Junk food is everywhere, so it’s vital to make an extra effort to encourage your kid to consume items with higher nutritional value by eating as a family and using other tried-and-true strategies. I’m super concerned about my son’s diet because I won’t always be able to supervise him 24/7. I’ve made it a mission to try every trick in the book to instill healthier eating habits in him early on.
I didn’t realize I’d set myself on a path to wellness, too. Looking back on how far we’ve come, I couldn’t be more thankful for this happy accident.
Why Is Healthy Eating Important for a Child?
Anyone who’s been a parent long enough understands eating healthy is crucial for kids. If you’re a first-time parent, avoid underestimating proper nutrition’s importance on your child’s physical and mental fitness. Be invested in their eating decisions for these reasons.
Consuming Essential Nutrients
While feeding your child 4–6 times a day is ideal, there’s more to sustenance than a full belly. Empty calories can satisfy your young one’s hunger but contribute little to nothing to their overall development.
For holistic health, your kid must get enough protein, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, vitamins A and B, folate, calcium, iron, magnesium, and potassium. Limiting simple carbs, sugar and trans fats in your child’s diet matters.
Staying Energized Throughout the Day
Healthy foods — such as non-starchy veggies, wheat bread, brown rice and nuts — are slow to digest, fueling the body efficiently over an extended period. Conversely, anything filling but stripped of most nutrients and fiber causes energy fluctuations and mood swings. Examples include garden-variety breakfast cereals, white bread and pizza dough.
Preventing Obesity
Weight problems in children often stem from eating large amounts of empty calories, such as fast-food items and sugary beverages. These foods’ energizing effects are fleeting, starting a vicious cycle of causing hunger more quickly and increasing the need to consume more. While obesity is a complicated subject, there’s no denying that eating healthy is beneficial for kids of higher weights.
Strengthening Immunity
Consuming an adequate supply of essential nutrients can lessen unscheduled visits to the pediatrician. Offering five servings of fruits, vegetables, lean protein, whole grains and dairy a day helps boost your child’s immune system. Doctor-prescribed supplements plug the gap in your child’s nutritional needs.
Reducing the Risk of Chronic Diseases
Terrible dietary patterns can follow your little one into adulthood. As an older individual, your child may be more prone to adverse health issues, including type 2 diabetes, cancers, stroke, heart disease and depression. Considering the severe life-long consequences of poor nutrition, nipping detrimental food choices in the bud is responsible parenting.
Sharpening Cognitive Abilities
Healthy eating correlates with cognitive development because certain nutrients elevate brainpower. The plant pigment lutein aids learning. Broccoli’s abundant vitamin K is a fantastic memory enhancer. The omega-3 fatty acids from seafood reduce the chances of cognitive decline later in life.
Performing Well Academically
Proper nutrition plays a role in school readiness. In contrast, malnourishment increases the risk of classroom underperformance, absenteeism and dropouts among school-age kids.
Why Eating Healthy for Kids Is Also for You
Teaching your child the merits of healthy eating indirectly trains you to make better dietary decisions. These six reasons explain this phenomenon.
Being a Role Model
Your kid will do as you do. It’s challenging to convince your kids to eat the rainbow and finish their meal to the last morsel when your plate is usually monochromatic and you rarely leave the table without a leftover. Eating breakfast, lunch and dinner as a family will do more harm than good if you regularly demonstrate your poor food choices to your child.
Lead by example. The younger your kids are, the more of a hero you are to them. They idolizes you, so strive to be a good role model in the kitchen and at the dining table. They’ll copy your actions and eat their way to wellness if you show them the blueprint.
Dietary Mindfulness
Eating healthy for kids means being wary of everything. Unhealthy foods are left and right, so finding more nutritious alternatives to high-calorie, low-nutritional value staples and snacks — such as candy bars, cakes and ice cream — needs work.
Reading nutritional labels to spot harmful substances — including allergens — can become second nature. Eventually, you may realize that focusing on the big picture instead of concentrating on specific nutrients is more beneficial.
Moreover, you’ll be conscious about weight management. Gaining too many or too few pounds for your kid’s age can be a cause for concern. Monitoring their intake to keep track of their body mass index isn’t overkill.
Everything you learn from your research can apply to you. What’s nourishing for your child can also make you hale and hearty.
Self-Regulation
Accompanying your little ones in their journey to healthy eating can motivate you to kick your bad habits. As a role model, you must keep yourself accountable and catch yourself when cheating within your diet plan to avoid derailing your child’s progress.
Routine Formation
Positive habits don’t happen overnight. It takes time, commitment and discipline to get used to eating healthy for kids. As you do it together, you’ll get the hang of the best practices — having family mealtimes religiously and stocking up on healthy snacks.
Gastronomic Adventurousness
Dietary variety translates to richer nutrient intake because food neophobia is real. To overcome their anxiety, join your kids in trying new goods. Overcoming this apprehension helps inhibit picky eating behaviors and gives you more options to round out the meal’s nutritional value.
Although only some of the things you serve may appeal to your child’s palate, this endeavor’s true goal is to train them to be gastronomically open-minded. Your drive to search for novel healthy items for them to try may encourage you to be receptive and adventurous yourself.
Cookery Competence
Experienced dads who know the assignment acknowledge that home-cooked meals are almost always healthier than takeout. Preparing everything from scratch can pique your kid’s interest in nutritious foods. Bonding with your young one over cooking or baking can also make them emotionally invested in the dish and willing to try it when eating as a family.
Decent cooking skills are critical to boost your confidence in making your kid tasty meals. Knowing your way around the kitchen can aid your creative thinking and help you figure out solutions to circumvent your kid’s reservations about unfamiliar foods, such as off-putting odors, exotic tastes, unsightly visuals and strange textures.
Finding your inner chef is beneficial for your physical health and mental fitness. It can break your over-reliance on processed foods because why would you settle for ready-to-eat junk when you know a couple of five-minute healthy recipes? The more you become accustomed to cooking meals at home, the more interesting visiting farmers’ markets for fresh agricultural produce is.
Embody Healthy Eating for Your Children
Appreciating how to eat healthily may be unintentional. Still, it only makes exploring ways to ensure proper nourishment for your kids more worthwhile. Taking care of your body means remaining full of vigor and vitality and staying around longer for your children, so hopefully, you have a stronger motivation to begin this never-ending journey with them.