Nutritious Delicious And Kosher

Top 10 Tips to Help Your Kids Eat Right

By: BONNIE TAUB-DIX, MA, RD, CDN

"Eat your vegetables." That’s what my mom said, but I didn’t want anything to do with veggies till I became a teenager and wanted to eat healthier. I’m sure you would agree that it’s not always easy to get your kids to eat right, but investing in your children’s health is the best investment you’ll ever make. Without bringing too much doom and gloom, have you heard those statements made by the media? "For the first time we are faced with children predeceasing their parents." "Our children are developing diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol levels at alarming rates." "Seventeen percent of our children are considered to be overweight or obese." These accounts are frightening, but they are not hype… they are real.

There are many reasons why things are "not like they used to be," and why our kids are not as healthy as they should be. Prepared foods and snacks consumed too often including fatty, sugary items; running, jumping and exercising takes place within a video game instead of in your backyard; and kids are not aware of how their food choices today could affect their lives tomorrow. Kids need to be exposed to lifelong habits to help them develop skills for taking care of themselves.

Here are the top 10 tips to help guide you to a healthier table and help you grow a tall, strong family tree:

1. You don’t have to be the Food Police. Your job is to provide the food and, the more selective you are about what you provide, the less you’ll have to stress-out over what your family is eating (or not eating).

2. Don’t encourage membership in the Clean Plate Club. Contrary to past beliefs, you don’t have to finish everything on your plate. The best way to control weight is by watching portion sizes. Everything can fit in a healthy diet (and so will your clothes!)

3. Just because it’s shabbos, it doesn’t mean you have to buy a sample of every cake that the bakery sells or bake all of your favorite family recipes on the same day. Try to buy A CAKE for dessert instead of offering a Viennese table every weekend and, perhaps, offer a beautiful bowl of cut up fruit, too. The likelihood is that dessert is being served after a big meal, when it is needed the least.

4. Have cut up veggies or fruit available when your kids get home from school or serve soup as an appetizer. These types of foods can slow down the appetite of a hungry child by adding lots of nutrient-rich value with few calories. Offer a fruit and/or a vegetable at each meal and snack.

5. Don’t have a candy drawer. Avoid soda if possible or save it for restaurants. Sweets are treats, and should not be treated as everyday foods to be consumed in unlimited quantities. I’m not a food prude, but remember that each teaspoon of sugar has 4 grams of sugar. That means that an average can of soda is the same as having a can of water with 10 packets of sugar (yes, 10!) mixed in it. For a real eye-opening experience, check the sugar contents on the labels of some of the snacks you have at home right now.

6. Keep a variety of healthy snacks around the house and try to purchase individually packed items. Smaller portions encourage weight control and curtail overeating. The use of 100-calorie packs could save calories, but most are far from healthy choices. You can make your own 100-calorie packs with a zipper-locking bag and kid-friendly portions of popcorn, dried fruit and nut mixes, whole grain pretzels or even cut up fruits and veggies.

7. Help your kids make a deposit in the bone bank: they need the equivalent of 3 cups of milk each day. One cup of milk has the same amount of calcium as 1-1/2 ounces of cheese, 1 cup of yogurt, or 1 cup of calcium-fortified soy milk.

8. Try to limit or avoid eating along with simultaneous activities, like TV, video games or reading. We should all be eating when we’re eating, to get the full enjoyment of each bite.

9. Eat together (at the table). Numerous studies have reflected that families that eat together result in kids eating more fruits and veggies with a bonus side effect of better grades in school and less cigarette, drug and alcohol abuse.

10. Get your kids moving. Many schools don’t make physical activity a priority, so after school and the weekend become important times to do something together. Don’t call it "exercise," try to make it fun, like bike riding or jumping rope. You’ll see big benefits too, both physically and emotionally.

And last, but surely not least, it is said that the best way to teach is to teach by example. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at our own habits before we look to change the habits of our offspring.

Author Bio:

- BONNIE TAUB-DIX, MA, RD, CDN authors Kosher.com’s “Nutritious, Delicious and Kosher: Tips for Healthy Kosher Living and Eating,” providing nutritional insight to site visitors/users. She is a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and Director and Owner of BTD Nutrition Consultants with offices on Long Island and in New York City. She is also a specialist in behavior and lifestyle modification, nutritional psychotherapy, obesity and weight management. - Read more...