Making meal times a relaxed, fun time, one that your children actually look forward to. Sit down and eat with your children. One important factor however, is to make sure you eat what they are eating. Eating meals together as a family also provides children with an enthusiasm to try new foods. As they see you and other family members enjoying a wide range of different foods, they will seek to do likewise. Toddlers often need to be introduced several times to new foods before they feel they want to try them. Providing a variety of different foods to ensure an adequate consumption of vitamins, minerals and fibre is essential and with such a variety on offer, your child can decide what they do and don’t like. Providing your young ones are healthy and growing well the likelihood is that are they getting what they need.

Small Doses
Another method that can prove successful is to simplify the choices available to a child at mealtime. Simply ask them to eat what they want and leave what they don’t. Parents should make sure that even if a child refuses the meal put in front of them, making a replacement meal is not the solution.

The fact is that a child will always choose to eat if they are hungry. As children develop, it is advised that all tastes and favourites within the household are catered for, further promoting a diverse and healthy diet. Don’t get into the habit of getting meals for each individual member each mealtime, just ones that cover all tastes over the week.

As children lead up to adolescence, you may need to take a slightly more relaxed approach to ‘junk’ foods for a while. Nothing is so attractive as when it is forbidden, as is often the case with even the very young. For pre-teen and teenage children, cheeseburgers and pizzas, although unconventional, are still good sources of calcium, which is especially important in the pre-teen and teenage years. As long as they are taking enough exercise the occasional junk meal won’t make them fat. Its all part of a ‘varied’ diet.

Repeat Performance
What if, even after it seems all other avenues have been exhausted, your child seems to rebuke all effort to make food fun for them? The answer is not to force them to eat, as this can further increase the problem. Instead, simply take away the food without fuss and try again on another day. It make take several attempts, but in the end your persistence will pay off. Just remember to cover the five main food groups, which include; bread, potatoes and cereals; milk and dairy foods; meat and fish; foods containing fat/sugar and the all-important; fruit and veg