ANN ARBOR, Mich. (WXYZ) — Balancing nutritious meals for children with the everyday realities of busy schedules and food preferences can be a daily struggle for families across America and across Michigan. You may.
Children need a balanced diet to get the energy and nutrients they need to grow. A recent national poll conducted by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital sheds new light on the challenges of feeding children and the pitfalls to avoid.
For young mother Meghan, feeding her son Jack can be hit or miss.
“What kind of people eater is Jack?” I asked her.
“Well, he has his moments, too,” she replied.
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We met them after going to the grocery store.
“Some days he eats a lot of food, which I absolutely love,” Meghan said.
But other days, not so much. And it’s really hard to get Jack to eat any vegetables other than broccoli.
“I don’t eat any other vegetables,” Meghan said. “So I’m trying to diversify his vegetable world.”
94% of parents try to use some strategy to get their children between the ages of 3 and 10 to eat vegetables. That’s according to the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.
- 59% say they serve vegetables every day.
- 53% adjust vegetables to suit their child’s tastes.
- 41% let their kids choose vegetables at the grocery store.
- 25% hide vegetables inside other foods.
The last strategy is one that Mott Pole co-director Dr. Susan Woolford says won’t be well-received by children in the long term. She suggested a better strategy.
“Feed them small portions of something they don’t like, along with other things they like, and repeat it on a regular basis,” Woolford said. “Eventually, they’ll accept the vegetable and maybe even like it.”
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Are there other hurdles to healthy eating? 51 percent of parents say their child is a picky eater. 32% say healthy food costs too much.
Two-thirds of parents also say the American diet is unhealthy, being high in sodium, processed foods, carbohydrates and saturated fat. Many people perceive the Mediterranean diet as healthier.
“And about a third thought a vegetarian diet was healthy,” Woolford said. “However, only about 9% of parents have actually tried feeding their child a vegetarian or Mediterranean diet.”
They worry that their children will stop eating their vegetables and won’t get all the nutrients they need. Many parents find themselves pretending to cook on short notice, giving them another option if their child doesn’t like the family meal. But often these options only provide calories with no nutritional value.
“It fills them up,” Woolford says, “so when the next nutritious meal comes along, they’re not hungry for it.”
Dr. Woolford says provide a balanced diet and let your child eat what they like. Skip snacking and offer a variety of healthy options at your next meal. Perhaps it would be more acceptable when dining.
Our food preferences are complex. It is formed before the baby takes its first breath and is formed in the womb under the influence of the food and nutrients the mother ingested during pregnancy.
“And if the mother eats a healthy diet while breastfeeding, that will also influence the child’s likelihood of accepting fruit and vegetables later on,” Woolford says.
That range also applies to Laverne and her 11-year-old son, Jeremiah, whose favorite foods are salads and salmon.
“When I was pregnant, I was craving salad, and now, I don’t know how to explain it, but yeah,” Laverne says.
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Many of us were told to wash the dishes as children. However, only one out of eight of her parents said that this was a household rule.
Dr Woolford argues that families should do away with this rule because it encourages children to ignore their bodies’ cues that they are full.
She also says to stop rewarding yourself for eating vegetables and other parts of a healthy balanced diet. It only makes children want to handle and dislike food even more, which they see as an obstacle between them and what they really want.
