Healthy eating is essential to a child's well-being. Children who are overweight are at risk for chronic health problems. TheWeight-control Information Network(WIN), a service of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), offers guidance to parents and caregivers on how to encourage healthy eating habits in children.
Tips for Families to Help Children Eat Healthy
- Eat breakfast every day. Skipping breakfast can leave your child hungry, tired, and looking for less healthy foods later in the day.
- Plan healthy meals and eat together as a family. Eating together at meal times helps children learn to enjoy a variety of foods.
- Buy and serve more fruits and vegetables (fresh, frozen, or canned). Let your child choose them at the store.
- Buy fewer soft drinks and high fat/high calorie snack foods like chips, cookies, and candy. These snacks are OK once in a while, but keep healthy snack foods on hand too and offer them to your child more often.
- Start with small servings and let your child ask for more if he or she is still hungry. It is up to you to provide your child with healthy meals and snacks, but your child should be allowed to choose how much food he or she will eat. One tablespoon per year of age for each component of the meal is a great place to start when considering serving sizes for young children.
- Offer your child water or low-fat milk more often than fruit juice. Fruit juice is a healthy choice but is high in calories.
- Eat fast food less often. When you visit a fast food restaurant, try the healthful options offered.
- Do not get discouraged if your child will not eat a new food the first time it is served. Some kids will need to have a new food served to them 10 times or more before they will eat it.
- Try not to use food as a reward when encouraging kids to eat. Promising dessert to a child for eating vegetables, for example, sends the message that vegetables are less valuable than dessert.
- Make healthy choices easy by putting nutritious foods where they are easy to see and keep high-calorie foods out of sight.
Healthy Snack Ideas
- Fresh or frozen fruit, or fruit canned in juice or light syrup
- Small amounts of dried fruits such as raisins, apple rings, or apricots
- Fresh vegetables such as baby carrots, cucumber, squash, zucchini, or tomatoes
- Reduced fat cheese or a small amount of peanut butter on whole-wheat crackers
- Low-fat yogurt with fruit
- Graham crackers, animal crackers, baked pretzels, or low-fat vanilla wafers
The 5-2-1-0 Message Provides Suggestions for Building Healthy, Active Lives
- Eat at least5fruits and vegetables a day.
- Keep screen time (like TV, video games, computer) down to2hours or less per day.
- Get1hour or more of physical activity every day.
- Drink0sugar-sweetened drinks. Replace soda pop, sports drinks, and even 100 percent fruit juice with milk or water.
Be Supportive
Throughout any process or program that you undertake to address your child's eating habits, be supportive. Help your child set specific goals and track his or her progress. Reward successes with praise and hugs. Be positive.
Tell your child that he or she is loved, special, and important. Children's feelings about themselves are often based on how they think their parents and other caregivers feel about them. Children need compassion, understanding, and encouragement from caring adults.
Note:Foods that are small, round, sticky, or hard to chew, such as raisins, whole grapes, hard vegetables, hard chunks of cheese, nuts, seeds, and popcorn can cause choking in children under age 4. You can still prepare some of these foods for young children, for example, by cutting grapes into small pieces and cooking and cutting up vegetables. Children should always be supervised during meals and snacks.
FAQs
Whether you have a toddler or a teen, here are five of the best strategies to improve nutrition and encourage smart eating habits:
- Have regular family meals.
- Serve a variety of healthy foods and snacks.
- Be a role model by eating healthy yourself.
- Avoid battles over food.
- Involve kids in the process.
What are the most effective ways to encourage healthy eating? ›
Encourage Healthy Eating Habits
- Eat breakfast every day. ...
- Plan healthy meals and eat together as a family. ...
- Buy and serve more fruits and vegetables (fresh, frozen, or canned). ...
- Buy fewer soft drinks and high fat/high calorie snack foods like chips, cookies, and candy.
What is the importance of promoting healthy eating habits? ›
A healthy diet is essential for good health and nutrition. It protects you against many chronic noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Eating a variety of foods and consuming less salt, sugars and saturated and industrially-produced trans-fats, are essential for healthy diet.
How can you encourage healthy behavior? ›
- Create an Inclusive Fitness and Sports Culture.
- Encourage healthy eating in school and at home.
- Dental Sealants Can Improve Students' Oral Health.
- Help Kids Learn New Skills to Be Healthy During the Summer.
- School Nurses Help Keep Students Healthy.
- Access to Water in Schools.
- Back to School.
- Eating Healthier at School.
How to encourage people to eat? ›
Offer a variety of drinks such as squash/water served in jugs, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, ice lollies, and foods with high water content such as melon and jelly. Provide small portions, and then offer seconds rather than large portions which can seem overwhelming and put a person off even attempting to eat the meal.
How can we develop healthy eating habits? ›
8 tips for healthy eating
- Base your meals on higher fibre starchy carbohydrates. ...
- Eat lots of fruit and veg. ...
- Eat more fish, including a portion of oily fish. ...
- Cut down on saturated fat and sugar. ...
- Eat less salt: no more than 6g a day for adults. ...
- Get active and be a healthy weight. ...
- Do not get thirsty. ...
- Do not skip breakfast.
What is a strategy for eating healthy? ›
Healthy eating emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and protein. Dairy recommendations include low-fat or fat-free milk, lactose-free milk, and fortified soy beverages. Other plant-based beverages do not have the same nutritional properties as animal's milk and soy beverages.
What is the most important focus of healthy eating? ›
It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that the total diet or overall pattern of food eaten is the most important focus of healthy eating. All foods can fit within this pattern if consumed in moderation with appropriate portion size and combined with physical activity.
How does eating healthy affect your body? ›
Eating healthy will give you more energy, help you think more clearly, prevent heart disease, strokes, and diabetes, and may improve your mood.
How to get healthy and feel better? ›
11 Ways to Feel Better Every Day
- Seek mental health care. This is at the top of the list for a reason. ...
- Sleep enough. Most of us spend one-quarter to one-third of our lives asleep. ...
- Eat plenty of fiber. ...
- Go outside. ...
- Exercise. ...
- Do something creative. ...
- Practice a little escapism. ...
- Help someone.
Be physically active for 30 minutes most days of the week. Break this up into three 10-minute sessions when pressed for time. Healthy movement may include walking, sports, dancing, yoga, running or other activities you enjoy. Eat a well-balanced, low-fat diet with lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
What is the most important meal of the day? ›
Breakfast is often called 'the most important meal of the day', and for good reason. As the name suggests, breakfast breaks the overnight fasting period. It replenishes your supply of glucose to boost your energy levels and alertness, while also providing other essential nutrients required for good health.
How will you encourage others to improve their health habits? ›
Here are 6 steps on how to convince others to get healthy, and 5 things you must not do in this process.
- Observe and understand their behavior. ...
- Make it easy and enjoyable for them. ...
- Do it together. ...
- Incorporate it into a routine. ...
- Ask them how they feel. ...
- Track their progress in a subtle manner.
How do you encourage someone to make healthier choices? ›
How to Motivate Loved Ones to Improve Their Health
- Being a Good Role Model. One of the first things you should always consider is- are you a good role model, making healthy dietary choices and staying active? ...
- Avoid Preaching Fad Diets. ...
- Help Shop and Cook. ...
- Motivational Counseling. ...
- Recommend Professionals. ...
- Stay Positive!
How to encourage patients to eat healthy? ›
Explain that healthy eating is for everyone—regardless of income or household budget. For example, if fresh vegetables seem too expensive, suggest frozen or canned—just make sure they check the sodium content. They say: “I don't have the time to cook healthy meals.”
How can you develop healthy eating habits? ›
8 tips for healthy eating
- Base your meals on higher fibre starchy carbohydrates. ...
- Eat lots of fruit and veg. ...
- Eat more fish, including a portion of oily fish. ...
- Cut down on saturated fat and sugar. ...
- Eat less salt: no more than 6g a day for adults. ...
- Get active and be a healthy weight. ...
- Do not get thirsty. ...
- Do not skip breakfast.