Eating Habits Of Children

Hello friends!

I am Dr. Abhishek Sharma. A lot of parents have queries regarding the eating habits of the children. Let us spend a few minutes trying to understand what is the eating behavior of children all about. How it forms? How it is affected by different things that we do in our daily lives? Obsession is a thing that we tend to get associated within a lot of things we do in life. Somehow knowingly or unknowingly as a parent, we tend to get obsessed about the eating habits of a child even if they are healthy by the definition, by the standards of doctor. Obsession is the first thing that we must understand, it should not be an obsession. There should be a healthy concern regarding eating habits.

Generally, a few things that I would like to say to help you parents in making your children eat better, making your children take interest in food are some of these. First of all- we should try to make them more involved in the process of food right from what the food is, how it is grown and how it is made in the kitchen. That generates curiosity and children are by default very curious. We should make them do some of the work that we do in our kitchen. It generates a lot of excitement in them to do something which is worthwhile thereby increasing their interest in food as well. Similarly, we should try to avoid packaged food as far as we can. The same goes on we should try to bring upon gender equality in the kitchen.

We should let our better halves, the male members as well, be involved in the food process. That way the kids would also learn to take part in the process and they will be more interested in the whole process of food and its preparation and eating. We should try to avoid aluminium foils in the tiffin boxes. We should try to use more of the local foods, more of the seasonal fruits and vegetables and more importantly the things which are relevant in your own household. The foods which are prepared in a traditional way in your own household. That way the kid will be more likely to take interest in eating that particular food item that you are used to eating in your own household. So it's up to us as a parent to show our children what to do and what not to do in the best possible way. Same with our food habits. So we should take a proactive step, let our kids join us in the process and thereby make them a better person in terms of choosing what to eat and what not to eat.

Thank you!