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What your child eats now can affect their health for years to come.

Many adults ignore healthy eating campaigns and constantly feed their children sugar, chocolate, lollies and fatty foods because they are afraid of emotional retaliation and sudden outbursts if they don’t give in.

Allowing your children to dictate what they eat will adversely impact their health.

The following tips for healthy snacking will help get your family on track to a better and healthier future:

1. Be a role model

Like other aspects of parenting, being a role model will affect how and what they eat.

If you eat fatty foods and sugar, your child will want to as well. Throw out food that you think could make your child unhealthy. If you must indulge yourself once in awhile, keep these snacks well hidden and only eat them when your children are not around.

2. Make eating a game

Children love to play games, and creating an eating game can get them to eat anything.

These games should often have prizes at the end that encourages your children to eat vegetables and fruits. Mix snacks such as trail mix are also good sources of fiber and should be given to children along with the fruit and vegetables.

Some of the basic games can include the “clean plate club” or “hide and seek”.

The “clean plate club” is a fictional club that children join if they eat all of their food. Once their done, you inform them that they are now a part of this “club” for the remainder of the night. Give them a small prize and then start the game again the following night.



3. Enforce snacking rules

If you want your children to eat healthy, you must enforce basic healthy snacking rules throughout your home:

  • Hide any snacks that you don’t want your children to see.
  • Constantly remind your children about snack time, and help them prepare healthy snacks throughout the day.
  • Each snack prepared should have the same type and amount of nutrients. Try to make the larger meals only slightly larger than the snacks you give them.

4. Use peer pressure to help your cause

Instead of only one person that is eating healthy, have your neighbours and their child join your children when eating these snacks. The peer pressure each child will feel when eating healthy will help them forget about fatty foods and sugar for the day.

5. Reward good eating habits

Informing them why should children eat healthy will help them to better understand why they must eat the food that they do, and once they begin to eat healthy snacks in between meals on a daily basis, you can reward them with a small lolly a few times a week and show them how to take care of their teeth.

When trying to get your children to eat healthy snacks, the most important thing to remember is respect. If you respect your children, they will respect you and follow your instructions without hesitation.

This healthy eating process will likely take a few months to get started, but you’ll begin to see the fruits of your labour once you implement the rules in your home.

Do you try to establish good eating habits in your kids? Please share any tips you have in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com
  • I love the idea of a “Clean Plate Club” Sally! I think I need to implement this one in my house!

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  • I’m a cook from scratch person, I don’t have processed or junk food in the house. I have ingredients & my 9 & 13 year olds are great cooks too. We don’t do convenience food, we cook our own pizza or thai or burgers/sliders & we all prefer real food.

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  • I’ve always enforced healthy eating most times. When the kids came home from school I’d make a fruit platter or have crackers and cheese and a milk drink. It’s alright to have unhealthy treats occasionally but not all the time. The majority of your food intake should be healthy options.

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  • We never led them to kids food and always encouraged exploring from a toddler. if they wanted to try blue cheese and olives then I would encourage this rather than say they probably won’t like it. I think this really helped in establishing a varied diet which is a good part of healthy eating.

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  • Peer pressure certainly works. We’re lucky to have 4 children who are not the least bit fussy and always choose healthy food for themselves. When my 3 year old nephew visits, I’ve learned never offer him anything to eat without first giving it to my 2 1/2 year old in front of him. Then when he sees her eating it, I’ll pass the same to him and allow our other children to begin eating, and he is happy to attempt it. Sometimes the food goes down, other times its spat back out, but attempting it is a start.

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  • Loved this article..thanks ..healthy eating role models is great.

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  • Yes healthy snacks are great – the boys like lots of different fruit and cheese etc. – it’s not hard to go healthy.

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  • Thank you for sharing the useful tips.

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  • it s just great

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  • Absolutely about role modelling . We do try our best. I also try, time permitting, to have pre-prepared after school snacks on the bench. This avoids my son going to the pantry to see what’s in there.

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  • so true, children learn from role modelling, so parents definitely has to walk the talk to make them healthy eater from young.

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  • Great, effective examples you have provided.

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  • Thank you for sharing these great tips and hints.

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  • I enjoyed this blog very much!

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  • Healthy eating is so important for children, it really does teach them healthy habits as adults. I would also say, that actually, don’t force kids to eat everything on their plate, if they feel full I think it’s ok so long as they try everything. Some of my friends overeat as a result of always being made to eat everything on their plate, so it can create bad habits.


    • We serve food in large bowls and everyone has to help themselves; it helps kids to judge how much they can eat and saves on unnecessary wastage. I do not like any wastage of food; especially when some people go hungry in this country everyday. The kids help themselves to more food if they are hungry. Happy for them to pile the vegies on the plate! 😉

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  • Great information. Totally agree with being a good role model.
    I only offer healthy snacks to my toddler and I eat the same

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  • Great informative article ………thanks for sharing.

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  • Being a good role model is number one and promoting eating healthy food for health and well being; having a garden and getting kids involved with gardening and producing fresh food is important and also fun. The bonus is the kids get outside and get plenty of exercise and Vitamin D! 🙂

    Reply

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