How to Help Your Child Eat Healthy

Does your child always throw tantrums at the dinning table? Does he always demand unhealthy foods? As a parent it must be tempting to give in to these tantrums once in a while, but what do you do if your child's fixation with junk food begins to take a toll on his health? With childhood obesity on the rise in India, it is cause for concern. Today. Dr. Shilpa Mittal - Nutritionist, Diet Consultant and Founder of Nutrilife Health Management, comes to your rescue and shares some healthy nutritious tips to keep your child healthy and fit…

1. Meal times should be fun and sociable occasions.
2. Have fixed eating times, say 6-7 meals/ day.
3. Introduce only one food at a time.
4. Be honest about what you are offering. 
5. Avoid feeding them with salty nibbles like waffers, chips, packaged foods. 
6. Avoid carbonated drinks.
7. Keep food separate from discipline – it should never be used as reward (chocolates), bribe or threat.
8. Eat with your child so that you set an example of healthy eating. 
9. Eat a variety of foods - the larger the variety of food the better is the nutritional intake of children. That’s because different foods provide different nutrients.
10. As important as nutrition may be, the presentation of food is what will draw your child to the table initially.
11. Make nutrition and exercise family priorities.
12. Connect exercise with activities kids already like to do.
13. Play games – for shopping and serving health foods. eg:- introduce an unusual fruit/ vegetable every week or designate a week as “red foods week” and let your kids select every healthy red food they like.

Getting your child to eat healthy also depends on what you are offering your kids. If you expose them to junk foods often, they will want to eat those foods more, so be very careful about convenient unhealthy fall-back foods like cookies, chips or instant noodles.
healthmeup

Avoiding Childhood Obesity

By Mary Bodel
What do our children do? Do they run outside, play softball in the street and ride their bicycles up and down the sidewalk? That's what we did as kids. On the other hand, do they sit down at the computer to do their homework, get a few video games in before dinner and then sit down to watch television? For many children, it's the second set of activities.
How does diet affect our children? Do our children eat vegetables grown in their own yard, take a lunch to school and eat fruit for dessert? On the other hand, do they eat frozen waffles, a high fat school lunch and then takeout for dinner? Once again, many follow the latter pattern.
How can we protect our children? The best way is to be more like the first statements and less like the latter. The problem is that it's a very difficult way to go.
As I said in the summary, the biggest problem in the war against childhood obesity is inactivity. There are so many electronic devices available that our kids are more likely to text the person they're sitting next to rather than speak.
Should they give up all of these devices? That isn't really the answer either. Instead, we parents need to set limits. That's the role of a parent. We should also encourage our children to be active.
There's a second part to that. Take replace "children" with "we adults." How many of us still go outside and play? How often do we prepare and eat meals with fresh fruits and vegetables? Our children can't learn to be active and eat well unless they are taught. They need to be taught both by our words and by our deeds.
Here's a suggestion. Get out the old badminton set (or basketball or softball) and play *with* the kids. Find ways to serve healthy foods that can be made quickly at home. When we as a nation of parents can do that, we can end childhood obesity.

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