Developing healthy eating habits

Here are a few recommendations for developing healthy eating habits:

■ Have family meals. Start from as early as toddlerhood and continue through adolescence. If this is not already a practice in your home, you can start today. In addition to reducing the risk of becoming overweight, family meal time is also a wonderful opportunity to share the day’s experiences, learn from each other, learn about each other, and build relationships.

■ Avoid added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages. These include carbonated soda, sweetened fruit juices, and sport drinks. In addition, many other refined/packaged foods are high in sugars. Encourage your child to drink water when thirsty and have a fruit for snacking.

■ Monitor for abnormal changes in eating patterns. Repeatedly skipping meals, avoiding entire food groups, hiding food, or not completing meals with normal portion sizes can indicate more serious concerns of disordered eating. Other unusual behaviours, such as preoccupation with caloric content of food, excessive exercise or self-induced vomiting, overeating, or excessive snacking, can also be a red flag for concern.

■ Eating a balanced diet is the key to so many things i n life, but it is equally important for both children and adults to remain physically active. Exercise contributes to both physical and psychological development through many health benefits. The World Health Organization recommends that children aged five to 17 years should get at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity throughout each day. Children should be encouraged to participate in either structured exercise or play at home or at school. Indeed, everyone would benefit from setting a habit like that. It helps to do exercise that we actually enjoy so that we will be motivated to continue.