Kids & healthy eating

Hester

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melt71

What an absolutely brilliant idea! My daughter is 8 now and understands that treats are ok in small doses but not all the time and she hardly eats anything with E numbers or weird ingredients - whenever she does, usually at parties, I really notice the change in her behaviour. Quite scary really.

HopeElizzy

I have 2 little ones and this is one of the reasons I shop on-line! :rotfl:
I take them with me when I go to the butchers and green grocers and encourage them to help me choose things. When asked what vegetables she wanted last week dd (4 in aug) chose broccoli and carrots so I was quite pleased.
Your mush everything together trick was inspired though - :T
Also, when my 2 watch TV I try to put cbeebies on as there is no averts pushing all the junk food.

bluenose1

My kids despite me encouraging them to eat healthily (they would call it moaning) love rubbishy foods especially McDonalds. I limit it to once a month but everytime we drive past one they say can we go!!!!!!!
My 3 year old thinks he doesn't like coke as I rather cruelly pretended Guinness was coke to discourage him. He hated the taste and won't try it now.

The only thing I think you can do as a parent is provide healthy meals and snacks etc and all the rubbishy things in moderation. Difficult as junk food is everywhere.

I tell my kids that my attitude is "a gift to them" LOL which they won't appreciate until they are older. I also make them do tidying up, help cook and wash dishes. They always moan as none of their friends have to. I tell them this is also a "gift" as they will be self sufficient when older.

Unfortunately they do not appreciate my "gifts." There again I didn't appreciate them when I was there age.
The joys of being a parent

wishingonastar_3

how i agree how hard it is to get kids to eat healthy. slowly but surely, after watching jamies school diners and various other programs she has grasped that not all food is good food!!!! i have a condition which means i need to eat extra salt, which i always feel bad about doing in front of her, but i've explained its notnecessary for her to have extra salt, and she is to be grateful for that.

by the way bluenose1, my dd also has to tidy up, make her bed, do chores etc, and it gets easier as they get older, we do it as my dd has a chart and gets a sticker for every chore she does, if theres 100 stickers on by the end of the month, she gets a treat, the cinema or something. works great and she loves the challenge of earning the stickers. maybe that'll be a help to sommeone,

love

woas.

Rachie_B

HopeElizzy wrote:

I have 2 little ones and this is one of the reasons I shop on-line! :rotfl: I take them with me when I go to the butchers and green grocers and encourage them to help me choose things. When asked what vegetables she wanted last week dd (4 in aug) chose broccoli and carrots so I was quite pleased.
Your mush everything together trick was inspired though - :T
Also, when my 2 watch TV I try to put cbeebies on as there is no averts pushing all the junk food.

same here lol

and :rotfl: @ pretending guiness was coke :rotfl:

Aril

Right from the word go I got my son to eat as wide a range of food as possible. He's only ever had the same as us at mealtimes [which does sometimes include pizza etc etc]. It's been mainly HM but he also has crisps etc in moderation as I want him to be able to see all food in context. His overall diet is healthy and he is used to seeing me produce the food. When the dentist asked him what is favourite food was last week he replied "olives"!
He's interested in his food and always very keen to try anything new. His only dislikes are mash and kidney beans. Perhaps some of it's just down to luck...
Aril

thriftlady_2

Aril, my 6 yo dd adores olives too! You are right,you really have to start as you mean to go on.I think your mixture trick was inspired Hester :T

I can thoroughly recommend two excellent books on getting your kids to eat well and healthily - The Food Our Children Eat by Joanna Blythman and Dump the Junk by Mary Whiting.http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841154776/qid=1145542341/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-4879911-4520436
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0954432401/qid=1145542396/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-4879911-4520436

Sarahsaver

My kids like healthy things better than unhealthy things. They cringe in disgust if you tell them how many spoonfulls of sugar or salt are in certain foods.
It comes from continued, sustained, subtle reminders of what is good food and what is bad. After all advertisers do it with their processed cack so I make sure I make more positive remarks to my kids than they will EVER see/hear about junk food.
Sometimes its the simple things that delight us most, like DS coming into the kitchen and asking if he could have a carrot to eat I always praise them when they eat healthy food/try new things and comment on how gross processed stuff is, or how much sugar/salt is in it. they know the danger of both due to a diabetic nanna and me who's had a stroke.
Lastly home made food has an ingredient you won't find in processed food. Love;)

thriftlady_2

Sarahsaver wrote:

It comes from continued, sustained, subtle reminders of what is good food and what is bad. After all advertisers do it with their processed cack so I make sure I make more positive remarks to my kids than they will EVER see/hear about junk food.

Absolutely,the drip,drip effect certainly works

recovering_spendaholic

Hester wrote:

My DS is just two and I am beginning to experience pester power. Last week he had the grandfather of tantrums in the supermarket because I wouldn't buy weird-coloured fizzy drinks, crisps and confectionary the like of which he has seen in other kids' paws and on TV. So I hatched a plan and bought certain ingredients then and there. Once home, I got a big mixing bowl and in front of him, poured in vinegar (ascetic acid), a heap of salt, a mountain of white sugar, generous amounts of different food colourings (which altogether went a disgusting brown), and some cheap cooking oil. I asked him to have a good look and a good sniff. I explained that while a little bit of salt and salt now and then tastes nice, and none of the things in the bowl would actually harm you if you had a tiny bit, on a regular basis they would make you feel quite sick quite a lot of the time. They would damage your teeth, give you headaches and make you feel grumpy.

I have no idea if this would work on older kids, but he's been eagerly snacking on chickpeas boiled in lemon & thyme and soaked prunes served with yoghurt without another peep. He has even been solemnly informing his nursery teacher, who ws swigging on a can of Coke, that 'that's what mum uses to clean the loo". !! (Felt embarrassed about that but it is true.)
Don't know if this will help anyone else avoid melt down tantrum in the aisles but so far, working for me.

What a good idea, but unfortunately, my DD would think that your mixture was just fab and would want to make it all the time - not to eat but because she is fascinated by gunge and the like (as are most of her peers!!). both my DD's (aged 8 and 15) eat any crap they can get their hands on and love it. I have tried and tried over the years to get them to eat even moderately healthy stuff but to no avail. They will shovel in chips, McD's, chocolate, white cheap bread (they refuse to eat the wonderful fresh baked stuff I get from the local deli), all manner of vile penny sweets and so on and so on. It is NOT because I have ever offered that food at home, because I haven't, they aren't rebelling because I have never ranted on about it either. They were breast fed until they were 18 months old, were given home prepared nutritious food from they were weaned but yet as soon as they got to school they became incredibly fussy and just ate crap any chance they could. Now that DD1 is 15 she tends to refuse to eat any of the meals I make and goes to the chip shop all the time, or gets pizza with her friends. She is an intelligent bright girl too - she knows it is bad for her but she just says that no food police are going to tell her what to do. My heart is broken over the way they (but particularly DD1) eat and I think my Mum would be so cross with me if she were still here, but I am totally at a loss. I still make and serve "proper" food at each meal but alot of it gets left. DD2 will eat most main meals I make but she too eats any crap she can when she is out of the house. I never keep junk in so its not a case of "if they're hungry enough they will eat it". What are other's kids like?