|
Picky Eater Tips |
| Print | |
E-mail |
Tips for Picky Eaters
You want your child to have a balanced diet but children can be unpredictable. What they want to eat one day may be totally off limits the next. Keep your child's likes and dislikes in mind...
serve child-size portions and encourage them to sample new foods. You can create a positive attitude toward food and eating and these tips can help make healthy eating a positive experience.
1. Offer a wide variety of nutritious food. Children's eating can be very unpredictable. They'll be just starving one minute and not hungry a few minutes later. Serve a wide variety of food and gently encourage them to eat a balanced selection. Looking at the bigger picture helps you see that the balance might not come all in one day but generally averages out over several days.
2. Don't force children to eat. Put yourself in their position. Would you enjoy someone forcing you to eat something you absolutely detest? It's not a pleasant situation to be in as you may recall from your own childhood.
3. Make mealtime a positive experience. Eating is not a competitive event with food as the reward. Setting dessert up as the prize for eating the rest of the meal elevates high fat, overly sweet food to a position of unearned importance, creating habits of overeating and craving for unhealthy foods.
4. Teach children to view food as nourishment for active, healthy bodies. Educate your child through reading books and discussing how their bodies work. Understanding why their bodies need fuel and what foods provide them with the best fuel will help them make wiser food choices.
5. Stock up on nutrient rich foods. The foods you have readily available in your home will influence your children's diet and eating style. Keep moderation and variety in mind when you stock your food shelves.
6. Offer healthy between mean snacks for days when they're absolutely famished and couldn't possibly wait until the next meal. If your child eats carrot sticks after school it doesn’t matter if they don’t want a vegetable with their evening meal.
8. Be aware of outside influences such as advertising. Educating children about the powerful medium of advertising at a very young age will help them make wiser decisions and become more immune to its influence.
9. Set a positive example. Eat when you're hungry, quit when you're full is good advice. Forcing your child to finish that one last bite encourages poor eating habits.
10. Serve food children enjoy. Foods come in a variety of textures, temperatures, flavors and combinations. Children are unique individuals and some are more sensitive to these variations in foods while others will eat almost anything. With the wide variety of foods available, there are many choices that will satisfy both nutrition and taste.
< |
|
Support Group & Networking Meetings
Click on the Calendar to see our listing of meetings for parents and youth. Meetings are held monthl... Read More ...
Who's Online
We have 4 guests online
|
.jpg){kind=small}