Feeding toddlers can be challenging. Even more, a lot of parents find it complicated to teach their tots to eat healthy especially when junk food and sweets are so popular and readily accessible. A healthy diet is important in order to live long. Educating your toddler to eat appropriately is best done during this time since he is still eager to try out new foods. Teaching your little child correct healthy eating patterns to ensure a toddler healthy diet can be done in a few easy ways.

Toddler healthy diet is a must during this stage because it serves as the basis of how well his development is and whether or not he can function well. While fruits and vegetables are your tot’s number one enemy, helping them learn how to love them can be done by doing a few techniques.

How to Teach Your Child to Eat Healthy

Set An Example

What your child sees, he imitates. You are his role model and munching on fries, chocolates and junk foods all day long will only instil his mind that he can do the same. As the adult, you need to change your eating behavior. You have to show your tot that you enjoy eating healthy meals. Children learn from what they see so be a good example. You cannot expect your tot to practice what you preach when you yourself have poor eating habits.

Get The Family Involved

So now you have set a good example, but what about the others? It is not enough that he sees you eating fruits and vegetables if he sees his brother eat chips every day. Involve every family member in the household. Take meals equally. What you feed your tot the whole family needs to eat it as well.

Do Grocery Shopping Together

Your toddler will love the idea of accompanying you to the grocery store. It makes him feel like an adult since you allow him to select food for your home. Give your toddler the responsibility of picking out foods that are healthy. Give him a bag and let him pick out the beans, apples and oranges. In this way, he is encouraged to go through fruits, vegetables, snacks and drinks that provides proper body nourishment.

Cook Together

Having your toddler help you in the kitchen is fun for him. Involving him in preparing meals makes him curious and willing to try out the food you both cooked. Start out by assigning him to wash the vegetables. Then, you can assist him in peeling them. Let him do the mixing. To peak his interest more, concoct your own fruit shakes by combining different fruits together. Once meal time is ready, you will be sure that he tries out every single vegetable and fruit.

Have Him Pick Out Healthy Menus For The Week

Encourage your tot to assist you when planning healthy meals for the entire family. Ask him what veggies or fruits he likes. Be sure to include them in your meals. Once he sees his preference being served on everybody’s plate, most likely he can finish off food from his plate.

Visit A Farmer’s Market

Allow him to milk cows, collect eggs or pick out fruits from trees. By letting your toddler see where his food comes from, his interest is peaked making him more eager to try healthy foods.

Make Food Pyramid His Reference

Food pyramid is divided into different sections. To encourage him to eat healthy, have him cross out the food groups that he has already taken in. The remaining groups allow him to figure out what types of food he still needs to eat. Most likely, this will challenge him to complete the whole pyramid making him more willing to try them out.

Reward Him

While promoting healthy eating means you need to eat all the good food, it does not demand that sweets, chips and sodas are forbidden. Give your toddler a reward for a job well done. Say for example he finished eating his required servings of fruits and vegetables for the whole week. Come Sunday, you can treat him to burger and fries, a bar of chocolate or a glass of soda. In this way, your child learns that an occasional treat is good. Totally forbidding him with his indulgences only tempts him to eat poorly.

Healthy eating is all about balance. He needs to take good food for proper development and rewarding him once in a while makes him more determined to eat right.