Tips for Getting Kids to Eat Healthy Foods

Is mealtime often a struggle for you and your children? Do you have a difficult time getting them to eat healthy foods? If so, join the club. Most parents have these same issues with the kids, at least some of the time.

Instead of allowing the dinner table to become a battleground between parent and child, try using some creativity to make it more fun. Fighting with your child at mealtime does nothing beneficial for the family dinner setting or for the digestive system! If you’re imaginative enough, you’ll find your child eating more healthy foods in no time (without the arguments!). Although kids are unpredictable and the results may vary according to each child, here are a few fun ideas to help get kids to eat healthy foods and enjoy it, too.

1. Serve healthy foods in an ice cream cone. Kids like variety. Stir things up a bit and offer your child an ice cream cone filled with cottage cheese, nut and fruit mixture, tuna or yogurt. This is also a fast, easy trick for feeding an older kid on the run.

2. Let them dunk the healthy foods in something. For kids, there’s simply something appealing about dipping their food into condiments. Offer your child ketchup, ranch dressing, or any other condiment that does the trick. Be forewarned, it may not look pretty. In fact, watching your child dunk his peas into a pile of ketchup may be downright disgusting, but at least he’ll be eating them.

3. Substitute and mix healthy foods into the meals. Sometimes there are foods your child will shy away from no matter how hard you try. In those cases, you may have to draw on your creativity to conceal the healthy foods inside something more appealing to the child. Substitute cottage cheese or vanilla yogurt as a replacement for butter in your child’s meals. Blend up vegetables or meats into a puree, and add them to a sauce your child loves.

One of the keys to getting kids to eat healthy foods is to offer variety of healthy foods. Children tend to stick to what they know and love. Keep offering different foods, and don’t give up the first time your child rejects it. Allowing them to eat the same foods, the same way every night will make them more inflexible to trying new foods. Also, keeping the menu varied helps kids discover new, healthy foods they love and need to grow strong and healthy.

Check out this healthy snack food recipe for kids. This recipe includes ingredients that will fill your children with a healthy assortment of fruit, fiber, protein, and antioxidants. As a parent, I know the importance of these things in my children’s diet. I also understand the difficulty sometimes involved with convincing them to eat food that is healthy. The secret to this healthy snack food recipe is that kids love the taste so much they forget it’s good for them!

If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to read our post about a creative way to teach kids manners.

So, now I’d love to hear from you (and I’m sure CKI readers do, too!). What’s your creative secret for getting your kids to eat more healthy foods?