Replacing unhealthy eating habits with healthier ones can be difficult. One key to making lasting improvements in your diet is to make changes in stages. Start with a small, simple change and stick to it for a week. After mastering one change, add another, and continue to repeat as needed.
Remember, slow and steady does win the race.
Parents play a significant role in guiding their children’s eating habits with the examples they set. Foods available in the home and mealtime experiences can help create healthy examples. Offer healthy snacks such as fruit, low-fat cottage cheese or yogurt, frozen juice bars, applesauce, celery, apples with peanut butter, raw vegetables, graham crackers, fig bars, or whole wheat crackers with low-fat cheese.
Pay attention to portion sizes. Consuming larger portions can add unanticipated calories. For example: a good-sized snack for a typical adult may be a single-serving container of yogurt, but for a preschooler, two or three tablespoons of yogurt is enough.
Family meals together can present an opportunity to monitor food eaten and reconnect with each other. Involve children in food preparation, clean up, and conversation. Sit together when eating. The idea is to build healthy lifelong eating habits together.
Some healthy eating tips include the following:
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