Healthy Eating For Kids
Healthy eating for kids is a major issue in many households, especially when it comes to getting kids to eat vegetables.
Jen asks via email, “how can I get my kids to eat their veggies? I don’t want to hide their veggies in pasta sauce and meatballs. I want to teach them to LIKE the taste and texture. Any ideas?”
This is a tough one, but with some persistence and creativity, it’s doable. My kids used to refuse all types of vegetables, and especially green-colored ones. But I made healthy eating for kids a priority, and after months of quiet persistence, they are now willing to at least try the veggies I serve them – and sometimes they eat the whole thing.
The best advice I can give you is to keep trying: continue serving your kids a variety of vegetables, encourage them to try a bite or two, and keep in mind that sometimes children need to be exposed to a new food several times before they are willing to try it.
A few more tips for healthy eating for kids:
1. Give vegetables fun nicknames, such as “green shoelaces” for asparagus or “trees” for broccoli. Kids like to pretend, and my own kids thought it was hilarious that they were eating trees and shoelaces.
2. Add dips. Dipping their carrots in ranch dressing or their celery sticks in peanut butter might make eating their vegetables easier and more fun for them.
3. Try different ways of preparing the vegetables. If they don’t like cooked carrots, they might like them raw. If they can’t stand cooked broccoli, try serving it raw, with ranch dressing.
4. Teaching by example is important. If you don’t eat veggies, how can you expect your children to be enthusiastic about them?
5. Involve them in buying and preparing veggies. When you go shopping, let the kids pick vegetables they’d like to try. Involve them in preparing and cooking the vegetables too.
6. Allow your kids to play with their food. My youngest likes to arrange her peas so that they look like a pearl necklace, then she uses her fingers to eat them one at a time. It’s excruciatingly slow, but she does eat her peas.
If you make healthy eating for kids a priority, and are patient and persistent, you will eventually see improvement in your kids’ eating habits. Good luck!
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Jen responds:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 11:54 am →
Thanks! I like the funny names idea. Might work with my little one.
Jill responds:
Posted: March 4th, 2008 at 12:02 pm →
Come on… just hide the veggies. They’ll learn to like them, or at least force them in, when they’re older.
ironman responds:
Posted: March 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pm →
My mom fried everything in butter, including veggies. It actually worked. I still like my veggies buttery and salty.
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paula responds:
Posted: August 30th, 2009 at 4:20 am →
You are not alone..Being a mom I was in constant struggle to feed my kids healthy foods .often they used to to refuse the foods at meal times…I was in trouble until I found a resource which gave me some sigh of relief .Children s often turns down the veggies offered to them , vegetables being very important for a kids development as it contains the rich source of vitamins and antioxidants.I learned to prepare meals by accommodating varying mild tasting vegetables in the basic meal .Gradually the kids developed a good tastes for the veggies and now I feel very satisfied when they choose healthier foods on their own.Feeding your kids by habit changer helped in developing good eating habits in kids.