How to Encourage Kids to Eat Healthily

Busy family life, junk food commercials and peer pressure can make feeding kids healthy food much harder. In addition, many families have limited time for cooking, so dinners often become convenient rather than made from scratch at home and healthy.

Providing a healthy diet to your kids from the very beginning is the key to their physical and mental development. While the diet doesn’t need to be perfect, parents should still put considerable effort into exposing their children to a variety of healthy foods, which can help kids with health in general, stabilise their mood and sharpen their minds. A healthy diet can also help manage a variety of mental illnesses and boost emotional well-being.

When children learn to eat well from the early days, they will be more likely to adopt healthy eating habits into adulthood. 

Children aren’t born obsessed with certain junk foods like pizza or fries; it’s instead a learned behaviour and something their parents can influence. Children will still be exposed to unhealthy food among their peers and most likely eat some less healthy foods. However, it should never be most of their daily diet. 

The sooner you introduce nutritious and wholesome foods to your children, the faster they develop healthy eating habits. 

Our Tips on Encouraging Kids to Eat Healthy

No matter what age your children are, it’s never too late to introduce healthy food to them. Of course, they will develop their liking for certain foods more than others, but the key is offering as many varieties of healthy and whole foods as possible to get them interested in the taste and texture. 

Ditch Processed and Focus on Whole

Choose minimally processed food close to its natural form as often as possible and use that for snacks, cooking or quick meals at home or on the run. 

Be a Role Model

Children copy their parents, so eating healthy and enjoying whole food over processed should be for the entire family, including parents.

Be Creative With Your Cooking

Hide vegetables in your kids’ meals and think outside the square when preparing their food. For example, add carrots to their potato mash or grate zucchini into their meatballs.

Prepare Meals At Home As Much As Possible

While many families enjoy the occasional restaurant or takeout meals, try to cook most of your kids’ food at home. You can never be sure how takeout meals are prepared; many include processed sugar or unhealthy fat. If you have a busy work and life schedule, try big-batch cooking, where you make meals for the whole week in one afternoon.  

Get Children Involved 

Letting your children control their food can spark their interest in what they eat. Take them grocery shopping and let them choose which vegetables they would like to buy.

Keep Healthy Snacks Readily Available 

Make sure to have various fruit/veg and nuts available for those hungry afternoon bellies and direct kids to those rather than snacking on chips and cookies.

Provide Plentiful Breakfast

The first meal of the day can set the energy levels and mood for the rest of the day. So make sure to give your kids a healthy breakfast like eggs, avocado, cheese, yoghurt, fruit, etc.

Make Healthy Eating More Than Just About The Food

Healthy eating habits aren’t just about healthy food. It’s also about how we eat that food. Try to enjoy your meals as a family together as much as possible. It’s the time for connecting and the opportunity to catch up with everyone about their day. The social aspect is also important; your kids will greatly benefit from being in your company when eating their meals. This is the time for parents to be role models in eating healthy. 

Substitute Sugar With Sweeteners

There are various sugar alternatives which won’t spike your kids’ blood sugar levels or contribute to their weight, among other benefits. Fill up your pantry with Stevia or Monkfruit Sweetener and prepare meals and drinks for the whole family using those.

Provide Multi-Vitamins to Bridge the Nutritional Gap

A balanced diet should be the primary source of vitamins and minerals; however, with some kids having particular diets, we suggest giving your kids a multivitamin and minerals to provide full support for their growing bodies and developing minds.