The One Dirty Word that You Should Never, Ever Say at the Dinner Table
Never Use the “H” Word if You Want Your Kids to Eat Healthy
One of the first things families and I do in our first session together is read through our 15 Rules Parents Absolutely, Need to Know To Feed Their Kids Right. When I get to Rule #10, it usually sparks a lot of conversation. “Oh, no! We mess this one up big time,” a dad says. “I thought that we were supposed to do this…,” a mom says.
What rule are well-intentioned, loving parents getting wrong?
RULE #10. Emphasize good food being delicious—not healthy.
Parents Want Their Kids to Love “Good For You Food”
At dinner time, a mom will tell her son to finish his roasted broccoli because it’s “healthy” for him. His dad will tell him to eat his apple slices at snack because they’re “healthy” for him.
Their child might nibble a few bites unenthusiastically. Then, when no one’s paying looking, he’ll push them to the side of his plate and ignore them again.
It seems like “It’s healthy” should be a totally legitimate reason for kids to eat food. Heck, as a dietitian mom, I used to say it to my kids too.
Health Scares Aren’t Motivating
Don’t kids know what’s at stake, if they don’t eat healthy?
Well, no, they actually don’t.
They really have no concept of doing a habit for future rewards 20-30 years off. They have no concept of long-term goal planning in any area. They only have a handful of years under their belt.
And if you try to motivate kids to eat their carrots or they’ll “get diabetes like your grandma” or they’ll “get high cholesterol like Uncle Josh.”
Your child really has no idea what those medical conditions are. And even if they did, they have no idea that diabetes can lead to awful outcomes like amputations or blindness. They have no idea that high cholesterol might mean a stroke. Nor do we really want to emphasize these debilitating conditions just to get them to eat a bite of salad.
Because it won’t work anyway. Because doing healthy habits for the sake of your health isn’t motivating for kids–and actually it’s not even motivating for adults.
Feeling Good Is Motivating
A top researcher in health motivation, Michelle Seger, has found that if you ask someone why they exercise, “they’ll say because it’s healthy.”
But, when researchers dug a little deeper, they found that people really exercised because it felt good. People who exercise regularly do it because they’ve learned to enjoy it. They get immediate pleasure and satisfaction from it. That’s really why they do it. And, the same holds true for food.
We Eat Food Because It’s Tasty
We eat food over the long-term because it tastes good and we enjoy it. At Real Healthy Habits our dietitians tell our clients that they NEED to eat delicious food. And, luckily there are a lot of delicious foods that just happen to be healthy. Of course, there are a lot of delicious foods that aren’t healthy. But, there are a lot that are! And, we’re going to focus on eating yummy healthy food.
Stop calling food healthy
And we’re going to stop calling food “healthy. ” Because healthy is really a dirty word. That’s just the nature of the word in English. According to Karen Lebilion in Getting Kids to Yum, in French healthy means “fresh.” Who doesn’t want to eat fresh food?
But on the flip-side, in America healthy has come to mean “good for your body” and also “not good for your mouth.”
Eating Healthy Is Like Taking Medicine
If you tell kids to eat foods because they’re “healthy,” it’s like telling them to eat this yucky food because it will make you feel better (but only 20 years from now.).
It’s just like taking medicine. And no one wants to take medicine. Especially kids. My teenage daughter just reminded me today, how I once chased her in a corner when she was 6 to make her take antibiotics. We don’t want to be chasing our kids around the table with a spoonful of peas!
Healthy is a Bad Word to Kids
Kids have learned, “Healthy may be good for you, but it doesn’t taste all that good.” To them, “Healthy” is a bad word. It feels like a chore. Something your kids don’t want to do. (And, I bet you don’t like chores very much either.)
Say these Veggies are Delicious
That doesn’t mean we should stop serving kids healthy foods. Instead, let’s we’ll change how we talk about them. We’ll change how we “market” healthy foods to our kids. From now on, let’s encourage our kids to eat the veggies on their plates because they’re “delicious.” We all want a bite of delicious food!
As parents, let’s all band together and swear an oath that ”Henceforth and forever, I will not call roasted green beans ‘healthy.’ From this day forward, they shall be known as ‘delicious.’”
So let’s all stop serving our kids “healthy foods.” Because now we only serve “delicious foods (that happen to be healthy.)”
And if you need some help figuring out how to make vegetables taste super delicious, check out our Make It Minute Recipes videos. And if you want help building a family legacy of health, contact our office (via the contact form) to meet with a Real Healthy Habit dietitian. She’ll help you make healthy habits for the whole family. (And guess what? Your insurance probably covers it.)