Healthy Family Eating

Convincing your family to eat a variety of nutritious foods can be a frustrating and overwhelming task. Eating healthy doesn’t have to make your husband and children miserable, and it can be done by adopting an entertaining approach. Stop lecturing and begging your family members to eat nutritious foods. Instead, incorporate a few techniques into your eating routines and your family will likely be more interested in eating healthy meals.

Healthy Family Eating

Let Them Choose
If you’re in charge of planning the menu, shopping for food and making meals, it can make your husband and children feel as if they have no control over what they eat. Encourage them to take part in making your weekly menu, shopping for groceries and pitching in when it’s time to cook. Ask each family member to choose a meal and include it in the menu. Let your children choose their favorite healthy snacks and put them in a prominent location so they are accessible when hunger strikes. Take your family grocery shopping and encourage each member to choose a new food to try during the week. Assign meal preparation tasks and cook dinner every night as a family. The more power your husband and children feel they have, the more likely they’ll be to eat nutritious foods.

Make Food Fun
Healthy foods don’t have to be boring. Incorporate fun activities into your meals and snacks, and your husband and children might be more willing to try nutritious foods. Pretend like your kitchen is a restaurant. Assign each family member a job, such as cook or server. Swap roles so everyone gets to take part in the fun. Have a formal dinner, complete with place settings and fancy attire. As everyone gets into their role, you’ll enjoy a meal together as a family, which allows you to model healthy eating habits. Your husband and children might be more willing to try new foods if it goes along with the role play. Children who eat regular family meals are also more likely to eat nutritious foods, according to Washington State University.

Challenge Them
Make healthy eating a family challenge. Set up a contest with your husband and children. Challenge them to see who can eat the most fruits, vegetables or lean protein foods each week. Create charts to keep track. As each family member eats a serving of a certain food, he gets to put a check mark or sticker on his chart. At the end of the week, the winner gets to choose a healthy dinner or a nutritious treat. Change the goal each week to keep the challenge interesting and engaging. Alternatively, have a contest to see which family member eats the fewest servings of unhealthy foods, such as soda or potato chips. This can help cut down on your family’s intake of junk food.

Grow Your Own
Create a family garden. Choose fruits and vegetables to include in the garden and then plant the seeds as a family. Take turns watering and weeding the garden, which will build pride and will get your husband and children excited about eating what they’re growing. Children who grow their own garden tend to eat more servings of vegetables, according to California Department of Education. Harvest your garden as a family and find creative ways to prepare your bounty.