Setting the standards during any mealtime of the day is imperative when developing our child’s relationship with food. By implementing this, it influences many things that have the opportunity to affect eating habits later on in life. The major factor is the influence it has on nutritional choices throughout life – this includes food preferences and calorie intake.
The family home should be an environment that pushes for a positive impact on our child’s eating relationship – here are some tips to push us in the right direction!
Bringing regularity to the eating schedule
Creating a healthy routine that includes regular meal times and snacks is essential. When it’s time for a scheduled meal or snack, our children may not be hungry if we are allowing them to eat whenever they feel like it. Additionally, this may cause them to overeat – which is an unhealthy habit that we don’t want them to pick up!
Family time
Family meals encourage children to consume healthy foods, such as fruit vegetables, and whole grains. It is also a time to reconnect as a family and create a beautifully positive eating environment. Children, however, who watch television while eating have been said to make poorer food choices. It is recommended to avoid eating meals in front of the television as this can lead to overeating and obesity in children. This is a habit we should aim to cancel out at a young age.
No pressure, darling
We may encourage our children to eat fewer calories by insisting they eat certain foods. It is our parental responsibility to provide healthy food options to our children. We should let children decide how much to eat based on how hungry they are. Is mealtime a struggle for us? Well, next time around consider including our children in the making process – get them involved. Who doesn’t want to try something that they have made all by themselves?
