What do you do to teach healthy eating / exercise habits?
I've been seeing on the blogosphere concerns about 6-year-olds feeling fat. And it makes me wonder what my parenting approach is / will be to health (eating, exercise, body image) with my kids. I've found myself more and more telling my 3-year-old that he should eat more of X or less of Y because it's "healthy" or not, and I'm aware when I'm doing it that he really has no concept of the word "healthy" and that I'm probably just being the Peanuts parent saying "mwah mwah mwah"...!
Sure, we try to model eating (mostly) well, but that only seems to go so far. What do you do? What do you think seems to be working? Or not?
2 Answers
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I absolutely believe that setting an example at home is one of the biggest influences you can have on your kids. And even if your kids are still young, having age-appropriate discussions about food, exercise and their impact on health makes total sense.
That being said, there are many other influences as well. Kids notice what other kids are eating and doing. My (then) five-year-old made lots of observations about what his kindergarten classmates were eating, much of it different (and less healthy in my opinion) that what he got for lunch. Fortunately, his curiosity made it easy to have some discussion around it.
So, yeah. We all know you can't completely control your children's environment (especially places like school) but we all do what we can.
He was asking "Why did Justin get two bags of Cheetos with his lunch?" and "How come I don't get more cookies to eat?" We explained that too many treats aren't healthy, and that we make his lunches so that they are both healthy and tasty.
And while I'm sure he'll protest that parts of his lunch were tastier than others, we try and include the stuff he likes that actually fall into the healthier category. He likes carrot sticks so they tend to be a staple in his lunches. He likes peanut butter and jelly, but more in a tortilla than bread so that's what we do.
It's tough. It's easier to stick with just feeding him the stuff he likes but if he never gets anything new the range of foods never expands. So we constantly expose him to new stuff in small doses and he rejects most of it. But when he likes something, we definitely remember.
Every child is different, so it's mostly up to the parents to figure out what works. The tough thing with food is that you don't usually see the effect of eating healthy right away. It's not like you eat an apple and boom, instant feel-good. But since we as parents know it matters in the long-run (and most kids may not), then it makes sense to me that being around people that eat well is extra important. Because their surroundings is something kids can relate to.
- Jason K., Aug 12, 2010
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Maintaining an exercise regimen is actually something my hubby and I have been discussing A LOT over the past 10 months. How is it going to be like once the baby is born? Can we both still do triathlons? It's very important to both of us to stay active and healthy post-baby. I don't have the answer yet, but I have thought up some ideas - I figure the more I picture how it can work, the more likely it is that I can make it happen. My current theory - start them early, lead by example.
As soon as our little acrobat has good neck control, into the BOB she goes with me for runs. I hope the action / scenery will either engage her, or make her fall asleep. When she gets older, there is a playground at the end of one of my routes that I'd be more than happy to play at as a reward for going along for the ride. Pretty soon, she could ride or scoot alongside me.
Perhaps I'll have to give up triathlons, but I've always hated the swim anyhow. Maybe marathons are what's next for me. Either way, I'll let you know how it goes!
nice! what did you say to your kindergartner about why & what his classmates were eating? what did he ask? just curious.
- andrea, Aug 11, 2010