Healthy Eating-What Our Kids Learn From Us

It is so easy for all of us to overlook those little things that we do, and send all the wrong messages to our children.

Eating disorders are so common now days that it just takes a little wrong comment and it all can go bad.

Our children look up to us, they want to be like us. And if we have wrong attitude towards food, or anything else they are more likely to copy that. Even though we hope to always pass on the good example, sometimes we can go wrong.

In many cases young women who develop eating disorders, say that their moms or close family members had them as well. We all know that children love to model what they see, and girls are always doing things they see their moms do. We as moms have to watch more the way we talk about food, diets, exercise, and body image in general. We certainly don’t want to send wrong signals to our daughters, I know I don’t want to send them to mine.

I am so guilty of this, I always focused more on my weight than on my health. And that is very wrong, because I see my child watch me, I see that she is listening to my weight issues, and I don’t want her to think about wight before her health.

Another thing that usually gets kids to over eat or be chronic snackers later on is hiding the snacks and cookies from them now. Cookies are not bad, they have their good part in out lives. Overeating them is bad, but having a cookie or two will definitely not destroy us or our health. And rather than hiding it from our children we shall teach them to eat everything. And instead of telling them that something is wrong, or that something will make them fat, we should teach them to eat healthy, have their cookies, and do it all in moderation.

Same is with picky eating. I can’t expect my daughter to don’t have those issues, when I do it too. I often complain how I can’t eat something because I don’t like it, or because it is the certain way. And yes, she is doing the same.

Monitoring your child’s weight, sometimes we can be so wrong. Not everyone is the same, and certainly kids are not. We often think that because we as adults see us as fat, skinny and so on, we start implying that to our children as well. Kids go trough growth spurts, and there will be times when they’ll gain a little and then times when they’ll grow a little.

Eating healthy should be for the whole family, not just those that are loosing weight. See how this can turn wrong. We mostly associate healthy eating habits with dieting to lose weight, and that shouldn’t be like that. Instead of looking at it as a diet, we really should see it as is, a healthy lifestyle.

Changing little things, first our views, will definitely help our children grow happy and healthy. Letting them help with grocery shopping, food preparation will also let them learn how to see food differently. How to make better choices, now and later in life.

Posted in Children’s Health | 6 Comments »