The way you eat tends to come down to habits, and nobody has more room and potential to form habits in one way or the next as children do. The thing is, it can be all too easy to give your kids whatever nonsense is easy to get and not too expensive. Unfortunately, this has the issue that it creates bad eating habits since your children will naturally gravitate toward things you give them later in life.
There’s a level of consciousness you need to show when you’re choosing what your kids snack on, just as much as how carefully you choose their meals. Mindfulness in snacking can lead to building great habits for the rest of their lives. A lack of mindfulness can lead to their eating bad food for life, and doing poorly as a result.
Problems Starting Early
More than one-third of American children are overweight or obese. This is a painful standard to live within, and it’s bad for every system in your child’s body. As well, being overweight can lead to self-esteem problems, anger issues due to being bullied, and feelings of inadequacy. Being active is essential, but so is eating healthy both during meals and between them.
The Most Important Ages
The earlier you start with your children’s eating habits, the better. Keep in mind that there’s a time in a child’s life where they have never had a sugary treat, where they have never had a greasy cheeseburger, and where they simply don’t know that these things exist. Culture says that children should have these things, but do they, for real?
In some cases, starting a child with wholesome snacks that avoid the excessive saturated fats and sugars can influence their decisions on what to snack on for life. The first few years are the most crucial since during that time, you’re going to be the only reference they have for how the world works. If you don’t have or serve unhealthy snacks, the child will be blissfully ignorant about them.
Habits and Systems
At its heart, a habit is nothing more than a system. Building certain systems within your home by having the right kinds of snacks on hand, and avoiding the types of meals that can contribute to being overweight and unhealthy is as much a system as your air conditioner. When unhealthy snacks aren’t there, you can’t reach for them without choosing to go out and get them. You can use the natural human tendency to do the easiest thing available to your advantage, by just not having and not doing a harmful thing.
Beginning to build great eating habits works better the earlier you get the kids started with these habits. As well, you can start in small and simple ways that still taste good. When you click here, you can see some more great options for helping your kids develop great eating habits they can carry for life.
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