Healthy eating is important for a child’s growth and development and childhood is the best time to teach them healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime. According to the article, ‘The Impact of Teachers and Families on Young Children’s Eating Behaviors’ written by Erin K. Eliassen in naeyc.org, ‘The eating behaviors children practice early in life affect their health and nutrition—significant factors in childhood overweight and obesity (Clark et al. 2007)—and may continue to shape food attitudes and eating patterns through adulthood (Birch 1999; Campbell & Crawford 2001; Westenhoefer 2002)’. By teaching our children healthy eating habits early on, we can help them maintain a normal growth and healthy lifestyle.

Some of the things you can do to inculcate healthy eating habits in your child are: set up a regular snack and meal schedule, develop the habit of having breakfast, introduce him to a variety of foods, provide him with healthy snacks between mealtimes, and eat as a family. Do not pressurise your child to eat more than what he wants to. Remember, you should decide what and when your child eats, but let him decide whether he wants to eat and how much he should eat. According to the article ‘Healthy Eating: Helping Your Child Learn Healthy Eating Habits’ in healthlinkbc.ca, ‘Young children are good at listening to their bodies. They eat when they're hungry. They stop when they're full. When we try to control how much children eat, we interfere with this natural ability’.

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