5 tips to give children a healthier nutrition

Ensuring that your child is receiving a healthy, balanced diet is a battle for every parent, especially today when brightly coloured fun meals are everywhere. However there are certain things can be done to motivate pre-school children to eat a healthy diet. Remember the younger you start with good habits, the faster they will acquire their tastes in the healthy direction.

Limitation
If you only buy foods that are healthy, your children (and you) can only pick their favourite foods amongst the healthy choices.

Tasty choices
We often limit our children’s fruit choice to apples, bananas, grapes and oranges. However, many children enjoy peaches, tangerines, cherries, raspberries , blackberries, blueberries and strawberries, pears, plumbs, watermelons and pineapples. You can always add fruits such as these to healthy breakfast cereals. Instead of offering your child toast made from white flour, offer bran crisp bread. If your child is a big fan of pancakes, always serve whole grain pancakes.
Butter on vegetables can be a treat making them a lot tastier to the child. Many children enjoy raw vegetables such as carrot so offer as a finger food.

Presentation
Remember that we are competing against the major bright fun meal advertising. There are constant advertisements on children’s TV for unhealthy foods that contain too much salt and sugar. We as parents have to advertise the ‘boring’ healthy vegetables and grains. But they need not be boring. Children of a pre-school age adore food that is shaped into something, for example a face, snowman, teddy. The big food giants do it with their fun meals so why shouldn’t we? Wholegrain pancakes may be shaped like a face by using fruit pieces such as berry as the features. Why not serve corn on the cob like a rocket? Wholegrain bread toast can be shaped as well as your artistic skills carry you – a star for example.

Hiding it
If your child is too wise for your tricks, sneak the healthy food in. Bake carrot cake or add finely shaved vegetables to anything. Dried fruit is high in sugar and fibre and can be treat like sweets. Fruit and vegetables can be hid into smoothies and juices via a high speed blender.

Multivitamin
To ensure that your child is receiving the necessary amounts of vitamins, given them an approved multivitamin supplement that is safe for children. Do not rely on these instead of providing your child with a healthy balanced diet. They should only be considered as a safety net. Still aim for your child to eat a variety of fruit and vegetables, along with lean proteins and complex carbohydrates.

Pre-school children and toddlers can be picky eaters. However, their tastes change as they grow and they should soon be eating the same as the rest of the family. Its all about education and gentle persuasion, making mealtimes a fun, learning experience. A child that has been involved in safe food.