Society certainly does not promote healthy eating. But it does not make it impossible–it just has to be a deliberate action plan. Getting our kids to eat healthier is NOT difficult–we just think it is.
As I’ve mentioned, it first starts with you, the parent. You need to eat healthier. No attempts to get your kids to eat healthier will work if you are not the example. It has also been shown that making eating healthier foods fun will help. That means not sticking the broccoli in little Johnny’s face saying he needs to eat it because it’s good for him. It means making it into an adventure to eat the healthier foods. It also means not having the unhealthy foods as an option. Few children in the US will starve in a single day if they don’t have Oscar Meyer hotdogs available at every meal.
This particular study looks at the value of shared family meals on children’s risk of obesity and eating healthier foods and finds that at least 3 shared meals per week drastically improved the child’s eating habits and risk of obesity. What a novel concept!
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/6/e1565.abstract
