Encourage your children to eat enough fruit and vegetables

POLOKWANE – Convincing your child to eat a healthy diet is not easy. It requires a lot of time, effort, thought, patience and perseverance.

Review spoke to Lizel Marais, dietitian in the city, to get a few tips on how to get your child to eat healthier food.

“Make nourishing your child a priority. This is important in order for you to effectively encourage your child to eat a nutritious diet,” she says.

Marais also encourages parents to stock their homes with foods and snacks that the children will like.

“Your child will eat what’s available in the home and if there is a wide variety of unhealthier options freely available, these will take preference over the healthier alternatives. Stocking up on healthy food and snacks starts in the supermarket. Fill your trolley with nutritious, healthy items.”

She says parents must believe in what they are trying to implement.

“If you don’t believe that your child will eat a specific food or dish in the first place, you are unlikely to convince him or her to do so,” she says.

“Set a good example. Your child will mimic your eating behaviour, so changing your child’s eating habits means changing your own.

“If you eat breakfast every morning your child is more than likely to do the same.”

Identify the possible reasons and find solutions if your child refuses to eat. The child could be too tired to eat, or perhaps he has drunk juice or milk too close to the meal and is not hungry enough. Even dehydration could suppress a child’s appetite for food. In many instances, children use food as a power tool and learn how to manipulate parents to get their own way.

“Persevere in trying to improve your child’s food choices or eating behaviour. It is common behaviour for a child to refuse a new or unfamiliar food the first time you offer it. It has been shown that children need 10 to 15 exposures to a food before accepting it. So try and try again, in a different form, with a different food, in a different environment on a different day. Offer only one new food at a time with small portions of a favourite dish and insist that your child eats at least one mouthful of the new food.”

You can also tempt them with the healthy, nourishing foods you would like them to eat. Strategically place cute containers or serving dishes filled with healthy, nutritious items, and they will grab and eat on the run.

Marais advises readers to be creative and different. “Who says that supper should include cooked vegetables? Serve fruit with a meal, or raw vegetables to decorate the plate. Thread raw veggies on a wooden skewer and serve with supper instead of cooked vegetables. Serving raw peas in an egg cup is bound to get your child asking for more. Make the word ‘vegetables’ synonymous with vitamins. Instead of asking your children to eat their vegetables, rather insist they eat their vitamins.”

You can place fresh fruit on racks in the kitchen that your child can see, reach and help himself. Arrange fruit and raw vegetables cut in different ways on a platter and place it in a fridge so that, when your child is hungry and opens the fridge for a snack, an enticing palate of colour is waiting.

“Food that is ready to eat is always accepted more willingly that if a child still needs to peel and cut it.

“Do not allow non-nutritious foods to replace essential foods. Children need to be taught to distinguish between foods that their bodies need and those which do not have any specific jobs. If they do not eat enough of the foods that have jobs in the body, they shouldn’t be allowed to eat unhealthy, non-nutritious snacks.”

Be consistent in enforcing good eating behaviour. Make food rules and stick to them, for example: No juice with meals, only water. If you give in one day and allow your child to drink fruit juice with supper, the message you are sending is that he can try to do the same next time.

Lastly, Marias advises readers to teach their children about what type of food their bodies need. “Make them understand the link between food and health.”