It’s hard to teach children the value of making good choices in the foods they eat and in their personal habits given the influence of the media and the hectic lives their parents lead. There’s often precious little time for the kind of mentoring and positive behavioral modeling kids need from adults. It’s important though: the choices kids make early in life can have a powerfully formative effect on them. Obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and many other health problems lay in wait for people who’ve never learned a better way, a healthier lifestyle. Ultimately, kids follow the example set by their parents, so it’s your influence as a mom or dad that will make the deepest impression. Imparting a few common sense lessons can help you set your children on the path to a healthy, happy life. You may not succeed in converting the kids into
vegetable connoisseurs, but you can get them thinking about healthy eating,
exercise and the importance of taking good care of themselves.
Get them involved
You can make your children understand that healthy eating is a process, and that following that process determines how well you eat and how healthy you are. Involve them in establishing a weekly meal menu for the family featuring healthful foods including vegetables, fruit, whole grains, protein and plant oils (i.e. olive oil). Choose recipes that everyone will enjoy and which are designed to promote nutrition and prevent the negative effects of saturated fats and food with high sugar and sodium content. Try
making a rule that each meal must feature three or four foods from the primary
food groups and work on it together until you’ve created a list of dishes that
are popular with everyone in the family. Include some simple recipes that the
kids can take the lead in making. Use that opportunity to teach them about
kitchen safety when it comes to food preparation. You never know, you may end
up with a budding young chef.Where’s it come from?
Kids grow up believing that the food they eat originates in their neighborhood grocery, or comes from the TV, which makes it all look so tasty. You can go a long way toward giving kids a profound appreciation for how food is produced and how it gets from farm to market to table. Try taking your children to a nearby pick-it-yourself farm, where they can see how the food they eat has to be nurtured and cared for, and how important that process is. Or, you could try planting vegetables in a garden just outside your own kitchen door, where everyone can have a hand in growing fresh food for the family to enjoy and benefit from. Emphasize healthy snacking
It’s a given that children love snacking. It’s one of the most unhealthy personal choices kids make because snacking is so often a negative thing, especially when snacking involves chocolate, crisps, and doughnuts. Try substituting sliced fruit, grapes, carrots and air-popped popcorn instead. Keep sugar-laden fruit drinks out of the house and encourage your kids to drink bottled water. Show them the way
It’s extremely unlikely your kids will start insisting on vegetables and fruit instead of junk food if they see you tearing into a bag of cheese and onion crisps. You have to show them the way, not just lecture them on the evils of unhealthy eating. Make it a family project to come up with new and interesting salad recipes that everyone can share in and not just at dinnertime, but also between meals. Encourage exercise and join them in physical activity that will benefit everyone. Make sure that substances like caffeine and processed sugars are not present in your family’s diet. Ensuring your children’s health also means keeping them safe and preventing access to harmful influences on the Internet, just as you would keep alcoholic beverages safely out of reach to limit temptations to experiment with alcohol and drugs. Use filters and parental controls to prevent your kids from visiting dangerous websites and being influenced by people seeking to influence their behavior. Consider installing a home security system to help monitor your children’s comings and goings, and keep cabinets locked to prevent access to prescribed medications. Keeping a child
healthy and safe requires paying close attention to their behavior and
protecting them from destructive influences, just as it does encouraging and
modeling positive lifestyle behaviors for them. The more you can make good diet
and exercise decisions appealing to your kids, the better the chances they’ll
follow in your footsteps. And it’ll be good for both of you.Leave it to the experts…
At Early Days
Foods, we take pride in providing healthy children’s meals for nursery children
throughout the island of Ireland, providing home quality meals. We are a
specialised catering service which helps nurseries serve quality meals for
their children 52-weeks a year, just like you would at home. Early Days Foods
is one of Ireland’s premier Nursery food providers, with an extensive menu.
Your kids can enjoy a healthy range of quality meals just like home without the
extensive costs of preparing the food in-house. Our mission is to make
mealtimes easy and healthy, one nursery at a time. If you would like
to speak to our experts or see how we as a company can help you, please contact
us on: ROI: 042 942 4069 / NI: 028 4175 2500 or email: info@early-days-foods-7a5933.ingress-daribow.easywp.com The information
on this Website is designed for educational purposes only. It is not intended
to be a substitute for informed medical advice or care. You should not use this
information to diagnose or treat any health problems or illnesses without
consulting your paediatrician or family doctor. Please consult a doctor with
any questions or concerns you might have regarding your or your child’s
condition.
