Creating Healthy Food Habits
November 22, 2022
3 Ways to Improve Your Eating Habits
Having a diet filled with a variety of nutritious foods is important for overall health and wellbeing. Today with so many demands on our time, it may be difficult to make eating healthy a priority. In episode 5 of our Spark A Movement podcast, host Chloe chats with Haylee, Principle Agent Associate with the University of Maryland giving our listeners tangible ways to make healthier habits and choices for the whole family. In today's post, we wanted to share some of the tips Haylee shared with us to help you kick start healthier habits for you and your family!
Habits
- Eat appropriately sized proportions
- Talk positively about healthy food regularly with your family (example talk about the taste, textures, nutritional value)
- Get moving to help with with a healthy lifestyle
Choices
- Always aim for healthier choices, constantly improving your eating habits incrementally
- Involve the entire family in the cooking and eating process
Planning
- Plan weekly meals
- Reduce food waste
- Save money
- Find creative ways you can "repurpose" meals to make them new
- Include your family in the preparations
- Family can plan weekly menu & create a list of ingredients
- Give children options at the grocery store (example: Would you like to try broccoli or carrots?) in order to have them feel included and involved in family meal preparations
Resources for Families
- Healthy Snacks to prepare for your children
- Healthy eating for families
- Recipes (can be organized by price/type or course)
Exposing children to food through various activities like cooking, coloring and sensory play/projects enhances their understanding of food, leading to healthier eating habits. Try a sensory project, like making snacklaces!
A Fun Way to Introduce Your Child to Food!
Our Registered Dietitian (RD) has some practical tips to incorporate into mealtime for a more successful, enjoyable child-food relationship. The goals of these interaction are to create a positive relationship with food, enjoy happy meal times, reduce anxiety, reduce battles surrounding food, and fitting all types of food into a healthy lifestyle.
Apraxia is a motor speech disorder. Childhood apraxia of speech is a rare, but lifelong disorder that makes it difficult for individuals to move their mouth muscles in order to speak. The important thing to note about Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is that the child knows what they want to say, but may struggle with connecting the brain to the muscles that must accompany speech.
If you have a child who is a selective eater, learn about some time-tested eating tips including: nutrition guidelines, tips for parents during meal times, and types of food children tend to enjoy. Try a combination of these tricks and find what will work best for your family.
In a world often filled with uncertainty, Liam, a courageous six-year-old boy, has proven that faith, resilience, and the unwavering support of family can overcome even the most daunting challenges. His journey began on December 11th, 2023 when Liam fell down the stairs. What was thought to have been a seemingly innocent incident, quickly spiraled into a life-altering spinal stroke. Within moments, Liam went from a lively child full of energy to being paralyzed from the neck down, which left his family in shock, grappling with fear and confusion as they navigated the unknown.
