Expert in child obseity and GP Rachel Pryke offers her menu for changing children´s eating habits.
Lots of parents worry that their children will turn up their noses at healthy food, but we all get used to things if they keep appearing. And we don’t miss favourite foods if we weren’t expecting them, particularly if we know they will appear on treat days.
Appetite and fullness
We have a natural eating control mechanism, if we tune in to it. Most people were brought up to ‘clear the plate’ but today that can mean eating too much because our portion sizes are often dictated by others – pre-packaged items, ready meals or even over-generous parents!
• Encourage children to stop eating once they feel full rather than to clear the plate, otherwise they’ll eat to please others rather than out of need.
• Involve children in choosing portions: a portion means roughly a handful, little hands mean little portions.
• Slow down the speed of eating and size of mouthfuls – so fullness signals have time to indicate when to stop eating.
Varying the diet
With so much confusing nutritional information how can we get the balance right? The key is variety.
• Eating lots of different types of foods means all the nutritional basics will appear somewhere.
• Focus more on putting the good things in – such as at least five portions of fruit and vegetables each day – rather than cutting things out.
• The Eatwell Plate shows the proportions of each food group in a healthy diet – fruit and vegetables should make up a third of each day’s mouthfuls!
Developing a taste for new foods
Children grow to like familiar foods but will develop a strong dislike of anything forced on them.
• Eating together gives children chance to learn to like family foods.
• Serve the same family foods time and again – but avoid fussing or forcing if not initially successful. It might take 20 appearances for something to seem familiar and normal.
• Making food look tempting and mealtime games can encourage young children to try new foods, so they have a chance to get to like them.
You can find more information about childhood eating behaviours in Weight Matters for Children, by Rachel Pryke, Radcliffe Publishing.
If you would like more information about brief interventions for obesity prevention for use in primary care then please get in touch: rachelgpryke@btinternet.com
Rachel Pryke is a part-time GP and trainer in Redditch, Worcestershire, with particular interests in child obesity, adolescent health and women’s health. She has written two books – Weight Matters for Children and Weight Matters for Young People, Radcliffe Publishing 2006 and co-authored the obesity modules of the e-Learning for Health Adolescent Health Project. She is a member of the RCGP Adolescent Primary Care Society and a member of the Worcestershire Obesity Strategy Group. She has completed research, in conjunction with Warwick University, examining the practicalities of offering a child obesity prevention intervention in primary care.
References
1. Inglis N, Docherty A, Pryke R. Evaluation of the ‘Mealtime Magic’ Brief Leaflet-based Intervention in General Practice. Primary Health Care Research and Development; 1-14 doi:10.1017/S1463423609990326 http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A694ENbB
2. Pryke R. Weight Matters for Children. Radcliffe Publishing 2005. www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1857757718
3. Pryke R. Weight Matters for Young People. Radcliffe Publishing 2006. www.radcliffe-oxford.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?ISBN=1857757726
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Comments
How many people do you know who glaze over when offered advice on healthy eating? What I really like about Rachel's blog is that it doesn't try to blind us with science, instead offering some really simple tips that anyone can relate to. The desire in many households to encourage children to always clear their plates is a good example. Perhaps this harps back to times of shortage, when there wasn't really enough food to go around. Now that such shortages are a thing of the past for most of us, it makes sense that we need to rethink this approach.