Healthy Meals, Healthy Children, Healthy Weights

by Eileen Bennewith

Helping children develop a healthy relationship with food is one of the best ways for them to achieve healthy body weights. As role models, parents play an important part in teaching their children to enjoy healthy foods.

The best way to model healthy eating is to enjoy family meals together. Nutritionally, both children and their parents eat better when they eat family meals together. Studies show that family members have a better intake of fruits, vegetables and milk at the family table. This translates into a better intake of calcium, iron, vitamins and fibre. There is also a lower intake of the fried foods and soft drinks that are often associated with obesity.

Family meals should be offered in a quiet place with few distractions. Turn off the TV, use the answering machine and limit other noise to promote conversation. Talk about your day and joyful events. Do not talk about how the child is eating or criticize the child at the table. Family meals are for enhancing the relationships of the family and the relationship with good food. This is not the time to discuss behaviour or to punish children.

Children learn to eat what their parents eat by enjoying family foods together. Making different foods for the children will prevent children from learning to eat the same variety of foods that the adults eat. Children need to try foods up to 20 times before they even know whether they like the food. To give children an opportunity to learn to like a food, it is important to keep offering it even if they say they do not like it and even if they refuse to eat it. Eventually, they will learn to enjoy the family foods.

In the past, when children would eat everything on their plates, they were referred to as “good eaters.” Those who ate less food and stopped eating when they felt full were considered “bad eaters.” Parents would praise the good eaters for finishing their meal and punish the bad eaters. In many cases, they even rewarded the good eaters by giving them dessert.

Times have changed. Today, the good eaters are children who eat when they are hungry and stop eating when they feel full. They are allowed to refuse to eat at all if they are not hungry. Good eaters trust that food will be provided again and that they do not have to finish the food in front of them if they are not hungry. For good eaters, dessert is just another food. It is not a treat, or a reward, it is just something that the family may or may not have to end the meal.

To promote a healthy relationship with food, serve small portions of food and allow plenty of time for you and your child to notice when you feel full. It is better to ask for more food than to give too much to begin with.

Children should be allowed to decide how much food they want to eat and whether to eat at all. Adults do not know if the child is hungry or not. A good relationship with food means we trust children to know how much they need to eat to feel comfortable.

Parents who beg, bribe, threaten, force or play games to get children to eat only make meal times unhappy times. This destroys a healthy relationship with food and usually leads to fussy eating and mealtime battles. The less said about the way a child eats, the better they will eat.

Children who are allowed to graze on foods or sip on juice or milk all day are never hungry when they come to the table. It is fine to offer a small snack between meals, but do not leave food sitting out and available all day. For thirst, offer only water between meals. If you offer meal and snack times at about the same time every day, children know what to expect. If they did not eat well at the last meal, they can wait until the next planned meal or snack. A little hunger is not harmful and the child who comes to the table hungry will eat better the next time food is served.

Another way to help children develop a healthy relationship with food is to involve them in meal preparation. Take children shopping and have them help you choose the vegetables. If you have a garden, let them help you plant and harvest. Small children love to help out in the kitchen. They can bring foods from the refrigerator, wash and cut up vegetables, butter the bread or set the table. When a child has helped with meal preparation, they eat better.

Finally, the best way to work up an appetite for healthy food is to do some physical activity. Walks in the neighbourhood or to the local park, riding tricycles and just running around in the yard will help children eat better when they sit down to a meal.

Serving healthy foods in a relaxed family atmosphere is the best way to help children build a healthy relationship with food. Children who are comfortable with food are more likely to grow to their genetic potential and have a healthy weight.

Eileen Bennewith, RD, is a Community Nutritionist with Vancouver Island Health Authority’s Princess Royal Family Centre, 260 Irwin Street, Nanaimo.