Optimizing Your Child's Eating Habits Healthy Bite #2

Division of Responsibility – Understanding the responsibilities of the parent and the child at mealtimes will help both to feel confident at the dinner table. Your job as a parent is to provide a meal and snack SCHEDULE (when and where to eat) for your child as well as provide them with HEALTHY CHOICES. It is your child’s responsibility to decide HOW MUCH and whether he/she will eat at all. Trust that your child will eat according to appetite and focus on quality not quantity. In the long term, bribing, threatening and rewarding your child over food generally does not help your child like healthy foods.

Optimizing Your Child’s Eating Habits

Teaching your child healthy eating habits can be challenging. Most parents recognize the role that good nutrition plays in their daily lives. Putting this into practice is not as straight forward. Here are a few tips to help you get started on creating healthy eating habits for your child:

Healthy Bite #1

Do as I Do: Parents are the most significant role models and children will eat what you eat in the end. Generally, the better the parents eat, the better the children will eat. Remember to:

• Fill up on vegetables and fruit. Aim to fill half of your plate with the disease fighting super foods at mealtimes.

• Stock your kitchen with healthy foods that will provide energy to avoid those moments of reaching for the bag of chips or sugary treats.