Bringing choices to table much healthier

Liza Iliffe Photo/File

Kids will always tell exactly how it is in their family. A friend was having dinner with us recently. He asked if we always ate the same meals together and how we managed individual likes and dislikes. I started to answer the query with some helpful tips and strategies for meal times, but my children keen to share family stories told him with great honesty how if they didn't eat their dinner they were not entitled to pudding, and had to go to their rooms, and that I would never actually say if there was any pudding or not and if there did happen to be it was only yoghurt anyway.

They shared about the 'one bite rule' - how if you didn't like something you weren't allowed to just leave it, you had to have at least one bite of it.

They talked about how they all had at least two things that they hated eating and that they were their two foods that they didn't have to eat.

They shared how sometimes mum's parenting was also not up to standard and that the youngest managed to get away with having cereal for dinner. I deny that strongly.

Here are some great strategies for managing family meal times and fussy eaters from John Cowan at The Parenting Place.

You choose what

Your children may choose from only what you set before them.

They can't help themselves to sugary treat foods in preference to what you decide they should eat. Educate your children that some foods are healthier and may be eaten regularly, and that other foods, even though they are tasty, are less healthy and only suitable as rare treats.

Where and how

'Ritualising' food into meal times at the table makes it easier to control eating, and makes eating a more deliberate and conscious act rather that just unconscious snacking. As well as nutrition, eating together can be such a rich part of family and social life that we serve our children well if we equip them with table skills and manners.

You choose when

If children are allowed to fill up on snacks just before a meal, or leave your good food uneaten at the table and go straight to the biscuit tin, they can undermine your attempts at good nutrition. Of course your children can have snacks children probably do better with more frequent, smaller meals but they cannot just 'free range graze'. Your rules around eating should extend to snacks: you decide when and what. Short term hunger can be endured.

Let them choose

Forcing children to eat everything on their plate is teaching them to ignore the sensation of having eaten enough; they also come to trust external opinions about serving size rather than learning to judge for themselves.

I suggest they not be forced to eat more than they want. If they chose not to eat what is provided, don't feel compelled to provide them with alternatives, and they have to wait until the next scheduled time for a meal or snack.

But what if children choose not to eat what you can consider to be enough?

Then, guess what? If you are right, they will feel hungry.

Unless there is some complicating factor like diabetes, they will not be worse off for the experience and will bring a much healthier appetite to the table next time.

For more, great parenting tips and strategies check out the SKIP website www.skip.org.nz or contact Liza and Lynette at SKIP Whanganui on (06) 345 3008, text 027 626 1404 or email skipwanganui@xtra.co.nz.