5 Ways to Help Your Children Eat More Healthily

 Childhood obesity is a crisis at the moment, but it's not the only problem with children's diets. Many children are fussy about what they eat and, when they do choose to eat, their favourite foods are likely to be unhealthy. Sugar is a particular problem, not only increasing the risk of various illnesses, but also often causing hyperactivity, while many of the artificial additives found in convenience meals and fast foodsare just as bad.

 Children aren't going to be able to learn as efficiently if they're not getting the nutrition they need, and certainly not if they're bouncing off the walls half the time. But how can you encourage your children to eat a healthy diet? Here are five suggestions.

1. Offer Choices Instead of Forcing the Issue

 At one time, the response to a child refusing to eat something healthy was "You'll eat it and like it" or "If you don't eat your vegetables, you can't have pudding." This resulted in resentful kids growing into resentful adults who avoided the food in question. Children like to be taken seriously, so if your child insists they don't like something, talk to them about what alternatives they might enjoy instead. If they can't stand spinach but they're willing to try broccoli, for instance, that's a success. Alternatively, it might be the way the food is cooked and presented that puts them off. Find out what might go down better.

2. Make the Food Fun

 Young children, in particular, are likely to engage with their food better if it looks interesting and fun, so think about how you present food they might be resisting. For instance, a common piece of nutrition advice is to "eat the rainbow". This is because the colour of a fruit or vegetable is a clue to the particular vitamin it's rich in, so that a wide range of colours covers all bases. A colourful plate can look attractive even to adults, but for young children you can go further. Perhaps you could arrange the colours into patterns or even pictures. The more of a game the meal is, the more likely your child will be to give it a go.

3. Involve Your Child in the Meals

 Children are naturally curious (hence the eternal whys), and including them in the preparation of meals can make use of that curiosity. If your child is accustomed from a young age to at least being around while you're getting meals ready, it may increase their interest and understanding. Giving them tasks to do appropriate for their age is even better. You can go further, too, and help them learn about the food they're eating. Talk about the various ingredients and look them up online together. Many farms are open for visits by children, so you could take them around and let them learn first hand about what they're eating.

4. Help Your Child Snack Healthily

 Snacks are an essential part of any diet, topping up energy levels between meals, but both the timing and the contents have to be right. Snacks shouldn't be too close before meals, as this will spoil the child's appetite, and the traditional sugar-laden snacks, like sweets, biscuits and fizzy drinks, will just give an immediate high, instead of carrying them through to the next meal.

 If you have the chance to start your child on healthy snacks from a young age, offer choices like fruit, nuts, celery or carrot sticks with a healthy dip, cheese etc., with water or milk to drink. Obviously, this is going to be a lot harder if you're trying to wean them off sugary snacks. If they're older, help them to look up what these things are doing to them, and it should be easier to work with them to cut down on the sugary snacks, at least.

5. Set a Good Example

The very best way of encouraging your child to do anything is to make it clear that it's what you do, and let them see the benefits you gain from it. If your child grows up seeing healthy eating as the norm, they're much more likely to stick to it, even in the face of peer pressure.

 A child who eats healthily will get many benefits from it, including increased attention span and mental energy to learn more. Find out what other resources are available to help your children eat more healthily by registering with TutorExtra.