How to make a healthy happy meal
By cynddvs
@cynddvs (2948)
United States
October 28, 2009 6:55pm CST
While we were out today we passed a McDonald's right around lunch time. Of course my little one started asking for a happy meal as we drove by. I just couldn't stand the thought of pumping her with fried food for a quick fix. That's when the light bulb came on. I told her we would go home and make our own happy meals with happy faces. She agreed to it! Success! So we go home and of course she wants chicken nuggets and fries because that's what's in a happy meal right. Not our happy meals. This is going to sound really cheesy but it worked. Our happy meal consisted of a peanut butter sandwich (the peanut butter had to go on the bread as a happy face), goldfish (they have happy faces), and sliced apples and grapes (the apple slices were the smiles and the grapes were the eyes and noses). I know this sounds really super cheesy but it tricked my daughter out of buying a happy meal, it was healthy and she loved it. Sometimes we just have to use our imaginations a little to trick our kids into eating healthy.
Do you all have any tricks to getting your kids/family to eat healthy?
4 responses
@Kumar1232009 (1215)
• Spain
13 Nov 09
be creative and i hope everybody will like it what you are serving.
a colorful viand will attract your kids from eating it.
@redthaidevil (1047)
• Thailand
13 Nov 09
Wow, nice idea cynddvs, you sure got a lot of imagination there. Firstly, I don't have any kids yet since I'm not married but I sure hope I have children one day. I'll probably use a similar tactic towards making my children eat healthy food. I remember when I was young I also went for the junk food as they were tasty. Now when you grow up, you lessen those types of food and eat more healthy food cause it is really hard to lose weight.
@Thoroughrob (11742)
• United States
29 Oct 09
That was really smart of you. I have no tricks like that but should be figuring some out. Thanks for the idea.
@jodylee_04530 (1097)
• United States
29 Oct 09
That is not cheesy at all. Very creative and imaginative. I think as parents we have to outsmart our children. My son is the same way about McDonalds and we seldom go there. They have an amazing draw for children and their marketing team must be phenomenal. My son is a lot like me when I was as a kid, neither of us likes sitting down to eat. I have really tried to encourage use of his imagination so we often play games at the dinner table to get him to sit there and eat. Sometimes we are in an alligator infested river in the Everglades and other times there are mountain trolls waiting at the bottom of the mountain. We laugh and come up with fun stories and get him to take bites of his food by using the story. Like, the alligator said that if you do not take a bit he is going to go get his friends and there will be more of them. I love to hear my son laugh and will try anything to get him to enjoy whatever we serve.
