Teaching Healthy Eating Habits

One of the goals of Head Start is to help children develop healthy eating habits along with the necessary skills for proper mealtime interaction. In addition to providing healthy meals, Head Start includes opportunities to enhance the mealtime environment, and ensure that children learn proper table service and manners.

Eager learners and eaters

Feeding children during different stages of their life will have challenges. However, finding solutions to feeding issues does not have to cause unnecessary worry. Children are eager learners and eaters, and especially want to have what they see adults eating. In the Head Start Program, they learn to make healthy choices at meals with family style dining. Some ways to help children develop healthy eating habits include:

• Role modeling a positive attitude toward foods
• Identifying and describing the food at the meal and how it is prepared
• Supporting the child's decision to politely decline food (Example: If the child states "I don't like it" the staff repeats "I don't like it yet." This leaves the option open that the food could be liked later.)
• Observing other children eating to create interest in trying food

The Mealtime Environment

Atmosphere is a very important part of eating. It can impact meal satisfaction, and what the children learn from the dining experience. Mealtime environment includes, but is not limited to, the sizes of the tables and chairs, serving bowls, and utensils, the beauty of the table setting, the noise level in the room, and other external events all influence how pleasant and relaxed the children are during the meal.

Presentation: A family setting

Repeated exposure to a positive environment provides an idyllic situation for children to learn many life skills. When children eat in a family style setting, they learn to appreciate sharing delicious foods, and enjoy eating meals with teachers, friends, family and others.

With family style dining, Head Start children:

• Eat better — there are fewer spills when mealtime is calm and free of disruptions
• Feel encouraged to help with jobs associated with the meal service
• Help choose the centerpiece, music, conversation cards, and other items related to meal service
• Use the correct placements, flatware, napkins, glasses, and other items needed for a positive dining experience

More Reasons for Family Style Dining

Introducing new foods is part of the family eating together experience. Often children are expected to try a new food that they may not have seen or know anything about. When serving a new food it is best to schedule time to learn and explore the food before bring it to the table. Plan some learning activities to introduce the food. Stories about the food are a nice way to start. Allow the children to help select the food offering them several choices.

According to the American Dietetic Association’s (ADA) fact sheet Making the Most of the Family Mealtime, children who regularly eat family style are:

• Eating more fruits, vegetables and grains
• Eating less fried and fatty foods
• Drink less soda

Today one of the major barriers to family meals is the family schedules. Researchers continue to document numerous benefits of sharing meals:

• Increases communication skills
• Larger vocabulary
• Improves grades in school
• Reduces obesity
• Increases healthy eating

Family meals can be as few as one time per week but the more frequent the greater the benefits.

The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your kids, One Meal at a Time, by Laurie David is a recently published book filled with wonderful quotes, recipes, and research related to family meals. A notable comment mentions the recent study ”Household Routines and Obesity in U.S. Preschool-Aged Children” by Sara E. Anderson, PhD, and Robert C. Whitaker, MD, which found that kids as young as four already have a lower risk for obesity if they had three basic routines in their life:

• Family dinner
• Adequate sleep
• Limited weekday TV viewing