Healthy Eating

Filed Under Food, Learning, Talking, Two and a half years old | Leave a Comment

We have been doing a lot to teach Bailey about healthy foods vs. junk foods. I would love for her to have better eating habits than me or Jonathon. We have also been more careful about what we eat (okay, at least in front of her!) since she has been noticing. She knows that she has to eat healthy food before she can have a “junk snack” and she only gets one junk snack per day. For her, a junk snack is something like fruit snacks, a cookie, chips etc.

I think it is starting to sink in with her. When she was playing with the pretend kitchen in one of her classes, I heard her say, “I’m playing with all these healfy foods!” Another time, she was eating lunch with a little girl at church. She looked at the other girls lunch and said, “You have lots of junk snacks. Those are not healfy foods. I eat healfy foods so my body can have energy!” And it was true- the other girl had a half sandwich, pudding, chips, cookies and a candy. I was proud of Bailey for recognizing that. Next we will work on being tactful…

She does get fun foods and snacks occasionally. We eat fast food about once a week. She loves pizza too. We are not crazy about what she is allowed to consume (I think parents who are too much this way almost encourage their kids to gorge on junk food when they have the chance). I have also seen some statistics about girls- even younger than you would think- with eating disorders or using dieting pills. I don’t want her to be obsessed but I want her to be able to make smart choices for herself.

We just make sure that we have healthy things to offer her and that she gets a balanced diet. I wish she would eat more vegetables but we’re working on it. The other day at her cooking class she announced, “I don’t like to eat betchtables. I only like cookies!” Nice and loud and clear for everyone to hear, of course.

And here she is enjoying her pudding snack! She gets a half a cup of pudding when we need to hide a pill or something in it crushed up. She does okay with liquid medicine, but unfortunately her allergy medicine only comes in chewables

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