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Ten Healthy Eating Tips for Kids
It's can often be difficult to encourage your children to eat a balanced diet. But good news, you don't need a degree in nutrition to bring up healthy kids! By following these simple tips you can motivate your child to eat right.
Learning to eat healthy from the start can reap benefits for a lifetime. Here are ten tips for helping them to develop healthy habits while they're still young:
1. Don't skip breakfast
Be sure to eat breakfast, its the most important meal of the day. Even if it’s just a small snack like a banana, it kick-starts the body and makes it easier to have lasting energy through the whole day.
If you can get your kids into the habit of eating a good breakfast at a young age, it likely stay with throughout their lives.
2. Snack healthily
When you or your children feel like nibbling on something, it’s tempting to reach for crisps or chocolate bars, but these snacks typically lack nutrients and have lots of calories.
Keeping your cupboards filled with healthy snacks such as fruit, unsalted nuts and unsweetened yoghurt, will prevent you from unhealthy snacking.
3. Water
Make water the prime drink at all times, try and keep juice and sweet drinks as occasional treats.
While juice has good nutrients and gives a concentrated energy boost for active, growing bodies, kids should know to grab water first when they are thirsty, not sugar-sweetened drinks.
4. Grow your own
Growing veg and herbs at home can be a fun and interesting way for children to learn where food comes from and to persuade them to eat a more healthy diet.
They’re far more likely to eat their greens if they’ve helped to plant and pick them. If you don’t have a garden, a window box can be just as good.
5. Eat together
It can be tempting to eat dinner in front of the TV, to wolf down lunch at your desk, and to grab snacks on the go.
But If you can get your children to eat regular meals with you at the table, it will not only reduce snacking, it can also teach important social skills.
6. Cook with your children
Children are more likely to become adventurous eaters if they know how to cook. Have some fun by giving them their own little aprons and having them help you with small tasks in the kitchen.
As they get older, why not let them cook occasionally? It will save you a job at the very least! To see our cooking with kids recipes click here.
7. Quit the "clean-plate club."
Eating slowly is great for weight control at any age, it means your less likely to overeat. It’s a great way to show kids that it takes around 20 minutes for the message that they are full to get from their tummy to their brain.
As much as we’d love our children to finish their meal quickly, it’s much more significant that they learn to slow down and chew their food properly.
8. Keep it creative
All the vibrant colours in fruit and vegetables come from natural plant chemicals that have good effects on our bodies. Different colours have different effects, so it’s best to eat a variety of each day.
Give your kids a snack of different fruits and berries, or cut vegetables into fun shapes to make them seem more exciting.
9. Put sweets in their place
Theres no problem with having occasional sweets, but don't make desert the main reason for eating dinner.
When you make dessert a prize for eating dinner, or sweets a reward for being good, kids will automatically place more value on sweet treats then vegetables. Try to stay neutral about different foods.
10. Never give up
Research proves that most little ones need to try something up to ten times before they like it. So don’t be afraid to introduce children to new or more adventurous tastes.
A good method to get kids to eat a wide range of foods is to tell them that easting new things means they’re growing up. Alternatively you could bring them shopping and let them choose a new, healthy food to bring home.
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