One of the strongest, most lasting influences we can have on our children’s lives is in helping cultivate and shape their eating habits. When they are young they will eat (or throw on the floor) whatever we choose to feed them, no questions asked. As they get older, however, they start to develop their own tastes and the battle is on to get them to eat something other than chips, candy, pizza and sugary soda.
It can be a daunting task, so we asked Joy Bauer, M.S., R.D.N., NBC’s Today Show nutritionist and founder of Nourish Snacks (NourishSnacks.com) for her thoughts and advice. She shared some guidance on how best to ensure that our children leave home instilled with solid healthy eating habits.
Healthy Habits Start With You
“The lessons that you teach your children about food and eating and the habits you’re helping them create and even modeling yourself are going to stick with your kids for the rest of their life,” says Bauer. “I think that parents need to keep in mind that it’s not just what we say, it’s what we do that’s probably even more important. It’s one thing to tell your kids they have to eat fruits and vegetables, but it’s a whole other, more empowering and impactful learning lesson when they see you doing it. When you reach for a banana over a bag of chips, you’re sending your kids a powerful message.”
That message, to choose healthy foods over unhealthy foods most of the time, sinks effortlessly into your kids when they see you walking the walk. “You’re going to set the stage for an adult who’s going to have healthy eating habits and I think even more importantly a peaceful, positive relationship with food,” says Bauer. “Then what happens is the cycle continues. Your kids are going to pass on to their kids all of the good stuff that you’ve taught them. It’s a healthy eating cycle that repeats itself over and over again.”
One easy way to do this is to stock the house with healthy foods rather than junk. Also, cooking healthy meals at home rather than eating out or ordering in can make a huge difference. Even better than serving them healthy food, however, is making them a part of the food preparation itself. “When [my children] were younger, what I used to do is each night of the week I would have one of the kids as my sous chef. They would be involved in what we were making. I would give them age-appropriate jobs in the kitchen,” explains Bauer. “As they got older they became much more experienced in doing the actual cutting and the oven prep and what not. When kids are involved in the prep, they’re much more apt to dive in and try new things.”
Common Mistakes
As much as she advocates for healthier food choices, Bauer does not preach cutting sweets and junk food entirely out of your children’s diet. She advocates for a ratio of 90 percent healthy foods to 10 percent fun foods. “I think it’s important to not make it an allor- nothing thing. They’re going to have resentment toward healthy food if it’s the only thing they’re allowed to eat so you don’t want to deprive them of all sweets,” she says. “Kids are kids. They don’t live in a little bubble in your house, they’re out and about. They know that sweets are great and if you make them taboo, those are the kids that are going to end up hiding food or … hoarding when they’re at friends’ houses.”
Another common compulsion Bauer warns against is joining the “Clean Your Plate” crowd. “I definitely don’t encourage getting kids to clean their plate,” she says. “The beautiful thing about kids is they’re born with perfect hunger cues. They know when they’re hungry and they know when they’re full. You don’t want to mess with that.” She also advises against using the promise of dessert as incentive to eat healthy because doing so validates the children’s’ belief that healthy food is something bad to work through in order to receive a reward.
In terms of beverages, it should go without saying that your children should stay away from soda and sugary beverages. Instead, according to Bauer, you should offer them water, flavored seltzers, non-fat milk, or a dairy substitute such as unsweetened almond milk. “If you have to do fruit juice, make it 100 percent fruit juice and definitely try to dilute it with some water or bubbled seltzer,” she says. “In fact, you can take half 100 percent fruit juice and half of a bubbled, flavored seltzer that mimics the flavor of the juice and you almost turn it into its own soda and there’s no sugar, there’s no artificial flavor, it’s perfect.”
Tips for the Time-Crunched Parent
The advice to cook meals at home is unsurprising, but many working parents just don’t have the time to cook a healthy meal from scratch every night of the week. Not to worry, says Bauer.
“Slow cookers such as Crock-Pots are a busy parent’s best friend,” she says. “You can just put in all the ingredients at the beginning of the day, you put the top on, you set the timer, and you get home, dinner is done, it’s delicious, and there’s no stress. You can’t beat slow cookers.”
Bauer also teaches the joy of leftovers. “I will double and triple recipes whenever I make recipes. I will make them in huge batches,” she explains. “Then I will portion out the leftovers in containers which I can stockpile in the freezer. I have a huge assortment of home-cooked meals in the freezer. It’s sort of like you cook it once, you eat it twice, three, or four times.”
Bauer recommends a parent having three to five go-to meals in their back pocket they can whip up in under 20 minutes, simple things like tacos, egg or vegetable frittatas, or turkey burgers. She also is a fan of serving breakfast for dinner, such as omelets, oatmeal, or whole grain cereal. Once you look around, you will inevitably find the right solution for your family. The key, says Bauer, is to think outside the box.
“Just be resourceful,” she says. “You’d be surprised how quickly you can throw stuff together.”
David Neilsen is a Westchester-based writer and a frequent contributor to Westchester Family.
Quick Brown Bag Solutions
The brown bag (or lunchbox) school lunch is a staple of childhood, but it can also be an ongoing headache for parents. What should you include? How do you keep it healthy, yet something your child’s going to eat in the 20 minutes or less they’re allotted? Bauer’s advice is to keep it simple. “I generally tend to stick with three items when it comes to brown bagging,” she says. “It has to include a protein, a produce, and then some sort of fun snack.”
- For a hot entree protein, she suggests a thermos of hearty soup (lentil, black bean, or chicken noodle), whole grain macaroni or penne with marinara sauce and shredded cheese, or leftover taco meat or chili with a side of tortilla chips.
- Cold entree suggestions include a whole grain tortilla filled with turkey or cheese and cut into sushi-sized slices or a hummus cup with whole grain crackers or bell pepper sticks.
- Produce can be anything such as apples, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, or grapes.
- For the fun snack, she urges parents to keep it as homemade as possible, but that you should try to keep the snack to under 200 calories. “It can be anything from a pudding cup to an oatmeal cookie or popcorn,” she says.
“You know what your kids like. Keep in mind that other kids will come in with junk food, so if you put in something that has a fun twist on it [in your child’s lunch], they don’t feel like they’re getting gypped while they’re staring at their friends’ lunches.”
