Make healthy food accessible—and hungry kids will do the rest. Each day after school, set out a vegetable tray with baby carrots, celery sticks, broccoli florets, grape tomatoes and red and yellow peppers. Add low-fat ranch dressing as dip and you have a healthy, no-hassle snack the whole family can enjoy!
It’s never too late to help your little one learn to love vegetables.
Teaching your child to make good food choices is an important lesson at any age. Whether you have a veggie lover from birth who suddenly won’t eat anything green or a child who has never met a vegetable he liked, you can turn your child’s tastes around.
Veggiesaurus Rex
“Don’t force your child to eat vegetables,” says Tara Todd, RD, outpatient dietitian at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “If vegetables are always part of the meal and children watch their parents eat them, they will eventually begin to eat them too.”
Try these additional tips to nurture veggie love at the table:
- Serve vegetables with all meals and as occasional snacks.
- Put only one or two bites on your
child’s plate.
- Introduce a new vegetable each week.
- Keep it crunchy by serving steamed,
stir-fried or raw vegetables.
- Try seasonings, dressings and low-fat dips to enhance flavor and fun.
- Don’t expect your child to like new
food on the first try.
“If your child rejects a vegetable, keep including it with meals,” says Todd. “It may take 20 times before your child acquires a taste, but don’t give up. A child who turned up his nose to broccoli one week can become the world’s biggest broccoli fan the next.”
For more information about your child’s nutrition, call the Answer Line at
314.454.KIDS (5437) or toll free 800.678.KIDS.