healthy foods for kids and teenagers ...

Healthy Food for Kids:

Easy Tips to Help Your Children and Teens Eat healthier..     .

        While peer pressure and TV commercials for junk food

can make getting kids to eat well seem impossible, there are 

steps parents can take to instill healthy eating habits without

 turning mealtimes into a battle zone. By providing nutritious

 food for your kids and being a positive role model, you can make

 a huge impact on their lifelong relationship with food and give

 them the best opportunity to grow into healthy, confident adults.

Encourage healthy eating habits:

Children develop a natural preference for the foods they enjoy the most, so the challenge is to make healthy choices appealing.

• Focus on overall diet rather than specific foods: 

                Kids should be eating whole, minimally processed food—food that is as close to its natural form as possible.

• Be a role model: 

                The childhood impulse to imitate is strong so don’t ask your child to eat vegetables while you gorge on potato chips.

• Cook more meals at home:

                 Restaurant and takeout meals have more added sugar and unhealthy fat so cooking at home can have a huge impact on your kids’ health. If you make large batches, cooking just a few times can be enough to feed your family for the whole week.

Get kids involved in shopping for groceries and preparing meals. You can teach them about different foods and how to read food labels.

• Make healthy snacks available:

               Keep plenty of fruit, vegetables, and healthy beverages (water, milk, pure fruit juice) to hand so kids avoid unhealthy snacks like soda, chips, and cookies.

• Limit portion sizes: 

              Don’t insist your child cleans the plate, and never use food as a reward or bribe.

Make mealtimes about more than just food:

                   Making time to sit down as a family to eat a home-cooked meal not only sets a great example for kids about the importance of healthy food, it can bring a family together even moody teenagers love to eat tasty, home-cooked meals!

Regular family meals provide comfort: 

                       Knowing the whole family will sit down to eat dinner (or breakfast) together at approximately the same time every day can be very comforting for kids and enhance appetite.

Family meals offer opportunity to catch up on your kids’ daily lives: 

                Gathering the family around a table for a meal is an ideal opportunity to talk and listen to your kids without the distraction of TV, phones, or computers.

Social interaction is vital for your child: 

                The simple act of talking to a parent over the dinner table about how they feel can play a big role in relieving stress and boosting your child’s mood and self-esteem. And it gives you chance to identify problems in your child’s life and deal with them early.

Mealtimes enable you to "teach" by example:

                 Eating together lets your kids see you eating healthy food while keeping your portions in check and limiting junk food.  Refrain from obsessive calorie counting or commenting on your own weight, though, so that your kids don’t adopt negative associations with food.

Mealtimes let you monitor your kids’ eating habits: 

                This can be important for older kids and teens who spend a lot of time eating at school or friends’ houses. If your teen’s choices are less than ideal, the best way to make changes is to emphasize short-term consequences of a poor diet, such as physical appearance or athletic ability. These are more important to teens than long-term health. For example, “Calcium will help you grow taller.”  “Iron will help you do better on tests.”