One of the most important steps that need to be done to raise their children healthy is to create a family culture that will teach the child to choose the right foods. This will require support for the whole family and a positive example of a family member. Ten tips on how to teach children to eat healthy food and they form healthy eating habits will help you.
It is necessary to abandon the policy of banning certain types of food
Forbidding a child to eat certain foods, parents increase the likelihood of a grown child from eating disorders such as anorexia
Anorexia nervosa - symptoms and effects on the body
or bulimia
Bulimia - how to deal with an invisible enemy?
. In addition, it can have a negative impact on the growth and development of the child. Rather than imposing bans, it is better to talk about a healthy and useful food, encouraging family members to choose foods as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats and low fat dairy products, avoiding the last processing low-quality cooked food.
Good food should be kept at hand
Children eat what is available at the moment. Fruits better spread on a plate and keep on the table, not hidden in the refrigerator in a container for fruit and vegetables. The child chooses the food that is stored at home by his parents. Actions of parents is more important than anything they can tell the child about healthy eating
Healthy eating - do not limit yourself to eating
, So parents better snack always have on hand, such as an apple.
You can not divide food into "good" and "bad"
Instead, you must hold the relationship between food and your hobbies and interests of the child, such as sports or academic success. It is necessary to tell the child that the lean protein, such as turkey meat, as well as the calcium in dairy products give strength to exercise. The antioxidants contained in fruits and vegetables, make the skin radiant and give hair shine. A healthy breakfast will be attentive in class.
It should praise their children healthy food choices
When a child chooses a healthy food, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy products, you should praise him and reward joyful smile.
You can not swear or get irritated when a child chooses not too wholesome food
If the child chooses fatty, fried, unhealthy food, it is best to redirect his attention by offering him more healthy foods.
Instead of the usual potato chips and greasy sauce you can eat corn chips and salsa.
If a child wants candy, you can offer him fresh strawberries and a little chocolate sauce. No time to cook this dessert? Then, for a quick bite is best to keep the house sweet dried fruit.
Instead of buying french fries can be baked in the oven fresh potatoes, cut into slices (watering it before baking small amount of oil).
In no case can not use food as a reward
This can cause problems with the weight of the child is already an adult. Instead, you need to reward the child, making up for his interesting work or entertainment, for example, take him for a walk in the park or play with him "catch-up".
In the evening, you need to arrange family dinners
If your family does not have such a tradition, it should definitely install. Studies show that children dined at the same table with their parents eat properly and grow more harmonious young people. You can start with a family dinner a week, then increase the number of dinners to three or four. Gradually formed a habit.
Expanding food on the plates should be in the kitchen
It would be better if, instead of offering the child to choose from all the available products that he likes, and to impose their own food in a bowl, parents themselves will be spread on the plates corresponding portions. Thus, the child learns what portions are optimal. If the formation of healthy eating habits should be reduced portions for the whole family, you should start eating from smaller plates that will greatly facilitate the conduct of changes in nutrition.
It is necessary to allow the child to control your eating habits
You can negotiate with the child that he will bite off three pieces of each product, which is available on his plate, and then put each of them to estimate: 1 to 5 points. When healthy food, especially different kinds of vegetables, get a high score, you can submit them to the table more often. The food that the child does not like it, you need to cook less. This practice allows the child to participate in decision-making. In the end, a dinner the whole family involved.
Consult with a pediatrician
Before the "plant" of the child on a diet for weight loss, weight gain or make significant changes to the image of his power, must first consult with the attending physician of the child. In no case can not put a child diagnosed (overweight or underweight) on their own.
In the formation of healthy eating habits of the child must act gradually. Such changes can not be administered in one evening, and parents should not refer to this process as a race with obstacles. In the outside world, the child will have a myriad of temptations that threaten him overweight. It is worth it just to go out, he would be surrounded by circumstances that contribute to overeating.
Those subtleties and important elements of the food that a child learns from its parents help him stick to healthy habits for a lifetime.
