How to Teach a Child to Eat Fruits and Vegetables

Useful Advice for Parents

It is known that the skills of healthy eating in children have to be formed by their parents who certainly take care of their child and want him to grow healthy and strong. But what can you do when the child refuses to eat healthy food preferring various unhealthy delicacies?

Definitely, you have to interest your child in order to draw his attention to fruits, vegetables and cereals. Children are attracted to bright colors and unusual forms and when the dish looks beautiful and original then the child most likely will agree to taste it. You can make a fairy tale hero from a vegetable or fruit by cutting out a pretty smiling face on an apple or making a green soldier from cucumber and turning half an eggplant into Baba Yaga's mortar. You can make decorations with feathery springs of broccoli, carrot flowers or apricot boats with cherry passengers. You can also make a snow cover out of sugar for glasses and plates to make juice drinking and fruit eating more pleasant.

Dill, onion, tomatoes, pumpkin and some other undemanding eatable plants can be easily grown at home. A child would hardly resist tasting vegetables that he grew if you allow him to grow something by himself.

It is important to be an example for a child. During lunch show your child that you prefer healthy and vegetarian dishes, too.

There is a separate methodology which uses a magical-educational game. The essence of this methodology is to tell a child about nutritional properties of plant products and their importance and indispensability in diet through fairy tales about fruits and vegetables.

Based on these wonderful stories, every parent can develop his own game system in order to teach a child that fruits & vegetables are the best friends of his health.

The World of Fruit

10 Healthy Tips: how to eat more Fruit and Vegetables

10 tips (10 steps) are given below,
but the number of variations depends on your imagination.


1. HEALTHY FOOD GAMES

Play role games form fairy tales with a child, using real vegetables and fruits.


2. QUESTIONS AND GAMES

Use the questions from the book “The Storyteller's Guide to Healthy Food” to play with your child a fascinating intellectual healthy food game with puzzles.


3. MAKE UP OWN FAIRYTALE

Ask your child to write short fruit-vegs fairytales, and based on these stories make dishes using the ingredients mentioned in the story.


4. FRUIT-VEG DOMINOS

Purchase or draw dominos with paintings of fruits and vegetables on them, so your child remembers the different names easier and also gets pleasure from the game.


5. HEALTHY BACKPACK

You can make a 'healthy' backpack in the shape of a strawberry or apple to store your child's pajamas and hang it over his bed.


6. FRUIT-VEG TOYS & PILLOWS

You can also make bright soft toys and even decorative pillows in the form of vegetables and fruits with smiling faces.


7. HEALTHY FOOD EDU STORIES

Together with the traditional fairytales, you can tell your child funny and informative stories about edible plants, which he will listen to with pleasure and know how useful one or another product is.


8. FRUIT - VEG: IMAGINATION

Let the child to draw how he imagines the events that take place in healthy food bed-time stories (fairytales). These paintings will decorate his room and remind him about the usefulness of fruits and vegetables.


9. 'HEALTHY' CRIB NOTES

Every day before eating, read his favorite healthy food tales to your child, ask questions and cut out the forms from colored paper, so your child will have small “crib notes” that will help him in learning the useful properties of vegetables and fruits every day.


10. INTERACTIVE HEALTHY FOOD SCENES

Play with your child in the role of a doctor. Let “the doctor,” using paintings and funny stories, tell the child about vitamins, minerals and fiber that vegetables and fruits contain.


You can find many entertaining healthy food stories with bright paintings, coloring pages and creative games in the three-volume “A Fabulous Health Guide” book. The first volume tells us about fruits, the second one about vegetables and everything connected with them, and the third one is dedicated to cereals, teas and useful herbs. Besides the stories and methodologies, you can find nursery rhymes (fruit and vegs nursery rhymes & short poetry), funny games and many delicious easy-to-prepare healthy recipes for children (and their moms). Parent's imagination and all the advice given above will definitely help a child to gain and develop the skills of healthy eating.

Hello, my friend. Do you know my name? Try me!

Do you know about my healing properties?

I am an apple. I am joyful and ruddy, delicious and funny. I have many vitamins which are very beneficial for your health!

Read my fruit story >> APPLE-TREE & PRINCESS...



In our children books' catalogue
you will find information & fragments
about
- moral education,
- healthy food,
- ecology for kids,
- school subjects
& dozens of articles that will teach your child discipline and foresight.