How can I help my child develop healthy eating habits?

As with any part of raising children, no one does a perfect job with nutrition -- not even nutrition professionals. As a parent, grandparent or adult caregiver, you can help to raise healthy eaters during these critical years by doing your best to:

• Serve regular, balanced meals and snacks with a variety of nutrient-rich foods.
• Provide calm, pleasant meal times where adults and children can talk together.
• Allow children to use their internal signals to decide how much and what to eat.
• Explore a variety of flavors and foods from different cultures and cuisines.
• Share an appreciation for healthful food, lovingly prepared and shared with others.
• Make simple food safety, like washing hands, part of every eating occasion.
• Teach basic skills for making positive food choices away from home.
• Find credible food and nutrition resources when you don't know the answer.

Recognize that it is your responsibility as a parent to prepare and serve the food to your child and your child's responsibility as to how much he/she eats.  Also realize that it can take anywhere from 10-20 exposures to a new food before developing a palate.  After 3 failed attempts at introducing a new food take a break and try again in a few days/weeks.  Encourage your child to enjoy a wide variety of foods, colors, textures and flavors by modeling eating behavior and leading by example.  Explore the grocery store or local market together to select new foods.  Serve small, bite-size portions of a new food with familiar foods at the meal.  Encourage and praise rather than bribe. Recognize age-appropriate portion size of foods that are being served.  Keep family mealtime positive. Use the Choose My Plate icon as an easy visual guide/tool to promote healthy eating at meals.

Keep an eye on your child’s eating habits. What do your kids love to eat? What won’t they eat? I also want to know whether you’ve noticed any change in your child’s appetite. In private, I remind parents to keep their antennae up for clues that their child might be trying to lose weight in an unhealthy way, especially during adolescence. The desire to fit in with their peers, or achieve a body type that some kids associate with perfect beauty or ideal masculinity, can lead adolescents down a dangerous road of unhealthy eating in an attempt to control their weight.

Dangerous techniques include avoiding meals, fasting, and using food substitutes, weight loss supplements, caffeine and smoking as a way to curb appetite. Another indicator of an unhealthy eating habit is hording food -- you might find stockpiles of food you weren’t aware of in closets or backpacks. This could indicate that your child is ashamed of eating in front of others, or has developed a binge-purge routine.

These behaviors are more common in girls than boys, and although some parents think their child’s need to diet is fueled by Hollywood actors and comic book heroes, body dissatisfaction may stem from someone a little closer to home. There is a strong link between a mother’s attitudes about food and body image and her daughter. In other words, one poor self-image begets another.

So, what do you do about it? Try to be the best role model you can be. Compliment your child when they make an effort to look good and don’t put yourself down. Most important, don’t try to enforce a specific diet. If you need to control your own weight, do so in a safe, positive manner. Show your child how eating more fruits and vegetables and decreasing fats and sugars is safer and more effective than the fad diet-of-the-week.

I never recommend dieting to a child or teen who has a healthy body mass index (BMI). Rather than dieting, sensible eating and exercise is the way to go. Offer your children nutritious choices for meals and snacks and help them learn how to balance diet and physical activity.

From Good Kids, Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children by Jennifer Trachtenberg.

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