How to Raise a Healthy Family – Chart a Nutrition Plan

Getting your family to eat better may not be easy, but it’s definitely worth the effort. When healthy eating habits are formed and reinforced at home, they are likely to last a lifetime. So crack the whip and steer your family onto the healthy eating route. Here’s how:

• Plan ahead

  Preparing nutritious meals is not expensive or difficult – all it takes is planning. Planning ahead will also help you save time and money. Get the kids involved with planning nutritious meals for the week ahead and have everyone chip in with suggestions for the shopping list. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to see your kids willing to try healthy foods when they help choose them. But make sure you stick to the shopping list when you are at the grocery store.

• Eat a healthy breakfast

  Send off the kids to school with a nutritious breakfast every day. Not only is this a healthy start to the day, it also prevents hunger pangs later in the day and the resultant snacking on high-calorie foods. A nutritious breakfast doesn’t have to be boring – offer interesting options such as whole-grain waffles with peanut butter, egg-white omelet with mushrooms and bell peppers or plain doughnuts with low-fat chocolate milk. Incorporate fruits, vegetables and nuts into your breakfast menu.

• Reduce portion sizes

  Listen to your body when it says you’ve had enough, but remember it takes about 20 minutes for your body to send the ‘I’m full’ signal to your brain. Help your family eat healthy portion sizes by starting off with small servings and going for seconds if necessary. The ideal serving size for any person is equal to the back of his/her fist. It is also important to fix a serving size for beverages – a small coffee cup is a healthy portion size for smoothies, sodas and fruit juices.

• Skip the sugar

  Refined white sugar deprives you of the B vitamins, plays havoc with your nervous system and messes up your calcium metabolism. An easy way to reduce your family’s sugar intake is to substitute water or unsweetened fruit juices for sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda pop. Try to get the kids eat a well-rounded diet, concentrating on proteins and vegetables. Another way to cut sugar from your family’s diet is to avoid buying packaged foods, including organic stuff, because even that contains significant amounts of the white poison.

• The family that eats together …

  The television is not the ideal dinner companion for kids, so make sure you have at least one meal together every day as a family. Kids are less likely to gorge on junk foods if they are eating with their parents. Eating together not only gives them the opportunity to pick up good eating habits but also emulate good mealtime manners. In the end, good health is the winner.