Today we continue the Healthy Living Stamp of Approval Series, sponsored by American Standard Heating & Air Conditioning. To learn more about the series, check out my first blog entry on the series.

Next up to receive my Healthy Living Stamp of Approval is Stephanie from Keeper of the Home. Stephanie’s blog is chock full of inspiring advice on nutrition and sustainable living – she’s even packaged many of her thoughts into an awesome e-book, “Healthy Homemaking: One Step at a Time." You should definitely check it out!

Stephanie's post:

Raising Healthy Eaters- Helping Our Kids to Make Great Food Choices

As moms, we all want the best for our kids. We work hard to make sure that they have all of their physical and emotional needs provided for, that they have an excellent education, and that they grow up to be kind, thoughtful and generous people.

If you're anything like me, I would imagine that you also desire for them to grow up strong and healthy, knowing how to eat well and how to discern those things that are good or bad for their bodies.

Training our children to be healthy eaters and to be capable of selecting wise food choices that will nourish their little bodies takes some purposefulness on our part. Are we aware of how the choices that we make today in regards to what our children eat and how they view food will enormously impact their patterns of eating and health as they grow to be teens and adults?

Let's start right now to raise healthy eaters by instilling in them both the knowledge and skills to make good decisions down the road!

1. Set an example.

To a large degree, I believe that nutritious eating is caught, not taught. We've probably all had the experience of saying something to our spouse or a friend without thinking about the fact that little ears were listening in, and later regretted it when we heard it coming out of the mouths of our babes!

Healthy eating habits are mimicked by our monkey-see, monkey-do munchkins as well. If I want my kids to love vegetables and fruit, then I need to make sure that they regularly see me eating them, giving them prominence on my dinner plate, and enjoying them thoroughly. The example that I set goes a long way towards creating a positive attitude about good foods in my children.

2. Let them help.

Oh, I understand why you might prefer not to. Cracked eggs on the floor, flour in their hair (and yours), mixed up ingredients (my favorite- cayenne flavored banana bread!), and little ones underfoot while you're rushing to get dinner on the table at 5:48pm.

In my experience, though, the more that I let my children grab a chair and join me in what I'm making, the more likely they are to happily eat it. There's a certain level of pride that comes with participating in the meal creation process, and almost every child is happier to eat the salad that they washed and ripped lettuce for, than the one that is simply plunked in front of them come supper time.

3. Educate them.

Last summer, I was so delighted to see my oldest daughter really beginning to understand the gardening process and to share my joy in the harvest from our backyard. Having knowledge of where food comes from is critical to learning to select and eat good foods, and yet most children simply have no idea.

Teach your kids about food. Talk about how things grow while you're at the market. Discuss where beef comes form while you're driving by farms in the country. Include your children in the selection process in the grocery aisle and tell them why you've chosen what's in your cart. Grab any and every opportunity to further instill an understanding about where foods come from, the wonderful nutrition they contain and how they keep us healthy, strong and full of energy.

4. Give them good options.

I'm loving the new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. In a recent episode, he prepared a wholesome lunchtime option (chicken, salad and rice) to be presented alongside of a school's regular cafeteria option (pizza). When faced with this choice, what do you suppose most of the kids chose? You bet they picked that pizza!

Like these children, many of us adults will also choose foods that we know aren't as good for us when presented with the option, simply because they are there. Keeping this in mind, it only makes sense to stock our kitchens with the best food options we can. If our fridge and pantry are full of processed, packaged snack foods, we can bet that when hunger arises, our kids won't be begging for that lone bag of baby carrots.

Given multiple healthy options, however, kids have no choice but to select something good for them and they will learn to develop preferences for these foods. Would you like Healthy Option A or Healthy Option B? They learn to love nutritious foods and find them fully satisfying. Mine beg me for foods like walnuts, dates, cucumbers, mandarin oranges and scrambled eggs, simply because these are the types of foods that are actually available to them.

5. Keep it fun and varied.

I try not to get too serious about what I serve in my kitchen. I love to create healthy versions of things that all kids love to eat- macaroni and cheese, meatballs, fruit smoothies, french fries, and cookies. When made with the right ingredients (whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, unrefined sweeteners like honey, good fats) these everyday kid-friendly foods can nourish as well as delight.

We love to make sprouted grain toast with peanut butter and raisin faces. Sticky lemonade popsicles for hot summer days. Pancakes in the shape of a heart. Home-popped popcorn with real butter and sea salt for special family movie nights. We even put fresh olives on the ends of our fingers and eat them off one by one.

Healthy eating needn't be dull. Have fun with it, add some variety and show your children just how delicious whole foods can really be!

When we as parents get intentional about what we feed our kids, and the ways that we feed it to them, good things start to happen. Here's to raising the next generation of healthy, happy eaters!

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