Is your home a nutritional one? Making sure that it is can do very much to help ensure the overall health of your child. You and the other family members and adult caregivers who share your home have the potential to set the most effective examples of how to eat healthy for all of the children who live and play there.
This is an ongoing, everyday process that begins with you and your child’s other adult caregivers making smart choices about what you choose to eat and not eat. Making sure that your home is stocked with healthy food that is easy for children to see and access (and not stocked with unhealthy food) helps create an environment that encourages your child to eat well. This is especially true if:
- your child routinely sees you choose to snack on fruit rather than chips or candy,
- if you and your family sit down to dinner together each evening, and
- if you allow your children to see you prepare plates of food for them at mealtimes.
Remember that your child will learn most of what he or she comes to know about food and eating from the examples you set.
