Yes, convincing kids to eat healthy snacks is like having your tooth extracted; they surely do not prefer fruits and veggies to flavorful snacks such as ice cream, cookies and chips. But the operative word here is flavorful snacks that are filled with ingredients that are not healthy on the teeth, mouth and the body as a whole. So if you want to have your kid’s teeth and body to be healthy, you will have to motivate them to eat these healthy snacks.
Tips to get you started towards teaching your kids healthy snacking
- Be a role model. Do what you preach. If you want your kids to eat healthy snacks, you need to show them you eat these too. Aside from eating them, you will need to show your enjoyment of the food you are eating too.
- Don’t prepare the same healthy snacks every day. You have to be creative on this too so that your kids will see it as a fun thing to do, eat an array of different healthy snacks. And there are lots of suggestions you can find online or healthy snacks recipe books such as fruit smoothies, cheese rollups, apple slices with peanut butter or almond butter and a lot more.
- Don’t limit healthy eating to snacks. While you are at it, prepare healthy meals as well. Preparing healthy meals with fruits or vegetables consistently will help your kids get accustomed to this kind of diet.
- Let your children help you in your preparations. If you have to embark on this healthy eating routine, let your kids in on it. Make a grocery list together. Ask for suggestions and bring them to go shopping with you. Teach them how to read the sugar content in the nutritional labels as well as how much vitamin it contains.
If you would like to discuss your child’s nutrition, you can visit us. We are more than happy to help you on this. After all, starting early in teaching your children on healthy snacking, will set them up for a life filled with overall health. In general, you want to avoid as much as you can the sugary, sticky snacks and foods and promote fruits, vegetables, nuts, yogurt and foods that contain fibers.
Read more on dental care and baby teeth.