Today we are talking about tips for getting kids to eat healthy. Yep, you heard me correctly. We are focusing on ways that we can get our kids to make healthier choices.
And no, I’m not crazy. I am going to give you 4 actionable tips that you can use right now to help your kids start to make healthier choices.
Now I am not going to tell you to never serve pizza or donuts. Let’s be honest, I named my whole business after a donut. We are all about balance here, but helping them to learn how to lead a balanced lifestyle could be really important and it was something that was very important to me.
So I want to share with you these four tips, because these are things that I do with my two kids all the time, and because of that I feel like they lead a pretty healthy lifestyle. Yes, they still ask for candy and yes, we eat ice cream. It is actually a tradition in our house that on the 1st day of summer vacation we eat ice cream for breakfast. I totally am not being unrealistic here when I say you can do this with your family too, so let’s get started here.
#01 Lead By Example
The first thing that you’re going to want to do to help get your kids more in the mindset of making healthy choices is lead by example. You cannot eat completely unhealthy and then expect your kids to make healthy choices. It is not going to happen. They need to see you making the healthy choices most of the time, and then indulging in treats sometimes. The more they see that. The more they’re going to say, hey, this seems doable.
But if you’re not doing it, I can promise you they’re not going to do it either. There is no way you’re going to sit down with a cheeseburger and fries and expect them to eat broccoli. Never going to happen, so we are going to lead by example here. To do that when I’m making healthy meals, I kind of have conversations about it. So I might say, you know, today we’re going to have a chicken salad for dinner. I love putting in all the vegetables and the chicken and I love putting avocado in my salad. And it all is so good for my body and I feel so good when I eat things that are good for my body.
So we have these conversations and then when we’re eating like a donut or ice cream for breakfast, I have the conversation that this food isn’t bad for us, but it’s not something that we’re going to put into our body every single day because there are better choices.
I try to avoid terms like good food, bad food. I just want them to see that there are some foods that we might limit a little bit more and some that we want to focus on the majority of the time. And the best way that you can do this is by just talking to them, so you can totally start right, when you’re done with this podcast.
When you’re going to go make whatever meal is coming next, have a conversation with your kids about what you’re eating and why you’re eating it.
Super simple!
#02 Choices and #03 Respecting Their Tastes
All right, #2, is probably the best one I’m going to give you. Give your kids choices. Now, I know I could already hear it, I’m not cooking 5 meals. Trust me when I tell you I cook one meal, you either eat it or you don’t. That’s how it goes in our house, so I can totally understand that.
But and yes, there is a but here. Let’s say I am making grilled chicken, potatoes, and asparagus. I can tell you, my kids genuinely do not like asparagus. the rule in our house is you will try it every single time I make it and if you genuinely don’t like it you can have another vegetable. So I might have baby carrots or cut up peppers already in my fridge. I know those are good options for my kids, so I make sure that I have them. And whatever I’m serving, if they don’t like it, once they’ve tried it, they can have the raw carrots or raw Peppers. I am not cooking them another whole side dish, but they will still have their vegetable.
I am giving them that choice, and this one kind of ties into my third tip also, that we respect their tastes.
I’m not going to sit at the table and force them to eat that asparagus when I know they genuinely don’t like it because look, at the end of the day I want them to eat a vegetable. I don’t really care if they eat peppers or carrots every single day. I don’t care. I just want them to eat a vegetable.
I want them to be willing to try new things which is why we have that rule in our house, that you will always try something. But I’m going to genuinely respect their choice and their taste when they tell me that they don’t like it.
And before you start saying, well, they’re always going to say they don’t like it, they’re not. They might in the beginning, I’ll be honest, but as they start to learn that you’re going to respect their tastes and their thoughts they’re going to be more honest. They’re not going to be so quick to just tell you no.
I give them those choices, like you can either eat what I cooked or you can have the raw Peppers or carrots as a side.
Now that works really well, when we’re talking in terms of vegetables, right, because you can have that extra option that isn’t going to take you more time to prepare in case they genuinely don’t like something.
So what happens if they genuinely don’t like the protein that you’re making? Well, that is a little bit harder, if I’m going to be honest. I try to be a little bit more strategic with my planning and we’re going to be talking about meal planning and another episode coming up soon, so make sure you lookout for that. But while I’m planning my meals, let’s say I’m going to be cooking steak. I have one son who loves steak and I have another one who doesn’t really like it. So I might have leftover chicken from another night. That’s the protein that he’s going to eat.
I’m not cooking multiple meals. But I want them to be successful. So I still want to give them healthy choices that they like because they’re more willing to eat it.
This is not a battle. I don’t have battles with my kids at meal time. The more choices you can give them the more control they feel they have, and kids like control. They like to have that choice.
If you say, OK, I am serving chicken or steak, which one would you like? You’re in control of their choices but in the end, they get to decide. Giving them that choice gives them a little bit of power and once they have a little bit of power, they feel good inside. So you’re kind of giving them a choice, but on your terms and it really is so beneficial.
I kind of just did tips two and three kind of together, we give them choices and we respect their tastes.
#04 Let Them Help
Get them involved! Have them help you cook. You don’t have to do anything elaborate you might, depending on their age obviously, have them help you roll meatballs, or put cut up vegetables in a bag, or help you cut up the vegetables.
Or you can have them sit down with you when you’re going to do your meal plan for the week and have input on what your family is going to eat. Give them the choice right up front. Say “hey, you know what? I need some help planning our meals. Do you have any options this week? What is something that you would like to see on the table?”
Again, you’re giving them power. Kids love power. They love to feel in control, so why not give it to them. Why argue over eating healthy when you can give them options and let them choose healthy things that they’re going to eat.
Do you want to have carrots or peppers for dinner tonight?
Do you want to have cucumber or tomato in your snack tomorrow for school?
Give them choice. You will be so surprised that they will choose one. You’re going to find some vegetable or some protein that or some carb, let’s be real they love carbs, but you’re going to find options for in every category that they’re going to like. You just have to find it and once you find it, add that in as a choice.
All right. I just want to add in this one other thing, because we do this really fun thing in my family that really helps our kids be more open to trying new things, because I know that can be a struggle for so many families out there.
We do a sensory game, so we use our five senses. And we choose a new food, so let’s just pick peppers, right? It’s just an easy thing here, so I have a bell pepper. We use our all of our senses to describe the pepper. The whole family does it.
I do it. My husband does it, the kids do it. We smell it. We taste it, we touch it. We do all these different things and we talk about the vegetable. Then we go around and we say whether we liked it.
I like the raw peppers.
Did you like it?
No, you did.
I liked the cooked peppers, did you like the cooked peppers?
We have conversations about it. Everybody is willing to try it, because they know they are not going to be forced to eat an entire plate of it. We’re just trying it. We’re doing a little sensory game to try new foods, and that way we can have that conversation, we can learn things that our kids would be more willing to eat, and it helps us to give them choices in the future.
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