Teaching kids to eat healthy

It starts early

Recently I participated in a series of lectures on the topic of overweight kids. It was a professional interest, but still, I think it is very relevant here. Do you remember how it all started? Who was an overweight kid, raise your hand. Wow! So many… Eat healthy! Easier said than done, right?

Babies are chubby. It is like that. But it is ok when they are a year old. I am not promoting crazy diets for kids, God forbid, but it is a very good idea to start with healthy eating as soon as possible. What do I mean by this? When the baby starts eating solid food, they normally eat fruit and veggies, all through a blender. And this is the point when they are learning their behavior around food.

Habits stick with us

This early we can track the problems that are later so incredibly difficult to fix. What you learn young, will stick with you. Kids are not silly. No matter what we tell them, if they see a different behavior in us, what they will imitate? Yes, the behavior they see, not the words that fly away in the wind.

Mums know. If your toddler doesn’t want to eat something, pretend that you are eating it and that you love it. The ideal would be to eat it. (Yes, some of the blended food is disgusting for adults.) This is incredibly important to remember. Kids learn by imitation, not by orders. Trying to convince with reason your three years is futile anyway 😀

If the kids see that their parents eat healthy, they will take it as a normal thing and they will want to do it as well. Every kid wants to do the “adult thing”. This is the easiest way to introduce them to the lifelong habit of eating reasonably. The better the relationship with food the kids develop in their childhood, the easier they will have it throughout their lifetime.

It comes from the family

But my kid sees what other kids eat. They eat junk food, sweets, cookies, you name it all the time. Everything is loaded with sugar, chemicals, artificial flavoring, and sweeteners. Those who have ever seen kids eating their home-packed lunch will understand. I have been teaching for a while, so I have first-hand experience. It seemed to me almost surreal what I sometimes saw in their lunch boxes.

And it was funny because you could see it at the first glance. The kids who had “healthier” lunches, were usually slimmer, had more energy, and were not sleepy afterward. But if you saw a typical takeaway lunch, you could bet that it is useless to try to ask that little person something an hour later in class. Sleepy, tired, sometimes misbehaving, bad concentration. And very often with starting overweight.

Talk about food

I am not saying that eating a pizza or going out to have burgers is a forever-banned thing. Why not? We all do that. We are humans and we want to have a “feast” occasionally. It is completely normal. But in this case, it is good to explain to the child what is going on. It is good to put things into perspective and context. Sometimes we have a party time and we eat differently. Eating pizza is an occasional thing. They will obviously love it anyway, who doesn’t?

There is one thing that I think is rarely going on in the family. And it is a crucial one. Have you ever talked with your kid about food? Trying to explain what is good and what is not so much? There is no need to demonize some things. This is absolutely counterproductive. Inducing fear of food is crazy. We should never do this. But screaming at your kid “Eat your veggies” and munching on chips next to them… you know what I mean.

What is normal?

The habits around food come from the family. This is undoubtful. Kids will eat the same things as their parents. Surviving on takeouts and feeding your kids nuggets and chips with ketchup is one extreme. And forcing your kid to eat strictly healthy is the other one. None of them is a good idea. But we know that what we learn at home sticks with us basically forever. We take it for granted, it is normal for us.

The question is what is normal, right? If everyone in the family is overweight and the kid is growing up and piling up weight, it is seen as normal because “obesity runs in the family”. This is the silliest excuse I have ever heard. Personal confession here: I am a victim of this nonsense myself. And if your grandparents tell you that you don’t allow your kiddos anything and they will grow up of the weight, beware.

Grandparents…

Grandparents are great, they can help a lot with the logistics if they live nearby, but make sure you know what is going on when your kids are with them. It is obvious, that grandparents are here to spoil the kids, no doubt about that. But tons of sweets and like didn’t do good to anyone. Maybe you will need to have a kinda unpleasant and upsetting conversation with them. It usually helps.

Habits stick with you

What you learn young sticks with you. I keep repeating this all the time. Unfortunately / luckily it is like this. Depends on the point of view. Learning reasonable behavior around food starts from the youngest age. We show kids that eating healthy can be yummy, that there are endless options, and that it can be fun. They will take it for granted. This is a normal way. No need to be exaggerating.

Talk to them, explain, discuss things. Each of us has our preferences and things we simply don’t like. There is no need to push children to eat food they don’t like. “You will be sitting here until you finish it!” and then force-feed it. This is a highway to hell. Again, it happened to me. I developed the strongest of aversions to boiled spinach. They forced me at kindergarten to eat it, and 40 years later, I cannot eat it. My stomach revolves only smelling it. We don’t want things like these to happen to our little ones.

An active family

And another very important thing is being active as a family. Are you going out together? Do your kids see you doing some sports? Are you exercising at home? Or going to the gym? Are you going out somewhere at the weekend? How about your holidays? There is no need to cross mountains but how about going to see a castle? See someplace in the nature? Go swimming? Spend the afternoon playing in the park? You are not training an Olympic athlete. Just make sure the kid sees physical activity as a normal thing.

The toughest of competitions

I know, it is extremely hard. You are competing against a pizza and a PlayStation or tablet. This is an excuse parents often use. The question is who ordered the pizza and who put the tablet in those small hands… I seriously doubt it was your 5 years old. Yes, it is the easiest way how to entertain them when you need to do something. But is it the best way of sorting things out? Think for yourself.

The decision comes from the parents. You are there to set the rules. Yes, sometimes it is not easy. Kids have this great capability to keep testing us on how far they can go. Where do we let them? How far is too far? But again. Parents are there to make sure that some kind of discipline and rules are maintained. I know these words are not very popular today. But children want limits. They need limits. It keeps them safe. You can discuss the rules, and you can set them together. But as a parent, it is you who will enforce them at the end of the day.

Depends on the whole family

Food-related problems are usually difficult ones to sort out. It needs a holistic approach. It is the whole family who needs to participate in the change and start doing the right things. You don’t want to get to this point? Easy. Don’t teach or even show your children behavior you don’t want them to learn. Start early and be consistent. Talk about things and have things under control. (funny me, right?)

It is much easier to learn something good once than spend a lifetime unlearning or combatting a bad habit. The consequences can be too harsh. Overweight kids usually have fewer friends, are more likely to be depressed, are more “clumsy”, and can be bullied at school. We live in a society where appearances are everything. Unfortunately. But the weight is much more than appearances. Just think about all the health problems that come with it. No need to get to this point and have to sort out diabetes in your teenager.