5 Tips to Get your Kids Eating Healthier
Our eating and lifestyle habits influence our kid’s future habits. It’s important that we practice healthy habits every day in front of our kids, to set them up for a long happy future. Check out these tips to get your family’s health on track!
1. Don’t ban food or use food as a reward
Banning ‘treat foods’ from kids will make those foods more desirable. Making foods a reward e.g. “if you finish your dinner you’ll get ice cream,” will also make that food more desirable. Foods that are high in sugar should be ‘sometimes foods’ and kept out of the spotlight. Instead, offer healthy options and tell them why it’s better for them. Tell them that ‘sometimes foods’ won’t help them grow or keep them strong, that’s why they only have them sometimes.
2. Talk about the exciting benefits of healthy foods
Talk about the ‘cool’ benefits of eating certain foods. E.g the protein in their meat, eggs, nuts and beans will make them grow muscles and be strong. The wholegrains in their bread and cereal is will give their body energy to make them fun really fast. The vitamin C in oranges helps their bodies fight bugs to stop them from feeling sick!
3. Limit takeaways to once a week
Cooking from scratch means you’ll be having fewer kilojoules, salt, unhealthy fats and sugar. Cook your favourite takeaways from scratch instead, using healthier options. For example, making a homemade pizza with a wholemeal pita bread base, veggies, meat of choice and a sprinkle of cheese is a perfectly healthy and enjoyable meal for the whole family! Takeaway pizza is generally very high in unhealthy fats, salt and kilojoules!
4. Get kids in the kitchen
This is the best way to set your kids up for long term healthy habits. They will learn skills, learn about different foods and be more interested in eating their own masterpiece! Assign them simple tasks and give them little projects. Get them involved in helping to choose some of the meals to cook throughout the week!
5. Regularly try new meals and foods
Variety is exciting and it will expose your kids to more foods, meaning they will be more open to trying and liking healthy foods. It will also keep food fun and less mundane, reducing their likelihood to crave treats!
Get the kids involved in the kitchen with this week’s recipe for the whole family – Pizza for breakfast! What other healthy toppings can you add to increase your family’s veggie intake?
Brekkie Pizza
Serves: 2 Time: 15mins Cost: $2 approx. ($1/serve)
Ingredients
- 1 Wholemeal wrap
- 1-2 TBSP Pizza sauce (or tomato paste with garlic and onion powder)
- A generous handful of grated cheese
- 1 tomato
- dried oregano
- fresh herbs (parsley or basil)
Method
- Pre-heat oven to 180oC (fan-forced).
- Place the wholemeal wrap on a baking tray.
- Spread over pizza sauce.
- Sprinkle over cheese.
- Use the back of a spoon to make two circular holes in the cheese on the wrap – this should create craters in your pizza.
- Crack one egg in each hole – the cheese should hold the runny egg in place.
- Add the sliced tomato and any extra healthy toppings to your pizza, season with salt & pepper.
- Bake for 10mins – if you prefer a harder egg yolk, cover the pizza with a lid or another oven tray to make the eggs cook faster.
- Serve with fresh herbs!
Ideas for extra health boosting toppings:
- Mushrooms
- Spinach
- Capsicum
- Thinly sliced zucchini (use a potato peeler)
- Red onion
Need to make some more healthy eating changes?
Download our Love Your Legumes recipe e-book. We make healthy versions of your favourite meals and boost their nutritional value by adding in legumes. Start feeling healthier now!
Love Your Legumes Recipe e-book
Download your very own food diary!
Keep a track of your food, mood and exercise. Start to make healthier changes, then start to see the changes in your mood, energy and body. This is a great place to start if you are wanting to make real change.
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Need some more inspiration?
Head to our RECIPE VIDEO HUB – we have lots of healthy snack ideas you might want to try!
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