Getting kids to be more excited about food isn’t always easy, and although you don’t want them to play with their food and get into bad habits, you also don’t want them to think of food as boring and not have any motivation to make healthy, nutritious food for themselves as they get older. It’s important to have a good balance here, but making food fun (without turning it into a plaything) can be a good place to start. The more fun kids find food, the more they’ll be interested in learning about what goes into it and how to create it for themselves, which gives them a much better chance of being healthy when they’re older. With that in mind, here are some of the best ways you can make food fun for kids.

Photo by Daria Obymaha

Give Them Choice

Again, you’ll want a good balance here, as too much freedom when it comes to picking food can lead to some horrible choices and poor health as a result. However, when children do have a little more choice and autonomy over their food, they’ll feel a sense of ownership that helps them become more interested, and it all becomes a lot more fun.

When you’re giving your children options, make sure there aren’t too many and that they’re all healthy, and you’ll know that whatever they choose will be good for them. Even if you’ve not got a lot of time, kids can still have a choice – get some on the go lunch delivered to your door and let your children be involved in choosing what goes into each bag – they’ll be much more interested that way.

Make It Creative

Perhaps you’ve heard the idea that we eat with our eyes, and although it sounds a little silly, there is some truth to it. We see our food before we taste it, so it has to look good if it’s going to be appealing – kids are no different. That’s why it’s a good idea to get creative with your presentation and make the food look fun. When they like how it looks, they’ll be happier to try it and see how it tastes.

As a bonus, they might also be keen to be artistic themselves, and you can get them involved in plating up food and presenting it nicely. That can lead to actually cooking the food and learning about ingredients, and sometimes these small steps are the best ones to take.

Involve Them

The more kids are involved in making their own food, the more they’ll be intrigued by how it all works, and the more fun you can make the process, the more they’ll enjoy it. In other words, can you make going to the supermarket, finding the right ingredients, preparing those ingredients, cooking the food, and serving it into a game of any kind? As a parent, you’ll have had plenty of experience turning all kinds of tasks into games, so this is no different, and your child will associate having fun and feeling positive with food well into the future, giving them a healthy outlook on life.

Please follow and like us:

129