It is important for parents to start training their children to eat healthy right from a young age. With the number of obese children rising, there is a growing awareness of the need to inculcate long-lasting eating habits in them. Good parenting focuses on training children skills to make the right food choices early in life. Whether, it is a toddler or a child with a case of baby acne, here are a few tips to helping kids develop the right eating preferences:

1. Set an example: Kids learn through example and it is important that parents set the right example. They mimic others, and if the parent doesn’t eat fruits and vegetables, then it’s going to be difficult to expect the child to follow them. Fruits and vegetables are especially important to ensuring healthy skin and avoiding problems like baby acne.
2. Talk about the food: It is important that the child knows more about what he is eating. So it’s best to casually talk and explain to the child what vitamins and minerals he is eating and about the positive impact of them on the child. Try to find funny ways of doing this rather than making it a boring science lesson.
3. Encourage water-intake: Encourage the child to drink water as it helps in digestion and also helps carry away waste. Other ailments like baby acne are also taken care of by drinking water.
4. A balanced diet: In the beginning, how much your child eats is not as important as what he eats. It is therefore important that your eats a variety of food to prevent problems like baby acne.
5. Giving up: Okay, so your child didn’t like the mashed potatoes and threw them away. Don’t give up so easily, try to feed him after a few days. If he still doesn’t like them, leave well alone.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Children Fun, Schools + Colleges, The Helping Hand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.