The question of the decade. How do you get your kids to eat healthy food? I will admit right here and now this is definitely NOT my strong suit. I failed miserably with my boys. To this day at the ages of 14 and 11 I do not consider them healthy eaters. My oldest son has always had the problem of needing to “gain” weight. At one point the doctor told me to feed him anything he would eat at any hour of the day. Thankfully he is now at a healthy weight, though he still does not have the best of eating habits. The one good thing he can boast about is he doesn’t eat a lot of sweets!
My youngest son, well that kid is an eater he has the exact opposite problem as his brother. He got his love of junk food from his mother, yes me. He tends to get his protein from dairy items like milk, cheese, and yogurt but he is not much for actual meat. He would live on potato chips and chocolate milk if I allowed it.
Now where I got it right was my daughter, though I am not exactly sure how I did but since she is an awesome eater I encourage her as much as possible. She LOVES to try new food and some of her favorite foods are fruits and veggies. She goes wild for watermelon and is pleased for peas. They used to joke that if any of the kids at the daycare did not eat their vegetables they only needed to ask Honey to help out.
I try my best to keep her on this track of healthy eating. She has to have a glass of milk a day, usually with breakfast. She often snacks on apples. One day she asked me to remove the skin, because that is how they are at McDonald’s. I told her no she needed to eat the skin, however I went further and explained why. I told her about all the healthy vitamins the skin contains and how great they are for her body. Now she prides herself on eating the entire apple. When she eats all her veggies I tell her how proud I am and how she is the “best” eater in the house. She will tell you that she is. I am trying to instill in her how eating healthy is a good thing and she should be proud.
The one thing I wish I would have done differently with my boys is limited the amount of junk food they were aloud to have. They also grew up at the same daycare center and I believe this unfortunately shaped how they ate. They were fed a lot of chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs, etc. These tend to be the types of food they lean towards today.
My tips for getting kids to eat healthy are…
- Eat healthy yourself, show your kids how important it is to eat healthy.
- Do not just show them take every chance you can get to explain why it is healthy. Knowledge is power, it doesn’t matter how young they are tell them how important it is.
- Encourage them with praise when they make healthy choices or eat all their “good” food.
- Try to limit the amount of junk food and unhealthy snacks you have in your house. They cannot eat what is not there.
- Just do your best, your kids are going to get to an age where they will eat what they want. Your job is to push them in the right direction.
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This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Horizon. The opinions expressed by me do not necessarily reflect the view of the Horizon Organic brand.
