19 Nov
  • By harleydietitians
  • / Child

Six Simple steps to improve the nutrition of a picky child

Here are some tips you could try out to make your child eat a healthy diet.If you try these six simple tips there is ahigh chance,he or shemay develop a preference for healthyfoods, finding these more delicioustheneating foods with lots of refined sugars and unhealthy fats.

  • Bepatient: Repeated exposure to one kind of food is the key. If your child does not want to eat one food, do not give up yet. Try serving the same food again and again.For some children, it might take longer to get used to a certain ingredient.Introduce new foods slowly.Children are new-food-phobic by nature. I tell my kids that their taste buds sometimes mustget used to a flavour before they’ll like the taste.
  • Makeitfun: Cut the food in various shapes or serve some veggies with your child’s favourite sauce as a dip. Serve foods with a variety of colours.The more creative the meal is, the greater the variety of foods kids eat. Make smiley-face pancakes and give foodsfun names. (Broccoli florets are “flowers ” or “supermanfood.”) Anything mini is always a hit too. Weoften use cookie cutters to turn toast into hearts and stars, which the children love.
  • Getkids cooking: If your children become involved in choosing or preparing meals, they’ll be more interested in eating what they’ve created. Take them to the supermarketand let them choose to producefor you. If they’re old enough, allow them to cut up vegetables and mix them into a salad.
  • Establisharoutine:  Always try to eat at around the same time and refrain from giving your children snacks (juice, cookies, sweets) in between meal. Children mostly need to eat every three to four hours: three meals, two snacks, and lots of fluids. Offer snacks such as carrots,humous,nuts, yogurt,fruitand water.
  • Eliminatedistractions: Turning of radio and television will make you and your child focus on eating.
  • Setagoodexample: If you as the parent follow a healthy lifestyle and eat nutritious food, your child is more likely to follow your routine.

I hope you find this week’s blog interesting and useful. Look out for my next blog which will focus on “simple steps to weaning youbaby on to solids.”