Obesity is now a common problem among preschool children primarily because of the wide variety of junk food available in the market nowadays. From thousands of different candies to choose from to processed foods such as hamburgers and French fries kids like to eat.
Parents’ primary concern nowadays is how to stop their children from eating too much junk food and convincing them to eat healthy. This should be done from the time your child eats solid food up until he reaches preschool age when he already has an idea of the kind of food he wants to eat.
If such habits are established early on, then you will not have a hard time controlling and monitoring what your preschool eats.
- Promote healthy eating options in your home. Preschool children are more likely to develop healthy eating habits if they have healthy food options in the house. So next time you do your grocery shopping, cut if not totally avoid buying chocolates and chips and instead buy ingredients to make healthy meals. This way, you don’t need to guard your cupboard all the time because all choices are healthy for your preschool to eat.
- Feed your preschool six small meals all throughout the day. Start with a healthy breakfast of whole grain cereals and freshly squeeze fruit juice or shake. However, don’t force your preschool to eat, just make the food available whenever he’s hungry.
- Prepare home cooked meals. Whenever you decide to eat outside, you will be tempted to buy soda and greasy food. But if you cook at home, you’ll have control of the ingredients you use and you can enjoy freshly cooked meals that are healthier and cleaner too.
- Identify your food group between “everyday food” and “occasional food”. Everyday food is the healthy meals that your preschool should eat and occasional foods are the not so healthy snacks that may come as a special treat for your preschool.
- Establish Healthy Eating schedule. Eating healthy is not only about food choices, it’s also about eating nutritious food on a regular basis. For instance, it’s important to ensure that your preschool eats breakfast, eat meals together at the dining table, eat regular snacks all throughout the day and have enough time to eat meals slowly in a relaxed manner.
Eating healthy is not just a trend, it’s a lifestyle. Therefore it is important that you incorporate healthy eating in the day-to-day activity of the entire family. When it comes to your preschool, always lead by example. So in order to encourage your preschool to eat healthy, all family members must also do so.
