Hunger Makes Food Tasty - How You Can Use This To Help Your Child Love Healthy Foods

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Hunger makes the pleasure of eating much stronger.  Food tastes wonderful!

When your child is hungry, foods that she normally dislikes will taste good.  Foods that she is normal neutral about will taste great!  If your child didn't eat anything all day, biting into a normally disliked tomato would be a blissful experience.

Children Learn to Like Foods That They Eat When They're Hungry

Your child will grow to like foods that she eats when she is hungry, because the food tastes especially good.

If your child always eats chocolate bars when she is hungry, she will grow to love chocolate bars.  If your child eats carrot sticks when she is hungry, she will grow to love carrot stocks.

Give Your Child Healthy Foods When She is Hungry

When your child is hungry, give her foods that you want her to learn to like.  Follow up with foods that she is already familiar with, or foods that are less nutritious.

Snacks Should Be Healthy

Think about what many parents feed their children for snacks, when they are hungry between meals.  Cookies, chips, and granola bars!  Food companies even market this food as "snack food."

When parents feed their children sugary, high fat treats when they are hungry at snack time, it trains their brains to love these treats.  A hundred years ago, children also occasionally ate treats, like fresh pies, but they were almost always given at the end of the meal as desserts.

Snack time is perfect for teaching your child to like healthy foods like vegetables and fruits, or foods that are new to your child.

Tips

1. Set out an appetizer tray with vegetables and dip while you finish preparing dinner.
2. Serve dessert last when your child is no longer hungry.
3. If you're trying to teach your child to like a food, like broccoli, give it to her when she's hungry.
4. If your child is a picky eater and you're trying to get her to like more foods, feed her new, unfamiliar foods first.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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