I swear sometimes it feels like we were set up to fail as parents when it comes to getting our kids to eat healthy.

However impossible it might feel, I’ve got some tips that will get your kids to care about what they eat – making the impossible, totally possible.

3 ways to get your kids to eat healthy

| The cold hard truth |

In my experience, your kids eat unhealthy because of 3 reasons:

1. You feed it to them
2. They see it on TV
3. Already formed habits that cause cravings

This isn’t easy to hear, but if you want to help change your kids habits, you have to take responsibility for your roll in creating these habits and make a stand to change them, period.

| Why should your kids care |

You might want your kids to care, but do you know why they really should?

A healthy lifestyle is imperative for their growing years as their brain, body, muscles etc are all growing. Proper nutrition leads to optimal growth.

Plus, your kids only have until they are 30 years old to build strong bones. Once you hit 30 you reach peak bone mass and it’s all downhill from there … depressing, eh?

And let’s be frank here – it’s the rest of their lives! We aren’t just talking about what they want for right now, but what will help them in the long run. Long term thinking is huge.

1. Educate them.
   • Teach them about health
   • Tell them how food affects their body
   • Explain how it affects growth
   • Let them know how their life is impacted long term with proper lifestyle habits
2. Agree on a plan.
   • Sit down with your kids to make a plan
   • Ask them: “Why do you care about your health”. Don’t put words in their mouths or give them answers, listen and actually find out their reason
   • Tell them: “This is why I care about your health” and let them see your side
   • Talk about what foods they would be willing to eat to reach their health goal
   • Agree on it and write it down
3. Show them you trust them.
   • Stick to them plan! If they agreed to eat an apple and a handful of trailmix after sports practice, don’t show up with a hard-boiled egg.
   • Respect the plan and build on it later

Educating them helps teach them why they should invest in their health, making a plan together is showing allowing them some control of their health (hello no more fights!) and showing them you trust them by respecting the plan you agreed on will lead them to want to invest more and they will build it on when they are ready.