Want to get your kids to eat healthier? Here are 19 ways to encourage them to eat more fruits, veggies, and other healthy foods:
1. Make fresh juice together. This is a great way to get in lots of fresh produce!
2. Let your kids plant and harvest their own veggies in their little garden plot. Kids are more likely to eat foods they have helped to grow themselves.
3. Take your kids to the Farmer’s Market, give them $5 each, and encourage them to pick out one to two different vegetables to use for meals during the coming week.
4. Get a few backyard chickens and let your children gather the farm fresh eggs.
5. Take your kids to the health food store and the grocery store and have them read the labels on food at both places and discuss the differences.
6. Go to a U-Pick farm as a family and pick some fresh produce. Check LocalHarvest.org to find farms in your area that sell to the public.
7. When you’re planning the menu, let your kids pick out the fruits or veggies to serve with lunch and dinner.
8. Have a great attitude about eating new foods. Your attitude can often go a long way in helping your children to want to eat healthfully. If mom is excited, usually the kids are, too!
9. Make good food easily accessible. Wash and chop fruits and veggies and have them at-the-ready for snacks and meals. Kids are much more likely to reach for food that is cut up in a kid-friendly way!
10. Serve the fruits and veggies first at a meal. Fill up on these before you fill up on other items at meal times.
11. Teach your kids how to make smoothies. Let them experiment with different flavors and fruit combinations.
12. Serve cut up fruits, veggies, and other healthy lunch items in a muffin tin.
13. Talk about what produce is in season and have your child pick out seasonal produce at the grocery store.
14. Cut fruits and veggies into cute shapes and serve.
15. Make mealtimes fun: read aloud while your kids are eating. I find they will concentrate and eat what’s set before them better if their minds are busy listening.
16. Get creative: make faces or other fun designs with fruits and veggies!
17. Have a picnic! Kids seem to get more excited about eating when there is an element of fun and adventure involved.
18. Make some kind of dip for them to dip their fruits and veggies in. For a healthy option: try peanut butter or Greek yogurt.
19. Let your kids help in the kitchen. They usually love the opportunity to work alongside you and are more excited about eating what they have helped to make.
What ideas and suggestions would you add to this list? I’d love to hear!
Nora at Simple, Easy, Frugal says
I LOVE the idea of giving the kids $5 at the farmer’s market. That is an excellent idea and one that I’ll employ!
I think the absolute best way to get kids to eat healthy is by starting them off like that as babies as soon as they eat solids. My daughter ate plain beans, plain kefir, all sorts of fish etc. because that’s what she was offered. If you eat healthy in the home, your kids will too. Of course they do get picky from time to time, but if they’ve been exposed at a very young age I think it makes the whole healthy eating thing much easier!
I also think that just encouraging kids to try a bite of something is a great way to start. I’ve had many a picky kid over who said they “only like such and such,” but I just encourage them to try one bite and give it a try. That’s how I turned one of my daughter’s friends onto kale, and one onto pork chops!
Lydia @ The Thrifty Frugal Mom says
These are great ideas and while my kids eat pretty healthfully, they still struggle with raw veggies. I need to try some of your suggestions and see if they’ll help! I’ve already found #19 to be very, very true!
A couple of other things we’ve found helpful:
* allow your kids lots of salad dressing when they start eating salads. It helps them enjoy it and as they get used to eating it, you can gradually do a lot less and they don’t mind anymore!
* Let them use a fork for watermelon, cantaloupe and other fruits. We don’t let our kids typically use forks when they are 2 but that is what got our 2 yr. old eating fruits that she previously thought she didn’t like!
Katie L says
My 8yo has always liked fruits and veggies, but is going through a long period where she doesn’t want to eat food that is mixed together. No casseroles, no soups. I usually set aside ingredients from whatever I’m making and serve them to her separately. So if we are having chicken stir fry, I give her seperate portions of rice, chicken, and vegetables. If we are having salad, I let her assemble her own veggie plate instead of mixing in the tomatoes and lettuce and carrots together. She can still eat healthy, and eat what I’m serving, without a daily dinner battle.
AM says
One other thing I have found is to just keep offering in a really positive way. My oldest is a really *selective* eater ;-), but we just keep offering and encouraging. He is almost 7, and has very few fruits/veggies that he will eat, but he surprises us every few months by adding something new to what he will willingly eat. I have a short running list of healthy offerings he will happily eat, and I look forward to adding to it. I figure we are helping to build a life-long good eater, so I’m grateful that he adds new things–hopefully by the time he’s a teen, he will be eating a rainbow of foods!
Diana says
I definitely second all the tips about getting them involved in the process, and helping them find ways to eat produce as fresh as possible (farmers market picking, gardening, etc.). My little guy LOVES to pick and eat straight from the garden!
Also, I try to focus on what we’re eating and ask questions about texture, taste, etc. And if I eat something I really like I usually say something like “MMMM! So good!” and he’s picked up on that too 🙂
The other tip is, don’t beat yourself up if you do all these things and you still feel like your child is a picky eater! Children are entitled to their opinions too (although they also need to learn that sometimes they must eat things they wouldn’t prefer to eat). I’m blessed with a son who naturally likes everything, but I was not like that as a kid. As an adult, I’ve really branched out and started enjoying a much wider variety of good-for-me things, so don’t give up on your kids! Keep introducing them to new things, and eventually it will pay off 🙂
Ann says
Suggestions for the tween who grew up eating lots of fruits and veggies and now refuses?
WilliamB says
1. Model good behavior. Not just eating a healthy variety of foods, but trying new ones and – even more powerful – foods your kids know you don’t like much.
2. Talk about a varied diet, how eating a variety of foods (different proteins, meat/carb/produce, different colors) is healthy and helps one grow big and strong.
3. Fruit smoothies can be frozen into fruit pops – like a popsicle but better for you. Bonus reward: its a great way to use up fruit before it goes bad. You can freeze it before it goes bad, defrost to make a smoothie, freeze again as a fruit pop with no harm done to the fruit. Works with all-fruit smoothies, ones made with veggies, ones made with milk and/or yogurt.
Jackie Penn says
I filled out the contest form in my 19 Ways to Encourage Kids… email newsletter and clicked submit, but the page would never load. To complete the entry, I Tweeted about the giveaway. JWhitePenn on Twitter.
quinn says
Thank you for this list. I’m a mom of an 11 month old and really starting to think of teaching good eating habits with your Real Food post and this one.
I think I’m going to have to start making her own smoothie. She drinks half of mine.
Summer says
When my daughter was of the age for snacks to carry around with us (and old enough that choking worries were lessened), instead of giving her raisins and crackers and such, I cooked frozen, diced mixed veg (peas, carrots and corn). She would happily eat them cold. Today she’s five, and really enjoys her veggies!
Karen says
This is great advice! I’ve always had struggles getting my kids to eat healthy but this should help a lot.