Apple or Chocolate?
“No, not that. I want fudge round.” I hear this every day around 3:00pm – snack time for my two-year-old. These words will escape his lips each and every day, whether I am offering him his beloved apple or his favorite, vanilla yogurt. I give in about every three days, and no, I absolutely do not feel guilty about it! Let’s be honest, here! If you have your choice of a decadent, triple chocolate cake or a peach, which would you choose? Thank you.
We all know that it is best to eat healthy, and we all want the best for our children. Even most of us who, as parents, do not eat as healthy as we should, make sure that our children are eating the best of everything. However, and this is where a lot of overly health-conscious parents make a huge mistake, we do not have to totally ban unhealthy foods from our children’s diets. A piece of cake, some ice cream, a soda, or a fast-food lunch given in moderation, will not turn our children into 400 pound, junk food addicts by the time they are twenty-two-years-old.
We simply have to teach our children, by example, that there are foods that we do not eat all the time, but they are acceptable some of the time. Keep more healthy snacks, such as fruit, yogurt, pudding, baked crackers, etc., in your home than unhealthy ones, such as cakes, cookies, ice cream, etc. Teach your child that the healthy foods are okay for him to have all of the time, whereas the “junk food” is only okay every now and then. Notice, I said “by example”. Don’t expect your child to only want to drink milk when you or your spouse drink a soda with every meal, or don’t expect him to choose that piece of fruit when you are having a bowl of ice cream.
If you want to set your child up for healthier eating habits and less conflict over what he will eat, I am here to give you a piece of advice that is tried and true. This is something that was recommended to me by my pediatrician, and I am here to tell you that it is a great piece of advice. Do not give your child any type of unhealthy foods, be it potato chips, chocolate, sweets of any kind, fast food, or soda, until he is at least a year old. Once he reaches this point, give it to him in moderation, and you will find that, more often than not, he will choose the grapes over the candy. We did this with my first born who will now, at five-years-old, still choose healthy over junk, and we slipped with my second, who is the two-year-old fudge round junkie. Needless to say, my third, who is not quite a year old yet, has yet to sample any of the “good”, or should I say “bad” stuff.