The best time to start teaching your children about good eating habits is when they’re young.  However, it can be started at any age.  It’s just important that parents start the process before their children have developed several negative eating habits.  It’s not impossible to start at that point; it’s just much harder to get them to embrace the habits.  Teaching new habits is easier than transforming habits.

One of the best ways to teach your child, especially when they’re young, is to be a good role model.  The “do as I say, not as I do” approach is far from being effective.  When children are young they have a strong tendency to imitate.  If a parent tells a child to eat their vegetables while the parent eats greasy chips, the child is less likely to follow the instructions.

A parent should eat the healthy foods they want their children to eat, such as vegetables, fruits, fish, and other helthy foods.  Another important element of being a good role model is eating balanced meals.  A parent should eat balanced meals as often as possible instead of eating only the pieces of a balanced meal throughout the day.

There are several practices that can help a child of any age learn about healthy eating habits.  One is to have regular family meals.  This means the family sits down together and eats a healthy meal close to the same time every day.  Keeping up with a scheduled time to eat dinner can help the children understand that meals should be eaten regularly.  Having the entire family together also enhances appetite and comforts children.

It’s important that the family meals are home made.  Making a meal every night can be time consuming, but it’s better for everyone in your family.  Overall, home cooked meals are healthier.  Many restaurant or fast food meals have more salt and fat in them.  Your child will also get into the habit of making food instead of buying fast food.

Another option for parents is to involve their children in food-related activities.  These activities may include packing school lunches, making dinner, or grocery shopping.  All of these activities give parents the chance to talk to their children about eating healthy.  They can learn about the importance of certain foods in a daily diet.  While helping out in the kitchen, they can also learn about healthy cooking habits.

These ways of teaching children about healthy eating habits all require the parents’ presence.  However, parents aren’t able to be with their children every second of the day.  A great way to teach your children about healthy eating while you’re not home is to have healthy snacks around.  Stocking your pantry with healthy drinks and food will subtly teach your children.  They will get used to grabbing a healthy snack when they’re hungry.  As they get older they’re more likely to choose healthy snacks because that’s what they’re used to eating.

These are just a few ways to teach children about healthy eating.  It’s very important to teach your children healthy eating habits because it can help avoid the development of an eating disorder.  It’s better to avoid an eating disorder than to treat one once it’s firmly developed. However if it’s come to your attention that your child or teen has developed an eating disorder, there is help. Avalon Hills has the best eating disorder treatment for those that suffer from eating disorders and want to help.

Our professional staff learned immensely from the clients and their families and the evaluations and feedback we received indicated that it was a highly meaningful experience for all who attended.  The week-long events included many classes on topics such as family dynamics, communication skills, and medical complications of eating disorders, intuitive eating, & how to facilitate funding for treatment.  Many raved about the opening presentation by Doris Smeltzer, a mom who lost her 19 year old daughter to bulimia nervosa.  Her story is tragic, moving, eye opening, and life altering to all who allow themselves to feel the weight of her message-eating disorders are deadly, our culture needs a wake up call to realize this, & advocacy/awareness are required on every level from individual families to public policy to prevent additional deaths.  Additionally, the founder of Avalon Hills, Benita Quakenbush-Roberts, presented pieces of her own long-term recovery story and took questions from the patients and their families.  The week was rounded out by multi-family work characterized by the patients and families truly getting honest with each other in an effort to heal and move forward as a cohesive unit against the eating disorder.  Those professional staff that facilitated the sessions were ever amazed by the strength, grace, and hope presented in the openness of ”our” patients and their families.  Recognizing the impact of the family retreat, we are planning on doing a retreat such as this at least twice per year.  For current families we will keep you posted as the next date draws near.

If you are interested in additional info on the advocacy efforts of Doris Smeltzer, please visit the following site:  http://www.andreasvoice.org/

If you have questions surrounding the family retreat you can contact Carrie Bostrom at (435) 755-0434 or carrie@avalonhills.org.