What It Takes for Your Child to Love Vegetables

There’s no
denying the fact that health and longevity of life are tied to what we eat.
There really isn’t any way to get around this fact. While it’s fine to have
balance, you certainly can’t expect to eat poorly your entire life and not
suffer the consequences. The same applies to exercise. You can’t expect to
avoid physical movement as an adult and be fit. It’s not about being small in
size, it’s about overall wellness. Most doctors will tell you that longevity of
life starts at a young age. The practices and lessons instilled into children
are often carried throughout their life. If you feed a child junk food all week
long, they simply won’t be as healthy as they could have been.
Given the importance of health and wellness, there’s often talk among parents
about how they can get their child to love vegetables. It’s a common question
asked when parents visit any pediatric
doctor st paul mn.
Doctors always recommend a balanced diet, but don’t always know how to
cultivate an environment where children enjoy eating healthy foods. This is
partially because there is far more marketing for unhealthy foods than for
fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, there are ways to achieve your goal of
helping your child choose healthy foods when they’re young and as they develop
into strong adults.
For starters, children tend to eat foods that taste good. If you can make
vegetables taste good, there’s a much greater chance that your child will eat
them. However, you certainly don’t want to saturate the vegetables with
ingredients that diminish the nutritional value. Instead, you can play around
with the options that you provide to figure
out which vegetables your kid naturally likes. For instance, some children
really enjoy plain carrots without having anything added to them. You can
simply cut them into carrot sticks and perhaps add a healthy dipping sauce. You
might try Greek yogurt as opposed to a less healthy dressing. The key is to get
creative.
Another option is to have a conversation about the different possibilities and
actually let your kid choose which one they like. You might be surprised.
Sometimes there’s an assumption that a child doesn’t like vegetables when the
issue is simply that they were not given a choice. It’s good to provide many
different options to see which one they want. Once you have that information
you can incorporate their preference into daily meals.
The earlier you start providing vegetables as a normal part of your kid’s meals
the better off everyone will be. Sometimes the problem arises when you introduce a new vegetable into a
meal. If they have always been something that the entire family enjoys, your
kid will be accustomed to the taste. This means it’s best to make homemade baby
food that’s not processed because it will have the same flavor as raw
vegetables.