Can we teach our children to eat healthy?

I am a strong proponent of the fact that we are able to teach our children to eat healthy. You see, for the early years of my life I lived in a household where there weren't parents that really ate healthy and now that I'm older, I can see the damage that was done to myself and my siblings. However, I have children of my own now and we feed them vegetables all the time and we don't have qualms about eating them ourselves, that said, both of my children are thin and healthy at this point in their lives.

We can teach our children to eat healthy by starting with ourselves. Teach by example, as they say. Try to incorporate a veggie menu each meal and give them a portion of it. Abstain from eating junk foods and sodas. Try to prepare healthy snacks. Take them occasionally in the park/playground and allow them to run and play. This will develop their muscles and burn more calories. Children became obese because they tend to be couch potatoes at home playing computer games. Encourage them to get involve in sports at a young age and teach them the importance of exercise in staying fit and healthy.

Teaching by doing is far better than just speaking the words. The article that you have mentioned about sounds very interesting and wish that you had posted the URL. As children we ate nutritiously and perhaps that is why I do, for the most part today. We always had a garden with lots of fresh vegetables, seasonally anyway and grew our own meat. We do have children in the family, from my siblings who are obese. What the parents have done to take action is to not bring junk food into the house. Since the one child is a teenager, she tends to pig out when she is away from home. She is active but still overweight. I believe that in the day and age, considering the foods available and the wrong choices that many are making, that we need far more fiber daily than what most are in taking. If we start children off with nutritious food and sustain from sugar and sugary foods, the child will not develop a taste fore refined food products. Eventually the child will find the taste of refined food as horrible as it really is and be apt to go for more fibrous good for you foods such as vegetables and fruit rather than a candy bar and a soda. Parents need to start with making better choices when shopping and preparing food so to incorporate and instill in the child food choices that are much better for us. Eating out of a box is easy. That is why most opt for this but far less nutritious than taking time to research, learn and choose better foods for the health of it. Have you ever asked elderly people who are over 100 years of age what kind of diet they had as a child, a young adult and to the age they are now? I have and more often than not they have eaten off their own land or at least refrained from refined and junk food.

I am deeply troubled by the increase of number of obese children nowadays. yes it's cute to see chubby small kids but we tend to forget chubby doesnt necessarily equate to healthy. I think it's possible to teach them to eat healthy but it would probably take a lot of tries and a whole boatload of patience.

Oh yes I believe we definitely can teach our children to eat healthy. I have 2 examples for that. The first is my husband, though he is not a child anymore :). His mum would buy him only fruits and very occasionally sweets. Today he is quite a model to me... he reaches naturally for fruits... and even when he has the choice he goes for fruits. The other example is my daughter, from the beginning i introduced my daughter to veg and fruits, now she dislikes chips or sweets things..she rather goes for proper cooked food and prefers fruits/raisins as treats.

good you remembered this - children don't listen, tehy observe :) and also they asume the life habits of their parents - if you eat healty, they'll start to do it too if you consume too much - you'll have overweight children if you do exercises - they will too if there is no soda for you in the fridge - they won't drink at least utntil the teenage...;)

Yes. You are right. Parents should show the correct habits practically to the children. Otherwise they will ask question as to why we are not following the advice. We cannot say, 'do as I say, do not do as I do'.

we as adults need to set an example for the kids as well by eating healthy as well. i don't have much sugar in the house now, so i only use lollies and soft drink as a treat when we go out. but sometimes we can't do as much about someone's weight problem, like my neice she's over weight for her age last i heard even with her eating healthy. but i don't know how active she is now, as i've not seen her in at least 12 months. but us parents really need to lead the way in it all.

When my boys were young i always cooked veggies etc. neither one of them were overweight growing up. Haven't seen my oldest son in a year but he did have some weight problems. My younger son has never had a problem w/weight & i'm surprised because they eat alot of junk food. His wife doesn't like to cook. I do worry about my grandson eating junk food all the time. I don't think it's good for him but he doesn't have a oz. of fat on him. I very seldom eat junk & here i am the fat one, go figure, lol.

Hi Marguicha, Yes we can always teach them to eat healthy foods. While teaching them to eat those, we need to be a role model in eating such healthy foods too. it must be what they see in the table. so they will be encourage to eat.

I think its easy to teach our children to eat healthy food if we are also eating healthy food. Its better to teach by example so if we want our children to something healthy then we also eat healthy. When I was young, my parents eat a lot of vegetables and vegetables were already in our plates. We were not allowed to leave the table if we didnt finish eating the vegetables. I didnt like to eat it but it was a good thing that my parents did right there cause I was able to live a healthy life until now by eating vegetables.

sure we can! children only need habituation. if they have had habit, they will be in their habit for a long time. it's also applied to food they eat, to everything they do. if we accustom our children to eat healthy food since they were babies, they will follow your rule till they grow up. discipline is the key.

Hi! There is no overweight in my family member, I'm glad that we learned how to eat vegetables. We must learn from our Parents first, and they must teach how to eat healthy food. have a nice day!! Happy mylotting..

I believe we can, we just need to train them how to eat healthy foods. And then explain to them the value of eating such food, makes them strong and healthy all the time. When kids learned this value, when they grow up they will be able to appreciate the kind of stuff that we want them to eat. ;)

None of my children are overweight, but getting them to eat anything they don't like is a real battle. If I get 2 or 3 bites of vegetable into them per week, it's a good week. Fruits are a little bit better...

thanks god that i have not any member in my family who is suffering fdor over weight. hahaha.. as u have seen me in my photoes, i am thin enough and my other family members too. have a nice day.

start from the very beginning, if possible.

Well thats a nice discussion friend. This means personally to me. As i was always a lean guy with less nutrition. The problem is i never was proper at my young age in concentrating on my food. I cant blame my mom, as she tried her utmost to help me out. But i was so careless. Now i realised and helping my kids to have balanced proper food.