How to Get Your Kids to Eat Healthy Food

There seems to be a broad consensus that kids don't like healthy foods. If you go into a restaurant and look at the kids menu, it's usually about as far from healthy as you can get.

The truth of the matter is that kids like to eat what they're taught to eat. So when kids don't like healthy food, it's because they were given the sugary, processed and junk foods as small children and that's what they learned to like to eat.

I was appalled when my daughter was a toddler and I went to Mommy & Me gymnastics classes with her. There was a mom who gave her little girl, less than a year old, sitting in a stroller, red licorice to keep her quiet while the mom and her 3-year old son were on the gym floor.

Giving kids cookies, crackers, sugary processed cereals, candy, ice cream and other processed foods is what teaches kids to like junk foods. It's not in their genes.

Kids will like vegetables, fruit, whole and healthy foods if that's what they're given. If you give your kids only healthy foods, they may not like them all, but they'll choose their favorite foods from among the healthy foods they're given.

The best way to get kids to eat healthfully is to start when they're infants. However, you can teach older kids to learn to like healthy foods too. Here's a tool for the whole family to have fun with while you're learning to eat healthier.