At the June club meeting we had 29 members in attendance.  Sallie Nehoff, a dietician, gave a presentation on developing healthy eating habits for your children.  Some strategies to help you achieve this include the following:

• Stick to an eating schedule.  Discourage random eating.  Have set times for meal and snacks.
• Introduce a healthy variety of foods to your children.  Introduce foods one at a time.  With infants, start with cereals and progress to vegetables, then fruits, and finally meats.
• Remember that a child may need to be presented with a new food up to 8 or more times before they actually eat it.!  Don’t get discouraged!
• Set a good example for your child.  Even if you may not like a particular food, you can still serve it and  pretend that you like it.  Sallie shared that her children didn’t discover that her husband wasn’t really eating the liver at dinner until they were 7 years old!

Mrs. Nehoff also recommended that you try to avoid the

following mistakes:

• Large potions can be intimidating to children.  Start with a small amount and feed them more if they are still hungry.
• Don’t advocate the clean plate club!  Don’t force your kids to clean their plate, but once they leave the table, don’t allow them to come back.
• Resist the temptation of using bribery!
• Don’t fall into the trap of being an all night diner…

Sallie also discussed the importance of providing a balanced diet for you children.  She finished up the meeting with a question and answer session.  Topics of interest included allergies and transitioning to baby food with infants.