Though it’s not groundbreaking news, the preschool years are the most important time for parents to teach about a healthy diet, by offering a variety of food choices, having regular meal and snack times, and modelling good health themselves.
“Parents face many feeding obstacles as their children reach 2 years old,” said Judith Levine, R.D., M.S. “A child’s appetite may decrease as growth slows, outside influences from television or other children start to impact a child’s food choices, and some children start to decline foods and beverages they once enjoyed as they start using utensils or switch from bottle to sippy cup.”
“Despite these challenges, parents need to pay close attention to their children’s eating behaviors and teach him or her to eat healthy. Habits formed during the preschool years will impact health and wellness over a lifetime.”
Levine notes mealsmatter.org as a useful resource to help parents to do this. The site includes a series of information specifically for parents with preschool-age children, such as:
- A developmental chart detailing common eating patterns and nutritional needs at different stages of growth;
- Downloadable tip sheets offering tools for fostering healthy eating habits; and
- Numerous nutritious, kid-friendly recipes such as a fresh fruit burrito, creamy yogurt vegetable dip and hand-held ham and cheese wraps.
Helping children to learn what foods are healthy and not-so healthy early on it life will reap benefits for their whole life.
3 thoughts on “Early learning of good eating habits requires good parental role model”
Hi,
I recently purchased a fun product from a company called Simple Memory
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It’s a really cool item actually — it’s a magnet set that lists the
major food groups, has them color coded in rainbow-like colors, and
tells you everything about the food — vitamins, calories, grams of
fat, protein, etc. It’s REALLY helpful and it makes my fridge look
happier too!
This product would be a great fit for a review, and I think those that
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It’s perfect for anyone who already maintains a healthy lifestyle and
sees it as a great novelty magnet set to add to their fridge, or for
those looking to eat a little healthier. Here’s a direct link to an
image of the product: http://www.simplememoryart.com/shop_MG102.html
Have a great day!
All the best,
Lisa
Thanks for the link to the mealsmatter.org website. It does have valuable resource I can use. Want to make sure my 2nd boy does not eat like my first! The 1st, despite our very best efforts, are pretty choosy about what he eats, and we have be trying to ‘force’ him to eat more healthily. Hope it will be better with my 2nd.
No problem at all.
A lot of this advice isn’t rocket science, but of course it can be another matter when you’ve actually got children and are trying to encourage them to eat well.