It is a big challenge for the parents to find an ideal way of how to feed their kids a healthy and nutritious diet. According to the research studies, only one-third of the parents are satisfied with their kids healthy eating. Children’s eating disorders are one of the big problems that parents are accountable for, especially when the child turns into a toddler. Through it doesn’t matter how old the child is.
The main reason for the child’s bad eating habits is their altering mood. Eating disorders and mood swings probably happen due to emotional disorders like anorexia and bulimia, and binge eating.
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Anorexia:
It is a psychological disorder in which patient intentionally does not eat food because of illogical fear of weight gain, so he or she limits the food intake to a drastically low amount. The research studies claim that around 90% of anorexia patients are female.
Bulimia:
Bulimia is a serious eating disorder or a psychological disorder when a large amount of food has been consumed in a short span of time. Bulimia raises the risks of osteoporosis, stomach ulcers, frequent vomiting, a risk of heart failure, and infertility in men and women.
Binge Eating:
Eating a large amount of food in a short period of time or having a feeling of inability to stop yourself from eating is binge eating. In this condition, children don’t care for the nutrients present in the food items but eat them continuously.
Being a parent, you must know about your child’s eating disorders and correct those feeding mistakes in order to ensure his/her overall development. Here are some tips that help parents to encourage their children for healthy eating.
Stop using food as a reward or punish:
Parents need to understand that pushing their kids for not eating more food is not a good manner. It’s found that some 85% of the parents try to command over their child’s food. Some of them use the food as the reward like finish your food, otherwise, you would not get the dessert or a chocolate.
At this point, parents make mistakes and they hinder child’s ability of self-regulation to take food. To regulate child healthy eating, parents need to let their child decide how much eating will improve self-regulation in children. Parents should try to attract children towards healthy foods and convince them to avoid bad eating habits.
No Structure:
Introduce your child a proper time schedule and designated places to eat so that the child understand the structure of eating rather than eating anything and anywhere.
As we find our young ones need food in every 2 to 3 hours. The pre-school going children take food in about 3 hours and older children in every 4 hours. Try to give your child a healthy food in these intervals and remind them when they get their next meal so they eat accordingly. It will help to improve the child bad eating habits and they learn to eat in hunger, not because of the habit of binge eating.
Short order cooking:
If your kid refuses to take his/ her meal and it happens very often, it means he is lacking his eating confidence. To fix this problem, you need to increase the interest of your child in food. Try to serve him a variety of food every time when he feels hungry, even if you have to cook in a short time.
You can involve your children with the meal planning, plating food, and encourage them to serve for themselves on the dining table.
Pushing veggies:
Most of the parents are worried about the low veggies are eaten by the children. Usually, children are not interested in green vegetables while parents want to give it more often. Usually, this tendency causes some eating disorders in the children.
According to the survey, 70% of young children don’t eat veggies because of the bitter compounds present in them. However, it doesn’t mean that you don’t give your child veggies. You need to give that in another way like make veggies with tasty dip, salads, and yummy smoothies that would attract children.
General tips to encourage child’s healthy eating
- Talk to your kids about ‘good food’ and ‘bad food’
- Consult your doctor, school nurse, and a dietician
- Give physical education to your kids
- Listen to your child’s interest
Also Read: 8 Genius Ways To Use Veggies for Weight Loss and Boosting Health
Points to follow
- Try to involve the whole family in healthy eating and activity
- Encourage your child in active outdoor play and sports which help them to improve their food habits
- Try to limit child’s time on TV, Mobile phones, tablets, screen games, and computers.
