Eating Healthy With Kids

I'm at the bank on my lunch break so this will be a quick one.

As a parent you want the best for your kids. You want them to be as healthy as can be. With all of the news about childhood diabetes and obesity you can't help but get concerned for the well being of your child. You don't want them to have to get insulin injections for the rest of their lives and suffer the bullying overweight children tend to get at school. With the overflow of conflicting information out there it gets immensely confusing. You really have no idea what you should do because every diet expert contradicts one another.

It doesn't have to be very confusing. You don't need to put your child on any sort of diet. It can actually be very harmful if your not careful. Kids need certain nutrients at their young age and depriving them of things they need should be criminal if it weren't for the massive ignorance in the general population about what is healthy.

I have a six month old boy myself so I can't speak with complete authority on the matter of what to feed your older child but I do have memories of how my parents fed me. In retrospect I remember the things they did right and all the things they did wrong. Now I can use these experiences to help my own child eat right.

There are just a handful of things you need to remember to keep you and your kid fit and healthy.

1) This is really a no-brainer but let her go outside for god's sake. Don't be overprotective and let your kid venture out into the world a little bit. remember when you were a kid and you spent hours in the woods just building a dilapidated fort with your friends? Don't deprive your kid of experience out in nature and let them wander out of suburbia and into the woods.

Also, go outside yourself. Your body and mind will thank you.

2) Differentiate between fake food and real food. Fake food comes from a box. Real food comes from the wild or from the farm. Apples, eggs, bacon, chicken, broccoli and potatoes are real. Cheerios, cookies, margarine and fruit snacks are fake.

I'm not going to say completely eliminate all process foods forever. Nothing will make your kid resent more than keeping him from having an ice cream cone once in a while. But the kid has to realize that it's foods that come from a box, a bag, or a restaurant that will make him fat and unhealthy.

3) Have him learn by example. Eat healthy yourself! You think your kids going to let you eat Eggo Waffles with out wanting some himself? Kids will follow your example. Make the right choices. Go for scrambled eggs in the morning.

I'm scrapped for time so that will have to do.In a nutshell, use common sense and don't trust any authority unless it makes sense to you.