Ways to encourage healthy changes to your child’s eating

Suggestions include:

• Buy, prepare and offer the foods you would like your child to eat. Allow them to choose what and how much of these foods they will eat.
• Keep offering healthy foods even if they are refused at first.
• Include your child’s food choices in the family menu sometimes.
• Act as a role model. Make sure your child sees you eating healthy foods.
• Involve children in simple food preparation such as making a salad.
• Let your child decide if they have had enough, even if food is left on their plate. This encourages children to better understand feelings of hunger and fullness. These habits may help to control appetite and prevent overeating as they grow.
• Encourage slow eating if yours is a family of fast eaters. Put your knife and fork down between mouthfuls. Offer crunchy foods that need lots of chewing.
• Help your child recognise if he or she eats when bored, sad or lonely. Try to suggest another activity to help distract them.
• Try not to punish, reward or cheer your child up with food. It can be tempting to use food this way sometimes, but it establishes an unhealthy relationship with food.