Healthy eating habits start in childhood

It’s a topic that almost every parent talks about. How to get children to eat healtheir food – and avoid the high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar junk foods? The health experts and officials are forever throwing in their opinions, too, imploring parents to wake up to the growing problem of overweight children in the UK.

They are right, of course. Britain does have an increasingly scary statistics for childhood obesity. Being overweight as a child also means that as an adult you will have a greater chance of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and dying younger.

Why do children need to eat healthily? Eating healthy foods and a balanced diet means that they will receive all the essential nutrients for brains and bodies to function efficiently and smoothly.

Children with healthy diets are also shown to:

* Do better at school

* Concentrate for longer

* Do better in sports.

Here we bring you some great tips to get children to eat more healthily.

• Eat with others. Food should be fun and sociable.
• Choose foods with nice colours. Food should look good as well as taste good.
• Cut food into fun shapes or create patterns or designs.
• Offer children a choice of healthy foods. They like to feel grown-up and make decisions.
• Involve kids in cooking. Children like to eat what they have made – and not just cakes!
• Explain why it is that some foods are better than others. Kids are sponges for knowledge.
• In the summer, grow fruit and veg with your children. let them harvest the produce and try the tastes (raw and cooked).
• Serve raw veg instead of cooked. Many children prefer veg crunchy rather than soft.
• Try sweeter "good for you foods", such as strawberries, mandarin oranges, cherries, baby tomatoes and sweet peas.·

And did you know?

• The most important food group for young kids is carbohydrates, things like bread and pasta.
• Whole fruits are better than juice.
• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Why not sing about healthy munching and crunching with your children?!

The Sticky Kids Munch and Crunch song:

It isn’t food that makes you fat

It’s eating junk, remember that.

Find out more about the Munch and Crunch CD for kids and grown ups here