We have all been told that healthy eating should be a part of one’s lifestyle and not a fad that one reverts to every time the scale tips in the wrong direction. Perhaps the best way to make it a part of our lifestyle is to begin when young. Integrating healthy practices and home cooked food into our everyday diet will lead to a lifetime of healthy choices – Our children will thank us for it.
Here are a few easy to follow tips we want to share to honour * World Health Day* . Let us leave our children a lasting legacy of good health
- Make mealtimes a priority . Don’t skip meals but instead sit together, as often as possible, to eat together as a family. A child begins to looks forward to this time at the table.
- Don’t use chips and biscuits and cakes as *Rewards*. It builds a unspoken connect in the child’s mind between fun and junk food so much so that healthy eating is seen as a punishment.
- Fill the fridge with small containers of chopped carrots, sliced fruits, hummus, vegetable dips, fresh unsweetened fruit yogurts, baked nuts, a wholemeal bread jam sandwich, and all such things a child can reach out to when hungry. If the only thing that is within easy reach is a pack of crisps, or a box of muffins, then that is what your child will gravitate to.
- Teach children how to cook. They can begin cooking at a very young age . My 8 yr old loves shredding lettuce, blending the oils for the dressing, making lemon mint juice and measuring out rice for me to cook. My 4 yr old sits beside me as I make his pancakes stirring the batter and adding the chocolate chips. Children enjoy cooking and experimenting – many a times it is the adults who draw barriers wanting to avoid messy kitchens and spills and cuts. Once safety is ensured, allow the littles ones to step in and help. IT is a rewarding experience.
- Tempting as it is to let them watch while they eat, place strict limits on screen time when they eat
- And most important of all, be a role model. Children look upto their parents and anything a parent does is seen as ticking all the boxes.
Eat healthy, Stay healthy, Pass the right message to the next generation.
