Challenge Accepted: Getting Kids to Eat Healthy Food

Feeding kids healthy food can feel like a daily battle - especially when you're trying to avoid too many processed options full of sugar, salt, and additives.  My kids specifically ask for a snack from the cupboard – meaning something in a packet.  A normal parenting challenge is picky eaters who turn their noses up at anything that doesn’t come in a shiny packet or isn't shaped like a dinosaur.  But offering healthy, minimally processed snack foods is one of the best things we can do for our kids’ long-term health and eating habits.

Apparently, kids' tastes can change with time and repeated exposure. I have seen advice saying that you might need to offer a new food 10 or even 20 times before they’ll accept it. However, it takes a lot of patience and food wastage to go through that. 

Tips to help you keep trying to broaden your children’s food horizons include:

• Be persistent with offering something new to try as frequently as you can handle.

• Give small portions so as not to overwhelm them.

• Pair with foods that are familiar to them. 

• Something that is fresh out of the oven seems to be more appealing. 

• Try not to pressure them to eat with phrases such as “just have one bite”.

• Celebrate the trying of new foods rather than eating.

• Timing also plays a part when they are willing to try a healthier option - my kids are usually pretty hungry around the 3pm-5.30pm window and then won’t eat dinner.

• (Offer a grazing plate of vegetables (and a bit of fruit) between 4pm through to dinner time to avoid them loading up on snacks before dinner and if they do eat, it will hopefully be some type of veg)     

Try not to be discouraged… check through the Homemade Baker blog posts for healthy, low-processed snack ideas to help you in your perseverance with getting your kids to eat something healthy.  Even if your child is fussy now, persistence, creativity, and variety can help turn healthy snacking into a habit they grow to love.

Just be ready for when you do succeed in getting them to eating a healthy option and they tell you they like it, then all of a sudden after the fifth time eating it they decide that it is yuk.