Health: Teaching Healthy Eating Habits In Homeschool
By Mimi Rothschild
One of the most important things that you can teach your homeschool child is proper nutrition and healthy eating habits. Though children usually have an innate sense of what is good for them, sometimes they can be swayed by advertisements for unhealthy food and other people's eating habits. It is good to start early when teaching your homeschool child about healthy eating habits, and you can help him or her learn that eating healthy does not take constant vigilance, but can be learned through adopting good overall habits.
You can teach your homeschool student that eating natural foods is one way to ensure good nutrition. Fruits and vegetables, eaten as they are without adding anything, are nutritious choices. Grains like oatmeal and barley are wonderful additions to a healthy lifestyle of eating. Set an example for your homeschool child by eating foods in their natural state as often as you can.
In your homeschool sessions on nutrition and healthy eating, you can also teach your child how impulse eating can happen. When you have gone too long without eating, it makes you so hungry that you may make bad choices when you finally do eat. Teach your homeschool child to eat when he or she is hungry, and to make good food choices when he or she does eat. It is not necessary for children to be kept to strict breakfast, lunch, and dinner schedules. Eating several small, healthy meals throughout the day is a great way to get all of the nutrition that you need, and will keep you from feeling too hungry at any given time.
Have your homeschool child go with you when you shop for food. Once he or she is able to read, teach him or her how to read labels and discern the nutritional value of foods. Letting your homeschool child help you choose the right foods to buy for your family will give him or her a sense of confidence in his or her ability to make good food choices.
Although you may choose to have regular homeschool sessions on nutrition, teaching your child healthy eating habits does not have to just be confined to the homeschool classroom. Living a healthy life should be a constant learning process, and the best way to instill this fact into your child's thinking is to set a good example. You can help him or her develop habits that will last a lifetime. You will be surprised how much you can learn, too.
________________________________________________________________
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
