Healthy Diet for August 6 – You’re Kidding!

Got kids? If so, did you know that kids influence up to 80 percent of family food spending?

Still, as a family shopper, you control what foods go into the family kitchen. For children, you decide the three Ws: What foods to offer, When, and Where. As kids learn to be good eaters, they decide the other W and the H: Which offered foods to eat, How much. (Why “How much?” Kids need to learn to listen to their body cues, in order to know when they’re really hungry and when they’re full.)

As you shop for family foods:

• Create the shopping list together.
• Stock food-group snacks they like: perhaps fruit; crunchy veggies; pretzels; milk in kid-friendly containers; string cheese; single serve fruit, yogurt drinks, or pudding snacks.
• Shop supermarket aisles together. Encourage children to pick fruits and vegetables they’d enjoy. Talk about foods’ colors, shapes, and textures as you do.
• Read food labels together. That gives practice with reading skills, too.