If it were easy to teach kids good eating habits everyone would do it. Right?
After all, no one wants their kids to fight with their kids about eating peas and carrots. Strawberries. Chicken….
And everyone wants their kids to eat these foods. (I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here.)
There are two distinct components to teaching healthy eating habits. 1) Knowing what good eating habits you are trying to teach. 2) Knowing how to teach those habits.
Maybe you’re laughing at the obvious. Yes, you have to know what you want to teach before you actually teach it. So let me ask you this question: Why, then, haven’t we had a national dialogue about exactly what constitutes a healthy eating habit?
We all know the food groups. That’s been effectively messaged. But when we’re asked to name eating habits most of us fumble. Eat fruits and veggies? Um, don’t eat too many cookies?
If you’re a reader of It’s Not About Nutrition, then you know there are only three habits that translate nutrition into behavior. Proportion, Variety, Moderation.
Here is a video that explains the three habits AND gives tips on teaching them to your kids!
(P.S. I taped this for the Re-Play community of parents.)
Back in January, I put out a compilation of advice from national experts on how to raise healthy and happy eaters.
~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~
