In case you haven’t already noticed, children are experts at eating mindfully. Their curious minds and need to wholly explore everything they see and touch is incredible, and particularly beneficial if you’re looking into mindful eating for your children.
The younger they start, the better the results. It’s easier to teach good habits from the start than correct behaviors.
The young ones are privy to the same benefits of mindful eating as adults; decreased weight issues and eating disorders, help with metabolic issues, and overall health and wellness.
With the kids though, they get several added benefits, including helping develop cognitive focus and mindful emotional response regulation.
Teaching mindfulness in general to a toddler will help him/her be able to keep focus longer, calm down during times of frustration, and in turn, have better decision making abilities. In other words, mindfulness helps with temper tantrums.
If you’d like to get started teaching your children about mindful eating here are a few highlights you’ll definitely want to digest.
Lead By Example
If you are doing it, living it, breathing it, it’s easier to pass it on down. Monkey see, monkey do, right? Basically, if you are running around eating willy-nilly and not being mindful, the little ones will take on the same interaction with food.
In the ongoing nature vs nurture debate, research strongly supports the thesis that food-related behaviors (and therefore health outcomes) are influenced by environment, rather than genes, far more than previously believed.
Environment, in this instance, means learning from the behaviors of those around them, especially in their formative years.
Talk About What You Eat
Toddlers don’t understand the concept of healthy or not healthy just yet. But they do understand getting taller and bigger and stronger. Encourage the better choices by explaining what foods help their bodies, in their language.
Teach them about shapes and sizes with food. Use textures of foods as a learning tool also. Their little brains and taste buds are more likely to soak up every ounce you deliver, of learning and food alike!
Shopping and Cooking with the Kids
Another great way to get children involved in the mindfulness of eating is to allow them to help with picking the foods and meal preparation. Take your little ones on a field trip to your neighborhood farmer’s market and let them select the veggies for tonight’s meal, reinforcing your teachings, of course.
Show them how to pick the best of the best and even talk to sellers. Incorporate the entire picture for the children. Then in the kitchen the children can help prepare the veggies by washing them, tearing the lettuce or peeling carrots. At mealtime it comes full circle and mindfulness of eating is a success!
Mealtime is Mealtime
Shut off the devices, sit at the table. Make sure the children are with you and focused as best they can. This is a good time to talk about food. Talk about your trip to the grocery store or farmer’s market and the reasons for your selections.
Encourage them to study what is on their plates and describe how it tastes and feels. Keep them interested and mindful about what they are eating.
It’s important to remember this should be a fun experience for your kids. Don’t impose adult opinions about the anxieties of over-eating, the love of ice cream and how bad candy bars are for your waistline. Be careful not to take the pleasure out of food.
Children are exploring all types of foods and experimenting with textures and flavors. Strict rules aren’t necessary here; allow your children to make good decisions based on what you’ve taught them. It takes time and consistency. Mindful eating for children is only as positive and rewarding of an experience as you are willing to make it.
