Parents and carers play an important role in supporting their child’s interest in healthy food and shaping their eating habits and behaviours. But as we all know, healthy eating is one of those things that sounds easy in theory, but in practice can be a lot harder. Especially when trying to feed our kids! Providing healthy family meals and snacks can be challenging for many reasons. We all lead busy lives and planning, shopping and cooking takes time, thought and energy. That all too familiar parental guilt, if we don’t provide healthy meals for our children, is constantly hanging over us. Many parents also face the challenge of fussy eaters. What the research shows us is that parents modelling healthy habits that children learn in the home will stay with them for life.
Children need nutrients to support their fast growth and development. Start with the food pyramid as a guide to plan healthy meals. Healthy meals include plenty of fruit and vegetables, some wholegrains and dairy, lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, beans or nuts. Fluids are also important, with milk and water being the best options. Encourage you children to get involved in food planning and preparation from an early age and help them feel like they are part of the decision making process.
Even if some children won’t eat certain foods, keep giving them the same as everyone in the family. Remember that children often need to see and taste foods several times before they accept them. Positive parenting and healthy food habits go hand-in-hand. Stay calm and positive, praising your child when they eat well. Don’t bribe, pressure or force feed them, but do keep offering them the food. It can take up to 10 times for a child to try a food and like it.
Mealtimes are an important time to sit down together, enjoy your meals and connect. Preparing meals ahead of time can be helpful when you are short on time. Batch cooking can save time and money, having leftovers and stocking up on quick and easy options are helpful. Avoid giving them anything that will fill them up, too close to their meal times. Processed foods can be convenient, but making your own can be easy and much healthier.
Healthy snacks are helpful to keep children’s energy levels up between meals. Some ideas include, fruit, vegetable sticks, yoghurt, milk, crackers, oatcakes, rice cakes, nuts and seeds. While it can be really challenging for parents to limit children’s intake of treat foods, these foods are high in sugar, fat and salt and provide little nutrition. Treat foods also fill them up, meaning they won’t have room for more nourishing foods.
For simple recipes for all the family go to www.safefood.net/101-square-meals-cookbook to download 101 Square Meals. This cookbook will help you cook nutritious, tasty and affordable meals with easily found ingredients.
Top Tips To Support Your Child To Eat Healthily
- Aim to eat together at the table without the TV or phones.
- Make healthy changes as a family, celebrating small wins.
- Find ways to include fruit and/or vegetables with each meal.
- Have healthy foods available for children to snack on.
- Involve your child in preparing and planning meals and snacks, making it fun!
- Plan a day when the whole family has a treat and learn to say no on other days.
- Ensure your child eats breakfast every day, leading by example by also sitting down and eating breakfast with them when you can.
Reducing the amount of treats your children have is a real challenge and you deserve to feel like a hero. Remember that your efforts are helping to set them up for a healthier life both now and the rest of their lives.
This article was contributed by Olivia Beck, Slaintecare Community Food & Nutrition Worker with Limerick Food Partnership. LFP are a partner of Parenting Limerick, a network of parenting and family support organisations.
