• Eat More Veggies

  • The grocery store is full of promises for healthy food, but many times we get sucked into buying foods that actually aren’t that good for you. Not to mention, kids seem to be a primary target for this sort of misleading advertising. When you help your kids make healthy food choices, you’re helping them in more ways than preventing childhood obesity. You’re teaching them a life skill that will keep them thinking healthy for the rest of their lives.

    Start by teaching your kids how to identify health foods in a grocery store full of additives and needless sugar. Your child can only make healthier eating choices if they understand all their options. One easy way to find a true health food is to look at the ingredients, and see if anything stands out as odd. High fructose corn syrup, as well as dextrose and gelatin, are big indicators of a processed food. Stay away from these, and teach your kids to do the same. You can also practice identifying these processed foods at home. Just quiz your child about what they think is in a certain food, and then read them what is actually in it. Discuss the good from the bad and chance are they will catch on.

    Also, remember that health food apps exist. There are lots of fantastic health apps on the market for both Androids and iPhones. Most are either cheap or free, and they can often give tips on grocery shopping and even grade specific items based on health. Apps like Fooducate can help you see through the “fake” health foods marketed to your kids, and the free app True Food can even tell you which foods and brands might contain genetically-modified ingredients. After all, isn’t healthy eating about eating all-natural foods?