Teaching Your Kids What It Really Means To Eat Healthy Food
Healthy food might mean differently from one person to another. There are those who would say, burger, fries and soda are healthy. Others would say that steak, potato and a little mount of veggies is healthy for them. Another would say more veggies less meat. Then, there are those who might say that no meat is the best route.
Ever since we were in elementary our teachers had presented to us the food pyramid. With that knowledge, some parents followed it and some inverted the pyramid and that might the reason why at present some kids are being treated for obesity. Whose fault will that be? I do not think that it is the fault of the kid because they are the ones who are targeted by advertisements and manufacturers of not healthy food in the market. What about the parents? I would say, partly they are to blamed specially if the child become obese and they do not even try to do something about it. The worse thing that they could do is when they simply refuse to observe that their child is gaining weight which is not appropriate to his her height. Also, when parents become a bad role model to the child when they, themselves keep on eating junk food or fatty food and trying to let the child avoid those things. Now that is what I would call inconsistency. The saying monkey see monkey do applies in this situation.
So, let us go back to the food pyramid. It is supposed to be followed immaculately by mothers so they could raise a healthy as well as happy child or children. I would say that it will not be a struggle between a mother and a child when it comes to eating veggies if only that was introduced early on. Being a good role model is the secret to this. I have seen vegetarian parents bringing their kids to vegetarian restaurants and the kids were not difficult to deal with when it comes to having their veggies. The parents have been vegetarians ever since they were kids and now that they have their own child it is no longer a struggle letting a child eat veggies, because he sees that his parents enjoy and really love eating veggies and not just for show.
So, what I am saying here is, as parents and adults we should be careful with what we show children. Remember, what they see is what they will do, sooner or later.
