A family’s eating habits can have a huge impact on children’s daily nutrition, relationship with food, and even their long-term health. (Getty Images)
Feeding young children can be difficult for a variety of reasons. Parents and caregivers try to encourage healthy eating, but common strategies can be counterproductive. A family’s eating habits can have a huge impact on children’s daily nutrition, relationship with food, and even their long-term health.
How can busy parents cope with the obstacles to good family nutrition?
Preparing dinner every day can be a source of great stress. This is especially true for parents and caregivers of children with picky food preferences. Just as there are different parenting styles, there are also different approaches to promoting healthy eating at home. But common strategies can actually make mealtimes difficult.
Here are some important considerations to promote both optimal nutrition and healthy eating attitudes for your family.
Rethinking the clean plate club
Asking children to eat everything on their plate usually does not produce the intended results. Ideally, children should learn to eat based on internal cues of hunger and fullness. The expectation that they will finish everything served teaches children to ignore their own cues and use external cues instead. Learning to ignore your body’s signals can lead to overeating and other concerns. Instead, encourage children to check their bodies and determine appropriate portions of food. Children can learn to describe their own hunger levels so that adults can provide the most appropriate amount for their appetite.
Provide balance and variety in place of meal replacements
Cooking one meal for the whole family is the most economical and time-efficient approach to mealtime. However, 60% of parents report making a separate meal for their child who doesn’t like what’s served for dinner. These backup meals are often “kid foods” with low nutritional value, such as pizza or frozen nuggets. Additionally, acting as a short-order cook can become a bad habit that’s difficult to break, even as children grow up and become accustomed to a variety of foods. Instead, provide a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, including at least one of the foods your child normally eats. Healthy children eat little at one meal, but often eat at the next meal.
Involve the whole family in meal planning
Parents are not only dealing with the issue of picky eating, but also the rising cost of food. The real concern in family meal planning is reducing food waste. Including children in meal planning can empower children, promote accountability, and improve food acceptance at mealtimes. Discuss recipes and ingredients together, and involve everyone in the cooking process if possible. It’s still up to parents to decide what’s for dinner, but knowing, for example, that your child will eat carrots raw and broccoli cooked with garlic, will make dinner more successful and easier. You can reduce waste.
choose healthy snacks
Properly timed nutritious snacks can help meet your toddler’s nutritional needs. Snacks or mini-meals are especially important for active children or children who get full quickly and need to eat more often. However, too many random, unplanned snacks can lead to reduced food intake or even skipping meals altogether. Many prepackaged snacks sold to children are high in sugar, fat, and calories, which can interfere with the child’s natural instinct to feel hungry before a meal. Snacks that contain fiber and protein, such as fruits, vegetables, yogurt, hummus, seeds, homemade bran mini muffins, and air-popped corn, can help relieve hunger between meals without interrupting your next meal. .
LeeAnn Weintraub, MPH, RD is a registered dietitian who provides nutritional counseling and consulting to individuals, families, and organizations. You can contact her at her email. RD@halfacup.com.
