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Motivate Your Kids To Be Fit - A Few Tips To Start Them Young For A Lifetime Of Good health!

By Nicki Anderson
Special for eDiets

As parents, I think we can all agree that when it comes to encouraging kids to make healthy choices, well, it's not the easiest of tasks. So what's a parent to do?

It begins by creating healthy choices without being too obvious about it. After all, for many kids if you say the word healthy, they'll turn up their nose in disgust! It isn't uncommon for kids to push aside healthy options for the "fun" food, which is heavily promoted through television.

I have a number of parents telling me, "If I don't buy the food they like, they won't eat anything!" The reality is if they get hungry enough, trust me, they will eat. You've never heard of a child starving to death because his mother refused to feed him junk food, have you?

Children WILL choose to eat healthy food. It's just a process that takes time and creativity. There are plenty of good foods that your kids can learn to enjoy. It’s simply a matter of making gradual changes and allowing their palate to adjust to the changes. In other words, their palate is used to the high sodium and fat levels in food, therefore they will need to adjust to foods that don’t contain so much salt and fat. This process takes awhile.

A couple of changes that I made in the beginning for my kids was something as basic as making a smoothie with yogurt and fruit versus a milkshake. I served baked tortilla chips and salsa instead of french fries and ketchup. And for a snack, they ate sliced apple with peanut butter instead of boxed snacks high in sugar, fat and calories. Eventually, they get used to it, trust me!

Keep in mind that the changes you make cannot be dramatic. In order for changes to stick, it must be a slow and steady process. In other words, don’t clean out all your cabinets and refrigerator in order to eliminate all of the junk food, your kids will flip out, not to mention fight you every step of the way. To change nutrition habits, it needs to be a "work in progress" but once you’re there, your children will be eating and feeling better, and so will you!

Below are suggestions to encourage your child to make healthier selections now AND later.

Put your kids in charge of packing their own lunch.

The rule in my house was when you entered 5th grade you were responsible for making your own lunch. Waiting until they were in 5th grade worked because the anticipation of "being in charge" of their own lunch made them really want to do it. And by the time they were in 5th grade, well, I was really sick of doing it! It was a win-win: they felt grown-up and I felt vindicated!

My kids would begin by making a list of what they wanted for their lunches. The first time we did this, there was only one food group listed, sweets, so I had to explain that they were allowed to choose one "treat," as part of their lunch. Beside that, they had to choose their fruit or yogurt of choice, and the type of lunchmeat they wanted. I stay away from loafs. I kept the Food Guide Pyramid on my fridge and the kids were able to make healthy selections from that.

I hate to break it to you, but after four children I realized that they don't have the time or the desire to sit down for a five-course meal at lunchtime. Simply half of a sandwich (you’d be surprised how many kids throw out most of their sandwich) or a tortilla roll-up, or some whole wheat crackers along with a fruit and healthy snack will most often satisfy them. I try teach my kids to avoid eating to the point of being "full" as that sets the stage to overeat at every meal. I just suggest that when they’re not hungry anymore it’s time to stop. This is a valuable lesson for children as well as adults!

Teach your kids what constitutes a healthy lunch, if they don’t learn now; it’s unlikely they’ll worry about it later. Their lunch should include a healthy protein, fruit or veggie and healthy carbohydrate. The bulk of the meal should be the whole foods, not the junk. Whole foods are basically those foods that are as close to natural as possible, void of additives, preservatives, sugars and trans fats. You can learn more about healthy choices with eDiets.

Help your child make good choices by teaching them that healthy foods keep their body strong and fast. Kids will respond better to making food choices based on how they’ll feel versus "it’s bad for you." The minute you start referring to their food as healthy, to them it becomes gross.

Take part in preparing/planning family meals.

I don’t want to catch heat for this because I know dinnertime can be hectic enough without throwing kids into the role of chef. But here’s the deal, the more your kids can participate in family meals, the better choices they will be willing to make. Healthy eating is a family project and everyone should get involved. I believe that it’s as important to focus on healthy living excellence as it is academic excellence and what better way to learn than as a family.

In my home, I would begin each week by printing out a sheet listing the days of the week with about five spaces in between. Each of my kids would pick a day and plan the meal for that day. There were rules, however. It couldn’t be fast food and it couldn’t be candy. My son wrote down Snickers milkshakes for his first family meal, so we knew we had to teach our kids how to put together a balanced meal.
A balanced meal must have a nice mix of the basic nutritional requirements: lean protein, fruit or veggie and healthy carbohydrate. I generally think in groups of three's: protein, fruit or veggie and whole carbohydrate (nothing processed). In my house, dessert is a Sunday thing; otherwise it’s cut up fruit. Again, I would keep the food guide pyramid on my fridge so the kids could see what food groups to pull from. When my kids were really little, we’d plan our meals by color. To this day my kids refer to healthy eating as "colorful" eating. So however you can teach them to recognize and appreciate a well balanced meal, the better.

Popular selections at my house include: Mexican night, Soup and Sandwich, Boiled Dinner (ham, carrots, cabbage and potatoes), Italian Chicken (baked chicken with low-sodium spaghetti sauce), salad and hearty grain bread. I have a recipe book that I’ve kept over the years that includes all the recipes I’ve collected from online sources or magazines that the whole family has enjoyed. Sometimes my kids would go through that book to pick out meals. Feel free to create one of your own selections and let the children choose from that list, or whatever works for you, it’s just important to have them involved.

Don’t worry about this taking a lot of time. The beauty is that it takes about 15 minutes to put the list together and pop it up on the fridge. Additionally, it would help to create my grocery list!

There’s great value in teaching your kids that even with limited time and budget, you can still find healthy alternatives. Make it a family affair and everyone will benefit.

Understand the value in being active every day.

Because kids’ lives have become so structured, it seems their only form of activity comes from organized sports. The problem is that once they are no longer in sports, then what? What foundation has been laid to keep kids active beyond their structured sports lives? For many families, kids tend to spend too much time in front of the television or the computer. Unfortunately, this generation of kids no longer goes outside to play because of safety reasons or lack of motivation (nothing to do outside if it’s not electronic).
As a parent I understand all too well the challenges we are faced with when it comes to regular exercise and sound nutrition for ourselves as well as our children. Therefore the best we can do is to be a good role model and provide a healthy environment for our kids.

When it comes to healthy living, there is no perfect, simply doing the best we can do as parents. You can’t ask for more than that! Don’t forget that eDiets has many resources from which to choose, take advantage of them for health’s sake. Here’s to healthy families!

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Motivate Your Kids To Be Fit