a healthy eating habit with less hassle.
- Model good eating
This is one of the most effective tricks to use as parents to encourage healthy eating habits for your kid, simply show and teach the importance of having a balanced diet. You can achieve this by incorporating vegetables, fruits, and whole grains with your snacks and meals and enjoy them while eating, they’ll definitely want to try it when having their meal too.
Remember that kids always learn by what they see parents doing. Create a whole healthy eating habit by choosing healthy meals and snacks, talk about healthy foods and plan healthy meals together, and they will want to imitate what they see in you.
- Get them involved in planning, preparing and cooking.
Your kid is highly likely to adapt to a healthy eating habit if you involve him in the entire process of planning what to eat, how to prepare and cook. Through this, they’ll get to know and learn which foods are truly healthy and the ones that are not. Moreover, having your child involved in all these will give them the opportunity to know new foodstuffs they may never have tried.
- Always have healthy snacks around.
You can achieve this by removing all unhealthy and processed foods from your home and have healthy snacks readily available. While at home keep your kitchen stocked with a variety of healthy snacks and while on the go, have plenty of snacks in your car cooler like whole grain crackers, carrots, sliced fruits to avoid getting unhealthy snacks or foods along the way. Have it in mind that kids usually get used to what you make available for them!
- Kitchen garden is a hack!
Visit your kitchen garden with your little one and teach them how vegetables are grown; Show your toddler where food comes from, and this will get him excited to eat a healthy diet. Let them help you plant vegetables and fruits and always water them together as he watches the plants grow every day. Kids will be thrilled to taste and eat what they worked to produce; green pepper can turn out to be their favorite vegetable only because they took part in the full process of planting and seeing it grow to produce a bunch of them.
- Prepare new foods with old favorites.
A meal full of new foods only might be overwhelming and stressful for your little one. You need to be considerate when introducing new foods, you’d want to prepare food that your kid is familiar with too, by doing this they’ll have to try a bit of the new food and also eat their favorite. You are not guaranteed that they will love the new food but with constant encouragement, they will get used to it, do not force them to like what you find healthy, they might resist it the next time you try it.
- Replace sugary drinks with WATER.
Minimize giving your little one sugary drinks in supplementing water/ replacing water, instead encourage them to drink a lot of water. Let them see that everyone in the house drinks water after meals, with this they get to know that water is very essential and healthy compared to the sugary drinks.
Sufficient water intake benefits them by keeping them energized and boost the health of their skin, it also plays a bigger role in ensuring proper digestion.
- Do not sweat it, introduce new foods at a time.
Do not push too hard when introducing new foods, it is important to know that it might take 5 to 10 exposures for kids to get comfortable with new food. Therefore, it is good to introduce healthy food at a time, simply be smart about new foods and encourage them to try repeatedly while making them feel like they are leading the situation. Help your kiddo understand the importance of these healthy foods and why they should try them in the most loving way, and before you know it, they’ll be in it.
Summing it all up; remember you are what you eat, and your example goes a long way, so let your kid learn from you as the immediate person. Introducing your little one to a better and a healthy eating habit will limit the number of times you visit your nutritionist. Note that good eating habits equal healthy kids and a healthy future!
