Healthy Kid Snacks: Playing with Your Food
Caleb asked me this morning if he could have a banana, tangerine, and lettuce. Of course that’s a big “YES” from me when a child asks for healthy food, and he came back to me with this! What a fun idea, huh? He saw it on an email his gramma had sent to Emily. If you want to make a snack like this more filling try adding nut butter, hummus, or a healthy salad dressing for dipping. You can also add other fruits and veggies! Maybe blueberries can be the ocean, and celery with almond butter can be the trunk of the palm tree. The possibilities are endless!
I’ve said it before, but will say it again! Food that is forced is food that will eventually be rejected when your child is free to make their own decisions. Try to find ways to make it fun for them to eat healthy foods. Today JJ didn’t want to eat his salad at lunch, so I tried a couple different strategies. First, I told him that there were cucumbers hiding under the lettuce. He found a few, but still wasn’t interested in the lettuce. We started talking about the types of animals that eat lettuce, and how the lettuce helps them grow (the giraffe eats leaves and his neck grows tall; the bunny eats lettuce and his ears grow long; etc). JJ showed me a couple times how his neck grew when he took a bite of salad, and a few minutes later when I checked his plate it was empty! Victory!!! It certainly would have been just fine, though, for me to congratulate him for eating the cucumber, and eat the rest of the salad myself!
I will tell you that although there are times where I force my kids to eat certain foods, or bribe them with dessert, it is usually best to avoid these tactics. Keep presenting them with healthy options that are presented in fun and tasty ways, and limit the sweets and refined carbs. Don’t give up, and you’ll probably see some changes. Only a couple weeks ago the only lettuce JJ would eat was the spine of Romaine. He naturally started showing more interest in other greens, though, so I started giving them to him. Now he’s an equal opportunity greens kind of guy, even though he prefers the “crunchy munchy” kind. On a side note, when he started wanting more greens he was also fighting a rash. I think his body was telling him that he needed more greens, and he was able to respond to those healthy cravings. Sure enough, the rash is gone and he’s slowed down on the amount of greens he wants. Interesting, huh? I think I’ll do a post on how to lose food addictions and learn to listen to healthy cravings sometime soon!
