Happy Healthy Eating

Fitting in the good foods

By Louise Brown

We are always hearing about the importance of healthy eating and getting our ‘five-a-day’, but it can sometimes be a challenge to get our children eating healthy. To be fair, who could blame them, with the crafty pull of advertising offering them a delicious alternative to the sometimes bland healthier option we put before them. Add some attractive packaging to that and seeing your mates eating it and how can you resist?

How can we get our children to even consider swapping junk food for something that is good for them

A Parent’s Job

One thing that has worked for me is persistence, imagination and a strong understanding of the temptation, being a self-confessed chocoholic. I still remember how unappealing healthy eating would sound when an apple was put in front of me as a child. “An apple a day” they say; I say an apple a day is boring, and it’s about time we jazzed it up a little and made it fun.

You stand a much better chance of helping your child develop good eating habits from as young as possible. There will be loads of things they don’t like, but don’t give up. Children can be very unpredictable. One minute they will refuse to eat something, then the next it is their favorite thing. This can even change from week to week, so if something doesn’t go down too well, leave it for a few weeks and then try again, you may get a different reaction.

Tips and Tricks

Ask yourself why they might not have liked it. Try and look at it from their point of view and what they like at that age. Is there any way you can present it differently? Make it look attractive? Or add more flavor?

This is much easier than it sounds. Set up a picnic in the garden, or in the living room, they’re not fussy. They’ll be so excited to be sitting with their friends nibbling snacks rather than at the table eating properly, they wont even realise they are munching on a celery stick. Dips are fun too and can make it tastier for the really difficult ones. It’s not hard to whip up some fruit and milk in a blender to make an easy, healthy shake, and it doesn’t have to be all strict - a scoop of ice cream with some fresh fruit on occasions can introduce healthy food whilst still enjoying the food they love. Once you have them eating that then you can offer it again another time, perhaps on its own or with something else.

As the children get older it will get harder to dress up food in this way to tempt them, but starting when they are young really does set them up for a healthy diet later on.

More Solutions

If you have a garden, or access to allotments, how about growing your own vegetables? It really is quite easy and is something you can do with the kids. They will love sowing seeds and watering them and watching them grow. So much enjoyment can be had from a child caring for something big that they helped grow from a little seed, and they will be so proud of their produce and no doubt be anxious to sample it! Plus they get outside in the fresh air, so how much healthier can you get

So, the key for getting your kids to eat healthy: make it pretty, make it interesting, make it fun. Disguise it if you have to, to get them eating it initially. Don’t cut out unhealthy things all together, they deserve a treat now and then, but you may be surprised to find that they may just choose your fun, delicious healthy food over a junk food alternative.