To get your child involved in nutrition and a healthy lifestyle it needs to be relevant to their lives and made to be something important. Children are egocentric and if they think a topic has no place in their lives then getting them to make life long changes will not happen. Since children are driven by wants it will be hard to break the sugar habit if they do not understand the reason why. They also need mentoring and examples to help make any lifestyle changes occur.
Here are ways to get your child to take nutrition and healthy eating seriously:
From the start: A child needs to learn about nutrition and healthy choices from the beginning. As soon as you begin to feed your child table food the choices you make need to be healthy and consistent. It is okay to have a bowl of ice cream every now and then. However, your child must learn that a bowl of ice cream comes with requirements such as portion size and possibly low fat.
Model it: You cannot tell your child to cut back on food or certain types of food if you or the rest of the family is still indulging. It makes the child feel isolated and could manifest in binging behavior. Many feel they are punishing the rest of the family since only one child needs to be on a special diet. That attitude will make the child on diet feel punished and again result in unwanted behavior. The rest of your family will benefit from learning how to eat healthy and make the right choices. Eating healthy is not for those on a diet it is for everyone. In essence you are punishing the rest of your family with unhealthy food.
Cooking together: Children more likely to eat what they had a hand in preparing. So get in the kitchen together and learn to make delicious healthy meals. Your whole family will benefit.
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