If you’re concerned about your child’s nutrition and eating habits, you aren’t alone. Since you set the example and supply the food, here are some ideas for helping your kiddos learn healthy eating habits to last a lifetime…
1. Choose Whole Foods
Processed foods are the biggest problem with our modern diet. Packaged and refined food products are devitalized and filled with empty calories that quickly lead to weight gain. Unfortunately, processed foods make up a large portion of the diet of many children.
Offer your kids whole foods, rather than packaged ones. Whole foods are foods that are in their natural state. An apple. A piece of sprouted grain bread spread with natural peanut butter. A piece of carrot to crunch. Vegetables, nuts, beans, protein. You get the idea.
2. Add Color
Adding bright and colorful fruits and veggies to your child’s plate will get their diet on the fast track to health. Fresh fruits and veggies are filled with fiber, vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health.
Make it fun! Serve veggies with salad dressing as a dip. Cut fresh fruit in the colors of the rainbow and place them on a skewer. Serve a color themed meal – all green, all red or all orange. Use your imagination and you’ll come up with an endless number of ways to make fruits and veggies fun to eat.
3. Make Smart Substitutions
Kids love pizza and pasta and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and that’s not going to change any time soon. Rather than fight your kids on their favorites, try making smart substitutions to make their favorites more nutritious.
✅ Pizza: Up the nutritional content of your pizza by opting for whole grain crust over white, adding veggies to the toppings and adding some lean protein toppings.
You could even make “Pizza Eggs” by adding marinara sauce, cheese and pepperoni to an omelet without needing a crust. A fun breakfast idea or any meal.
✅ Pasta: Make spaghetti with veggie noodles – see the recipe below!
✅ PB&J: A traditional PB&J, made with white bread using sugar-filled peanut butter and corn syrup-filled jelly, is fairly void of any real nutritional value. Instead make a PB&J with sprouted grain bread, pure peanut butter (with only peanuts and sea salt), and fruit-only jam. This will provide real wholesome fuel for your child’s day.
✅ Trees and Logs🥦🥦🥦 You know I'm a big fan of Broccoli, and those Broccoli "trees" can be simply steamed and served with chunks of round carrots (logs) or even a healthy version of tater tots for logs! Feel free to offer "snow" (plain greek Yogurt) as a topping for the trees and let your kids have fun dipping and eating the trees and logs like hungry Dinosaurs. (Cue the Jurassic Park theme song...)
4. Avoid Sugary Drinks
One of the best things that you can do for your child’s good health is to instill in them a love for water rather than sugary drinks. Soda pop, juices, smoothies, and blended coffee drinks = money wasted and empty calories that cause weight gain and a "sweet tooth", a craving for more sweets.
The easiest way to do this is to have a filtered water source and stock your house with sparkling waters. Don’t have fruit drinks or soda pop readily available so that they grow accustomed to drinking only water.
While I presented these tips as improvements to be made to your child’s diet, these tips will also do wonders for your diet. Practice these tips for 30 days and I guarantee you’ll look and feel better.
Parents all want good things for their children. Now how about doing something good for yourself as well?
Treat yourself right by calling or emailing today to discuss a program that will change your life for the best.
Call or email to set up a complimentary consultation.
Rose
healthyhabitsstudio@gmail.com
