6 Truths for Raising Healthy Eaters

We are raising four (going on five!) little humans in our home. Sometimes it’s all we can do to throw some Top Ramen or macaroni and cheese on the table before whisking them off for a later-than-hoped for bedtime. However, in the grand scheme, we are working to raise kids who appreciate and consume a variety of healthy foods and can say, “No thank you” to foods that will not do them good.

When it comes to food, emotional psychology and physical need are both important. The attitudes and perspectives we hold about food go a long way in determining our eating choices, as does our understanding of the health benefits of different foods. Drawing from experience and study in the fields of health, parenthood, and life, there are habits and beliefs that will help our children (and us!) make life-long healthy eating decisions.

If we are doing our job well of raising healthy eaters, our children should be able to honestly speak each of the following six truths about their lives.

1. I Know What is Expected of Me at Meals

If life around the table is less joyful than you hoped, maybe it is time to reconsider your expectations.

Clear, consistent, and reasonable expectations are the key to meals that run smoothly.

And smoothly running meals will help your children develop healthier emotions regarding food.

If you haven’t decided on eating expectations for your household yet, now is the time to do it.

Make your expectations clear by explaining and modeling them.

Be consistent. When we give our kids mixed messages such as, “You must eat this whole plate!” and then let them run-off mid-meal, we teach our kids that what we say is always up for debate. Another common mixed message is announcing, “Dinner is served!” After which, we pull various options out of the fridge or pantry when kids express disgust over the meal.

Consistency does not have to include harsh punishments or affixed discipline. It’s just what we do. We don’t leave the table until we do it. We reiterate with calm words. Occasionally at our house, we’ll offer or remove a dessert to reinforce an expectation, but that is not the norm.

Set reasonable expectations by evaluating health needs, future eating habits, and your desired lifestyle.

Flexibility in life is important, but if our expectations are reasonable, we will find that flexibility is not needed quite so much at mealtimes.

As you decide what eating expectations work for your family, here are some of ours to get you thinking.

• My first plate includes at least one bite of everything served.
  • First plates are small in portion size. (Unless it’s mashed potatoes and gravy, then we all seem to eat an obscene amount.)
• “I get what I get and don’t throw a fit.” I finish my first plate…and don’t complain about it.
• If I am still hungry, I can choose what to eat for seconds from the choices on the table.
  • Here is where we try to be reasonable. I always try to put something healthy on the table that kids can fill-up on if I know the meal is not their favorite. Most often, this is a green salad. (Luckily our kids love salad!)
• I eat to the point of being full until the next planned meal or snack.
  • We usually ask at dinner, “Are you full until breakfast?” My lifestyle choice does not include serving food all day.
• I use good manners when I eat.

Making your mealtime expectations clear, consistent, and reasonable will increase the peace at the table.

2. I Will Never Be Poisoned at the Dinner Table

We have all endured the teary eyes and gag reflex produced by a food we found revolting.

The moral of that shared experience is that we survived it.

Sometimes our kids feel that the worst case possible scenario is death by disgust. Let’s keep life in perspective for them.

The pleasurable taste of food is not the only benefit of eating! Food is meant to provide nutrients that sustain energy and life, that help us grow and feel well. Our children should rest assured that when we provide foods that do not taste good, it is not because we are mean or trying to poison them.

You can lessen the blow of unsavory foods by sharing stories of foods you do not particularly enjoy or how you routinely try new foods that do not always turn out to be stellar.

Remind your children of times when they too have survived a horrific meal. At our house, we can always fall back on our bedrock of awful food: “At least this meal is not as bad as crockpot spaghetti!”

3. My Parents Are Responsible for Teaching Me Healthy Eating Habits

During most learning episodes, it is extremely helpful to have a baby in the house now or in recent memory. Older kids seem to understand when we say, “We wouldn’t let the baby decide what to eat for dinner. She might choose paper!”

Children should learn that just as the baby is not ready to decide what is for dinner, they may not be ready yet to decide what is healthy for every snack or meal. Teach principles of healthy eating such as eating to contentment rather than stuffing, choosing whole fruits and vegetables over processed foods, and limiting sweets to “treat” status.

Educate yourself and then take responsibility for what you teach by word, reinforcement, and example.

Always show that what you teach and desire for your children is for their own good because of how much you love them.

4. I Am Responsible for Making Healthy Eating Choices

At some point, our children will be out from under our wing. That will happen when they leave for college, but it will also happen for ten minutes while you are in the other room or for an hour when they play at a friend’s house.

As parents and children, we need to remember that our teaching means very little until the learner chooses to accept what is being taught.

When you discuss healthy eating, emphasis the importance of choosing for oneself, whether or not anyone else is in the room. Help kids understand why healthy foods are healthy, such as they provide energy for your mind and body. Also help them understand why treats are treats, usually because they do not provide nutrients our bodies need or can hurt us in specific ways.

Provide some opportunities for choice so that kids can become active participants in their own health.

Here are a few examples of eating choices we regularly offer our children.

• You may choose a fruit, veggie, or cheese stick for afterschool snack.
• Do you want to have your treat after lunch or after dinner today?
• Are you still hungry? Would you like more dinner?
• Please pick a vegetable to go with our lunch today.
• You may choose one treat. What would you like it to be?
• What dinner should we put on the menu this week?

Involve your children in the kitchen as you plan and prepare meals and snacks. Talk about what you choose to eat and why when you wander the grocery aisles.

Eventually, we as parents will have to let go and allow our children to make all choices for themselves. The better job we do educating them now, rather than only dictating to them, the more likely they are to make healthy choices.

5. Taste Buds Change

Whenever a child sees a food and tells me, “I don’t like that,” I reply, “Taste buds change. Maybe you like it now.”

I hope there is a food you did not like when you were young but now you do. For us, the most recent one has been Dad’s new enjoyment of onions on his salad. Everyone in the family knows that Dad did not used to like onions on his salad, but taste buds change. Now he chooses onions.

At every meal, everyone is expected to try every dish, even if they’ve had it before and it wasn’t a favorite. As Dad and others have shared experiences of changing taste buds, willingness for our children to repeatedly try these foods has increased.

This willingness to taste all foods (and the understanding that we as parents need to continue to offer those foods) is important. It helps prevent stigmas of specific foods and allows individuals to grow to like foods that are nutritionally beneficial.

One study reported, “New foods may need to be offered to preschool-aged children ten to sixteen times before acceptance occurs. At the same time, simply offering new foods will not necessarily produce liking; having children taste new foods is a necessary part of the process.”

The same study went on to say that as many as a quarter of parents prematurely make decisions about their children’s food likes and dislikes after only one or two exposures to that food.

A small success story happened last night. As my six-year-old was helping me make the meatloaf for dinner, he kept snitching the green peppers and eating them. I told him that if he ate them all now, we would not have any peppers on top of our meatloaf.

He grimaced and said, “I used to hate the green peppers, but now they delishify the meatloaf!”

I am considering patenting the word “delishify.” 🙂

6. I Am Grateful for the Food I Have Been Given

As mentioned before, our emotions play a large role in our eating preferences. In general and with eating specifically, gratitude is one of the most positive emotions we can have.

When we choose gratitude, we are choosing happiness.

Instead of choosing to focus on the negative (such as poor taste or “I wish we were having…”) we can choose to focus on the positive. We can be grateful for the love expressed through someone serving us food. Healthy bodies, the ability to eat on our own, and nutritious choices that fuel our minds and bodies are all blessings. And of course, we can be grateful for foods that taste delicious and that we don’t eat the same thing for every meal, every day.

We can help cultivate in our children a gratitude for health and food through discussions, example, and stories.

Discuss the effort and sacrifice that goes into providing food. Parents sacrifice time to prepare healthy foods and worked to have the means to buy it. Before that, workers raised and sold it. And in the beginning, a plant or animal gave itself to sustain us.

Not being grateful for all of that is like throwing away a birthday present someone sacrificed to give you without even saying thank you.

In our house, we try to use positive language that expresses gratitude. Instead of saying, “I don’t like it!” or “This is gross!” we encourage the kids to share their preferences with phrases like, “This is not my favorite.” Thank you’s are always shared at meals in prayer before eating and in word to whomever provided or prepared the food.

You can tell stories of times you were especially thankful for a certain meal or when someone expressed gratitude for your efforts in providing a meal. Share stories of other people’s gratitude as well.

When I was young, my parents often told me, “There are starving children in Africa.” If I remember correctly, I thought this truth was meant to help me happily eat the remainder of my food and not waste. At one point I realized, even if I throw this leftover food in the garbage, it is not going to end up in the mouth of a starving child in Africa. Why should starving children on a different continent affect my eating?

When I got older, I visited some of those starving children in Africa. They are very real. In truth, children are starving all over the world. While my leftover food may not end up in their mouths, I can be grateful that at the very least, I have that food. I have a variety and abundance of food. Let us not take that for granted, but instead, be forever grateful.

Raising Healthy Eaters

Like all worthwhile parenting endeavors, raising healthy eaters does not happen overnight. It requires consistent, conscious effort, especially in our world that unfortunately often leans toward fast food, body image issues, and diet fads. The great news is that just as healthy perspectives cannot be built in a day, it is pretty hard to ruin them in a day as well. So do not stress about the occasional misstep or what has gone wrong so far. Determine what you will do tomorrow. We can each do a little better as examples and as teachers, in helping our kids cultivate these attitudes and perspectives. I hope that each of our children will affirm, along with these six truths, “I know how to make healthy eating choices and that is what I will do.”

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