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How to Encourage Healthy Eating & Positive Body Image in Children
“We don’t eat chocolate, we’re vegetarian.”
At age 6, our daughter had never eaten chocolate or meat (although technically she was a pescatarian so ate fish and seafood) — and she obviously got a little confused when she tried to explain our lifestyle to her teacher.
For years, the only vegetables our little ‘vegetarian’ would eat were corn-on-the-cob or broccoli.
And even now, she has a visceral reaction to most fruits. She is repelled by the look and smell of strawberries and holds a general disdain for most fruits in any form — fresh, frozen, hidden in smoothies, baked into pastries — except apple pie and no pulp orange juice.
Making sure she and her brothers consumed the vitamins and minerals they needed could sometimes be taxing, especially because we wanted them to develop a positive body image.
Raising a child to make healthy eating choices without making them body conscious can be tough.
As someone with a history of mild emotional and addictive eating patterns — who once ate so many baby carrots I turned orange and easily consumed a half-gallon of ice cream or a few dozen cookies when stressed, I wanted our children to build healthy relationships with food.
