Kids and Meals: It Doesn’t Have to Be a Battleground

Parenting children is quite a challenge in every aspect, but meals and eating habits need not be included as part of the challenge. Recent research findings are suggesting that more liberal attitudes towards allowing young children to govern their own intake is the best way to ensure that children maintain their ideal body weight through the rest of their lives. Contrary to earlier ideas about the parental role in ensuring their children’s nutritional and caloric needs, current research findings are supporting the idea of a much less assertive role in encouraging young kids and consequently all kids to eat.

At the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

Describe recent research findings on children’s nutrition
• Describe the soft/solid food transition process
• Describe the development of eating habits
• Describe the impact of parental approach to a child’s future eating habits
• Identify the effects of advertising on children’s food choices and what options you have as parents
Identify strategies parents can adopt to establish healthy life-long eating habits in children
• Describe the importance of role modeling and the negative effects of hypocrisy
• Identify the importance of offering restricted choice in food selection for children
• Identify the problems associated with processed foods and how to make a healthy choice despite cost
• Describe tips for helping parents meal plan