We've said for almost a year now, that the best way to teach our kids a healthy habit - any habit - is to be a role model for them. For your kids to see you exercising or practicing patience and yes, eating healthy and trying new foods.
Well, now we have science to back it up: a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition says that moms who had healthy diets and just encouraged their kids to eat healthier had more success at getting their kids to choose healthy foods.
It was a study of low-income moms, but really, this news is something I think is important for all of us moms - instead of banishing bad-for-you foods or ordering kids to eat their veggies, if we talk about and show by example how to have a healthy diet, our kids will respond better. By choosing better as to what we have in the house, what we eat or drink (hello, three cans of soda!), we can really impact how our kids view eating. Even when we have days with lots of sweets, talking to them about moderation is a huge plus.
In this age of childhood obesity and diet-related health woes, this is one piece of advice we can all get behind.
Do you try to eat better now that you have kids? How do you show them a healthy diet?
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Yes, we have. We hardly ever have any chips around the house and my son eats a lot of cheese, unsweetend apple sauce, yogurt, whole weat bread with soy butter. variety of fruits, etc. Unfortunately he is really picky and will not touch a veggies unless it is mixed into something else.
We def make healthier choices and eat healthier now that we have kids. Junk food has always been kept to a minimum at our house.
If we are role models for our kids, then it would apply that anyone they spend considerable time with is also a role model, such as a day care provider or teacher.
A teacher my daughter had previously used to pull out a tub of frosting at snack time and eat it with a spoon, daily. I found this hugely ironic given the fact that the prinicipal was trying to curtail cupcakes during celebrations and that the lunch aides in the public school would go around physically handling and looking into kids' lunches, and notices sent home harping on healthy snacks. (typcially i'd send an apple)
Yes, we do eat healthier after kids, than we did b4 - but that also comes with age and knowledge. 95% of the time we eat a clean diet (it's hard to always be good)...we try to follow the Paleo diet, and only purchase food from the outer edges of the grocery, or farmers markets - no food out of boxes at our house!!!! My kids (10 & 13) grow our family garden, and are in charge of cooking 1 HEALTHY meal a week. We also eat at the table, and very seldom eat resturant food....and very rarely eat fast food.
I no longer live on mt dew and marlboro lights. ;)
so yes I eat better.
But yes I recently have become more adament about our diets. :)
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- HeatherNYC
on Jun. 13, 2012 at 12:00 AM