Healthy eating is a new year’s resolution for many grownups and that’s also important for kids but it needs to be fun and tasty. How about eating rainbows?
The most colorful foods are fruits and vegetables and children need to eat 5 servings of veggies and fruit every day. Fortunately, these foods come in all colors of the rainbow, although blue foods are more purple, making 5 color groups. When kids eat one fruit or vegetable from each color, they have eaten a rainbow. Eating one food from each color is the goal for the day.
Kia Robertson and her daughter Hannah, from “Today I Ate A Rainbow”, came up with an easy way to keep track of what children eat. They developed a game using a chart and colored magnets. Kids get a magnet of each color to make a rainbow for the day. Or, you can also make a chart at home and kids can use different colors of crayons or markers.
Getting kids to try something new is not always easy. They may need to be introduced to the food slowly, by giving them time to touch it and smell it first before tasting. If a taste is too adventurous, kids can hold a new vegetable or fruit and maybe give it a kiss hello. It’s okay not to like something after trying a bite. Sometimes, a bite will taste different on a different day. When children are involved in washing and preparing veggies and fruits, they are more likely to eat them, so that is another strategy.
Helping children develop healthy eating patterns can be a challenge but it has definite benefits. Nutrition not only has tremendous impact on the body’s health, but also on the brain’s health. Eating a rainbow is also a good new year’s resolution for grownups! Will eating a rainbow be a new year’s resolution for your family?