Get your Child to Eat Veggies

Children have a natural instinct to avoid vegetables. They seem to have grouped food into two categories, veggies and non-veggies, opting for non-veggies.

In my experience, they are especially inclined to eat eggs and meat. If this is the case, it is up to parents to introrduce their children to vegetables and its benefits.
Our daughter, thank goodness, eats her veggies. Actually, there are times when she likes it more than meat itself. Early on, we made sure that teach her to eat a variety of foods, including but not exclusively of vegetables. Let me share with you a few points we use.

1. Model Parent

Don’t preach and not follow-up on practice. Set an example. Let your child see you enjoying your bowl of veggies. Never let your child hear you say a nasty word about the taste of a vegetable. Never let them see you make face about it either. They imbibe this and file this in their minds for future reference.

2. Fun,Fun,Fun

We encourage our child to eat her veggies by setting up a mock game. We tell her that if she doesn’t eat her veggies now, no more will be left for her. Daddy will gobble it all up, no more tasty veggies for her to munch on. Other times we ask her which color she would like to eat, the green one (papaya or something else) or the orange (squash). Basically, we highlight the vegetable’s color and make it the jump off point.

3. Decisions, Decisions

There are also times we let her decide for herself. We ask her which vegetable she would like to eat, the okra or tha kankong in the sinigang. this tactic never fails. It’s a win-win solution. She eats what she likes, and you made her eat her veggies.

4. Variety

Nobody, even adults, is safe from the sawa factor. To avoid this, we buy a variety of vegetables and cook it in various ways. Careful and thoughtful menu planning comes in. This not only ensures that children are introduced to different vegetables but also balances their nutritional intake.

5. Baby Food vs. Adult Food

Children are often treated as babies. Parents often set a aside a special food for them as opposed to adult food. Adults think that their food is much more complicated than baby food and therefore assume that children wouldn’t like it. So parents, in a bid to be on the “safe side” cook meat viands, or in some cases, allow children to make use of soy sauce, sugar, chocolate powder or even ketchup as ulam. This in fact is a terrible practice. It robs the children of the nutrition they should be getting. Once, we served lumpiang togue with a meat viand, interestingly, our daughter chose to eat the lumpiang togue, completely ignoring the other viand. From then on, we decided that we will serve only adult food, as much as possible. Whatever we’re having, she’s also having.

We can always rant that our children are such picky eaters. We can always blame others for influencing our children’s eating habits. We can always point the finger to grandparents who spoil them to death. But ultimately, we’ve got ourselves to blame.

Parents cannot always underestimate their children’s abilities, including food choices. Considering in other factors, parents still play a majoy role in shaping the child’s outlook on vegetables. It is our responsibility after all to make sure that they are given every opportunity to grow healthy, mentally, emotionally and physically. And good eating habits is just one of the many things that contribute to their bright futures.