You do not need perfect meals or expensive ingredients to help your family eat healthier. A few realistic changes to family meals, snacks, and weekly preparation can make healthy eating easier to maintain.

Good nutrition is beneficial for your family for good reasons. It helps to promote healthy eating and it reduces your risks of developing diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, stroke, and osteoporosis. You can encourage good bacteria to thrive in your gut with the right meals, preventing inflammation, diverticulitis, and bowel cancer. Also, you can stay on top of weight management while avoiding risk factors that disrupt your good night’s sleep. Statistics indicate that 93% of Americans desire to eat healthy meals. However, approximately 10% admit that they always eat healthily. It is often a challenge to encourage your children to eat healthy meals. If it feels more like a goal than an actual accomplishment, here’s how you can achieve it.

Healthy Eating Together

It’s not uncommon for family members to eat at different times and places. However, eating together offers many perks worth considering. Indeed, it promotes healthy family bonds, making it essential to practice. But do you know that it offers health benefits too? According to dietitian nutritionist Kristen Gradney, families who dine together consume more fiber, fruit, and vegetables while avoiding fried foods. Moreover, it helps your kids maintain a healthy weight and try new foods. Eating together is also a great way to teach your kids manners, encourage communication and prevent behavioral problems. Therefore, you may want to consider it, if you haven’t already.

While it’s more common to eat dinner together, it shouldn’t be limited to that. It’s prudent to create a regular schedule for family mealtimes to encourage all family members to prepare ahead. You’ll also find it helpful to eliminate phones and other smart devices to avoid distractions. Assign tasks to each family member to promote participation. You can assign each member a “table topic” to research and they can tell the family at dinner what they’ve learned. If it feels awkward to eat without doing something, you can engage in conversations to promote healthy communication and decrease boredom.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that families who eat together tend to consume more nutritious, balanced meals. A shared meal can also give parents an opportunity to model trying unfamiliar foods without forcing children to eat them.

Make Family Meals Easier to Repeat

A healthy routine is more likely to last when it fits your actual schedule. Choose two or three shared meals each week rather than creating a daily expectation that becomes another source of stress.

Breakfast, weekend lunch, an after-school snack, or a simple evening meal can all count. Keep several dependable meals in rotation so that you do not have to invent a new menu every night.

Fill Your Home With Healthy Snacks

You may crave snacks or treats before the main meals throughout the day. It may seem like keeping many snack options in your home is how it is supposed to be. However, stocking up on unhealthy snacks can defeat your goal of eating healthy. Not only do you put your family at risk of developing obesity or type 2 diabetes, but it also causes digestive problems. Also, high quantities of refined sugar and unhealthy fat can suppress your brain’s memory formation and learning function, which isn’t good for your kids’ academics. It can become an addictive habit and trigger depression if you can’t access these junk foods. Therefore, the best alternative is to purchase healthier snacks for the best results.

Fruits are one of the healthiest snacks your family can enjoy, as they contain minerals and fiber. If you feel plain fruits are boring, you can still choose from other options. For instance, a combination of dark chocolate and almonds is tasty and nutritious. Dark chocolate contains antioxidants, while almonds are rich in healthy fats, making them good options. You can also consider kale chips, greek yogurt, mixed berries, mixed nuts, etc. Certain healthy snacks are deceptive as they contain highly processed ingredients, so try to avoid them.

Convenience matters. Washed fruit, frozen fruit, plain yogurt, cheese, hummus, whole-grain crackers, unsweetened applesauce, canned beans, and frozen vegetables can all make nutritious options easier to serve.

Families should prepare snacks in age-appropriate shapes and textures. Whole nuts, popcorn, spoonfuls of nut butter, whole grapes, hard raw vegetables, and other hard, round, or sticky foods can be choking hazards for young children.

Help Selective Eaters Try Healthy Foods

Children may reject unfamiliar foods several times before they become comfortable with them. Continue offering a small amount beside something familiar without demanding that the child eat it.

Parents decide what foods are offered, when food is served, and where the family eats. Children can decide whether they are hungry and how much they want to eat from what is available.

• Let children help select a fruit or vegetable at the store.
• Invite them to wash produce, stir ingredients, or set the table.
• Serve a familiar food alongside a new one.
• Describe flavor, color, and texture without calling food “good” or “bad.”
• Avoid using dessert as a reward for eating vegetables.
• Model enjoying the food instead of pressuring the child to taste it.

Prepare Simple And Nutritious Meals

Your busy schedule can make it challenging to prepare homemade meals regularly. However, you may be tempted to opt for fast food options, if you don’t cook your own meals. This, in turn, can cause you to waste more money while compromising your health. Fortunately, you can still cook good meals even with your tight schedule. The key is to opt for simpler food options. For instance, pan fried pork chops are easy to prepare, nutritious, and delicious, so you can include this meal in your meal plan. If it’s your first time trying this meal, you can try this recipe for pan fried pork chops to get the best results. It’s also important to use your ingredients at home to prevent food waste.

Another way to make cooking easier is to prioritize meal prepping. This involves preparing your food ingredients ahead to simplify the cooking process. Meal prepping helps save time, reduce portion sizes, and reach your family nutrition goals. Meal prepping can be done in diverse ways, and you can choose the best options based on your preferences. For example, you can make full meals when you have time and refrigerate them for future use. You can also portion and refrigerate these meals according to each family member, especially if you want quick lunches. If you can’t cook full meals, you’ll find it helpful to clean and refrigerate your ingredients, so keep this in mind.

Meal Preparation Does Not Have to Mean Cooking Everything

Meal preparation can be as simple as choosing three dinners, washing produce, cooking a batch of rice, portioning snacks, or moving frozen ingredients into the refrigerator to thaw safely.

Keep a short list of meals that can be assembled quickly on busy days. Examples include eggs with whole-grain toast and fruit, bean and cheese quesadillas with vegetables, rotisserie chicken with frozen vegetables and rice, or yogurt with fruit, oats, and seeds.

Using frozen and canned foods can save time and reduce waste. Look for frozen produce without added sauces and canned vegetables or beans with less sodium when available. Rinsing canned beans and vegetables can also remove some sodium.

Start With One Change This Week

Trying to transform every meal at once can leave parents and children frustrated. Choose one realistic change and repeat it until it feels normal.

• Add one fruit or vegetable to dinner.
• Replace one sugary drink with water.
• Schedule one screen-free family meal.
• Prepare two grab-and-go snacks in advance.
• Invite your child to help choose one meal.
• Cook enough food to create one planned leftover meal.

Healthy eating is an important aspect of promoting the overall health of your family members. Hopefully, you’ll consider these strategies for the best results.

Health and nutrition disclaimer: This article provides general educational information and is not individualized medical or nutrition advice. A child’s dietary needs may differ because of age, development, allergies, health conditions, medications, or sensory needs. Consult your child’s pediatrician or a registered dietitian when you have concerns about nutrition, growth, restricted eating, allergies, or a medically necessary diet.