Healthy Eating Choices/Habits

How to Motivate Children to Make Healthy Eating Choices/Habits

The first component to preventing obesity or turning it around is to pay attention to intake. What a child eats can’t always be monitored. However, you can teach your children to make healthy eating choices. You can help them create good habits. Let’s take a look at 10 tips, strategies, and ideas to help you motivate your children to make good choices.

1. Be a Consistent Role Model

Children are inundated with messages about food. They see commercials on television. Those commercials make McDonald’s seem like the happiest place on earth, second only to a Disney theme park. They make Coca-Cola look like the key to joy, and Skittles make rainbows appear in the coolest places! Children also receive messages about food from their peers. They trade at lunch, and the kid with the coolest lunch is the coolest kid. Kids used to beg for Lunchables because they were “cool” to eat.

Most importantly, however, children get messages from their parents. You have the most influence on your child’s beliefs, thoughts, and ideas about food. When you make healthy choices and talk about healthy choices with your child, they hear you. However, you can’t just talk big, you have to follow through. If you tell your child that they can’t have a soda because it’s too sugary and then you grab a soda for yourself the next day, your child will notice. To help you kids develop good habits and to prevent obesity, it’s your responsibility to be a good role model. 2. Have a Positive Attitude

a good attitude about healthy food. Many children seem to have a natural dislike for vegetables. Try to support your child’s food preferences while also encouraging them to make good food choices. For example, instead of asking them to eat their broccoli, if they’re old enough you can get them involved in some decision making. You might ask them if they want broccoli, green beans, or carrots for dinner. Often, when a child has some control over what they eat, they’ll make better choices. Of course, it’s also important that you eat your veggies too, without complaining. Here’s the other component to having a positive attitude, don’t shame yourself or your child for unhealthy food choices. Shaming can turn into food hiding and low self-esteem.

3. Have Healthy Options In The Home One of the surest ways to support your child to develop healthy eating habits is to eliminate the unhealthy ones. Sure, when they’re away from home they can make different choices. However, the foundation you set at home is an important one. So instead of buying cookies, chips, and soda, fill your cupboards with other snacking options. Stock your pantry with nuts, whole grain crackers, and fruit. If your children are hungry, they will eat an apple – especially if it’s the only choice. 4. Make Meals

Studies have shown that when families sit down to eat dinner together, the children grow up to be more self-assured and connected. That’s half the battle; the other half is to make mealtime something that’s healthy. That means eating whole foods, not processed ones. And while there’s a general believe that quick and easy meals must be takeout or come in a box, making your food from scratch is actually pretty darn quick and easy too. For example, steaks take about 10 minutes to cook, and broccoli can be steamed while they’re cooking. And there is a ton that you can do in a CrockPot. Making meals at home isn’t complicated. You just have to get a little organized and create a plan. You might even make your meals ahead of time, on the weekends, and freeze them. Then making dinner is as easy as reheating. Homemade meals with whole foods are much healthier options. They also show your children that it’s important to care about mealtime and to pay attention to what you put into your body. 5. Teach Children To Cook

Speaking of making meals yourself, instead of buying them from restaurants or in boxes, get your children involved in mealtime. Teach them to cook. When you get your children involved in the meal planning and preparation, they’ll be invested in the food.

There’s an involvement level for any age. For example, preschoolers can help decide the vegetable or side when given a few options. They can wash, stir, and dump ingredients into bowls or pans. Older children can follow simple recipes and help with meal planning. Teenage children can take responsibility for making one meal each week.

Snack time is often the most difficult time for both children and adults. We want something that feeds cravings, and is also quick and easy. There is a two-pronged approach to snack time.

The first is to make sure that meals are balanced enough that your child isn’t hungry two hours later. This means making sure there are enough complex carbohydrates and protein to keep blood sugar levels balanced. The second component of a healthy snack time approach is to provide healthy and tasty snacks. Nut butters and fruit or whole grain crackers are an option. Smoothies, snack mixes and bars are also healthy options. There are snack bars that you can make at home which are super healthy and delicious.

7. Teach Them About The Role Of Food In Health your word for it for a while, until they start wondering why they can’t have cookies and ice cream for dinner. Explain how nutrients help give them energy and provide their body with specific benefits.

For example, calcium in milk and dark leafy greens make their bones strong. Protein makes their muscles strong and good fats help their brain. While it’s okay to have a treat occasionally, too many treats can harm their health. Teach moderation.

8. Serve Reasonable Portions

Portion sizes have grown and become distorted. Adults have a difficult time eating smaller, and more appropriate, portions. Children have different portion requirements, which makes it even more challenging for adults to give them appropriate portions. For example, a serving size of meat for a 6 year old is 1 ounce. For an adult it’s 4 ounces. A serving of fruit is half of a small apple. Pasta or cereal is limited to half a cup. 9. Dessert Is Not Mandatory Don’t make dessert part of every meal. Dessert, like any sweet, should be something that happens occasionally. It’s important to teach children about moderation. They’ll develop a healthy attitude about foods and their choices.

10. Don’t Reward With Sweets

Because children love sweets and because they often misbehave, it’s tempting to bribe them with treats. For example, “if you’re well behaved at the grocery store, you can choose a candy item in the checkout.”

This teaches children that food is a reward and that’s a habit they’ll take with them into adulthood. Food is fuel and it’s a lovely part of life. It’s part of our culture and it should be enjoyable. It shouldn’t be a reward.

5 Tips to Motivate Children to Be Active

Children are born to move. We’re all born to move, actually. When your body is active and moving, it releases hormones that keep your systems regulated. When you’re sedentary, these systems slow down. Metabolism slows down and instead of burning fat, you’re storing it. Sedentary lifestyles have become so common and so deadly that there’s now a name for it. It’s called “Sitting Disease” and it leads to cardiovascular problems, Type 2 Diabetes, obesity, cancer and death It’s a big deal and it’s avoidable. The following six tips will help you get your children off the couch and active – moving their bodies like they were born to do.

1. Limit Screen Time Between television, computers, smartphones, and gaming systems, children have ample opportunity to stay in front of a screen almost all day long. And many do. If they’re not in school, they’re looking at a screen. This means, in most cases, that they’re sedentary. Limit screen time. Get your child off of the couch, out of their chairs and moving. Yes, it’s no fun to confiscate devices. However, your child will thank you for it in the long run. You can implement parental controls on televisions, put computers in the family area, and confiscate your child’s smartphone and other devices. There are monitoring tools you can use, and rules you can easily enforce. So what’s a good rule of thumb? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, total screen time should be limited to two hours a day for children ages 3-18. And, for 2-year-olds and younger, there should be none at all.

2. Get Active Together motivate children to move more is to move with them. Create family activities that get you moving. Go on a bike ride together. Go roller skating, swimming at the rec center, or walk to the park. There are dozens of activities that you can do together right now. Make being active part of your family routine.

3. Help Them Find Activities They Love Sometimes children just need a little nudge. They need to be encouraged to try things. Yoga, dance, karate, soccer, and fencing are just a few opportunities for children to move their body and get active.

Little ones can take tumbling classes and ride a bike. Older children can take gymnastics, softball or baseball or even start running. Once they’re in school, sport them to join groups, teams, and clubs.

4. Be Positive and Supportive Children need structure and guidance. They also

need parents to be their support system. It’s important that you’re positive about these lifestyle changes and new habits. If you’re enthusiastic and optimistic, then they’re more likely to be as well.

It can be a difficult line to walk. The difference between nagging and encouraging is sometimes blurry. And you may not be around all the time to make sure they’re not sitting on the couch. Remember, children should only have two hours of screen time each day. Work with them to support a more active lifestyle. 5. Be A Good Role Model

In addition to motivating your child to be active and to get off the couch, you have to also model the behavior. You have to live the lifestyle that you want your children to live. Get active. Limit your own screen time to two hours a day and add active hobbies to your life.

Watch your children when they’re moving their bodies and when they’re sitting. You’ll see their faces light up when they’re active. They smile more. They are happier and their eyes are brighter.

Even when they complain about “another hike” or tell you that they don’t want to ride their bike anymore, you know that the movement and exercise is good for them. You’re helping them create a foundation for an active and healthy future. You’re preventing obesity and instilling good habits.

The bottom line is that you are the key to helping your child prevent obesity.

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