We can encourage healthy eating in toddlers and children by following a few simple basic guidelines:
1. Don’t fight over food
2. Do offer a variety of different healthy options that your child can choose from
3. Don’t make special meal options just for them
4. Don’t comment on weight
5. Model good eating behaviour and don’t express negative opinions about some foods
6. Recognize food fads as being normal in children
1. It’s best not to have a battle about food. Children normally eat when they are hungry. Sometimes a parent is not always aware of what children are snacking on between meals. Healthy snacks are great, but any snack can decrease a child’s appetite at meal time. Children also feel less hungry when they are between growth spurts. Often a parent knows when a child is about to have a growth spurt because they suddenly start to feel more hungry and eat more food. If your child chooses not to eat some or all of the food options available at supper time, then just let them sit at the table and visit with you while you eat. They should not be allowed to eat any dessert or goodies, but if they are express being hungry later they can be offered something healthy to eat.
2. At meal times it is good to offer a variety of healthy choices, so that you feel good about whatever your child chooses to eat.
3. Catering to fussy eating behaviour does not help generate good eating habits. Starting from a child’s first introduction to eating at the table with the family they should be expected to choose from what everyone else is being offered. When they see everyone else eating and enjoying the meal and enjoying each other’s company it becomes a positive experience. They can choose not to eat what is being offered, but a separate and different meal should not be made just for them, although it is good to make sure some of the supper options are foods the child likes to eat.
4. Associating food consumption with being too fat or too skinny can contribute to unhealthy eating patterns or even eating disorders down the road. If there are concerns about a child’s weight then don’t make the unhealthy options available in the home (i.e. pop or chips).
5. Probably one of the best things a parent can do to instill good eating habits in children is to model good eating behaviour themselves. Children learn from what they see. A parent expressing their enjoyment of many different healthy foods encourages a child to want to try those food choices as well. A child will quickly pick up on any negative opinions or comments as well. If you say something bad about a food the child is less likely to want to try it themselves.
6. It is completely normal for children to love a food one day and then hate it the next. Everyday they may want a banana, and then one day you offer them a banana and they say they don’t like it. Keep offering the good variety of healthy foods, so they can have another option when this occurs.
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