HealthInfo Canterbury
Parenting healthy & active children
He kaupapa whakamatua o ngā tamariki hauora
As a parent, there's a lot you can do to instil healthy habits in your children.
Be a great role model
We are our children's greatest role models. Your children will generally do what you and your whānau/family do, and what you do will become their normal behaviour.
Here are some ideas of what you can do to be a great role model.
- Eat together as a whānau/family as often as you can. Turn off the TV and other electronic devices and enjoy spending time together.
- Think about what you're eating. Is it what you want your children to eat? Serve a variety of nutritious options at mealtimes and show your children that you enjoy eating it.
- Think about how much you're eating and how you're eating. If you find you're eating on the go a lot, look at how you can relax when eating and enjoy your food more.
- Eat breakfast. It's an important meal that your children should see you enjoying too.
- Be active. This is great for you, and great for your children. See Keeping active for information about how you and your children can get active or keep being active.
Teach children to eat well
There are many things you can do to teach children to eat well for the rest of their lives.
Make mealtimes fun
Take the attention off the food and onto creating real memories for your children. Often, we have rituals around food that we remember from our own childhoods and these are important. You're creating the same for your children.
During mealtimes, ask them about their day. Children enjoy these conversations at the dinner table. Don’t comment on what your children eat or don't eat. If mealtimes are relaxed, children are relaxed and more likely to try new foods.
Trust your child’s hunger cues
Parents are in charge of what, when and where children eat. Children are in charge of how much they eat, if they eat at all. Children are born with an amazing superpower – they will eat when hungry and stop eating when they're full. Forcing or bribing a child to eat can teach them to ignore their body’s hunger and fullness signals.
Be patient if they don't like a food
Fussy eaters can be frustrating for parents. It's tempting to focus on negative things such as a child refusing to eat the food you've prepared for them. It's important that it doesn't become a power struggle. See Fussy eating for information about how to cope with this.
Make one meal for the family
If your child doesn't eat their meal, don't offer to make something else. This teaches children that they can refuse food to get a special meal. If you're worried that your child won’t eat anything, include one food at each meal that you know they'll eat.
Pay attention to the positive
Praise your children for trying new things, making healthy choices or enjoying their food.
Allow food exploration
When our children are little, it's important that they explore their food. This can be messy, but very meaningful for them and their relationship with food. As children get older, help them to keep exploring food. You can do this by including them in preparing meals, planning meals, getting lunch boxes ready, making shopping lists, picking fruit or vegetables from the garden and supermarket shopping. Children who help to prepare their food are more likely to eat it at mealtimes.
Reward your child with things other than with food
If children are rewarded or comforted with food, it might set them up with habits that are hard to break later in life. There are many other ways to reward children.
Create a vegetable garden together
If you have the time and energy, a small vegetable garden is great to create with children. They learn about food preparation and the science of food. See the links below for ideas.
Teach children to be active
Just as we teach our children about their relationship with food, we also teach them about their relationship with physical activity.
Here are some ideas to teach them to enjoy being active.
- Encourage active play. Kick a ball around, go for bike or scooter rides or run around with your children playing hide and seek and other active games. It's good for them and good for you.
- Encourage and support your child to play sport (when they're old enough). Practise with them and watch them play. These are great ways to build your child's childhood memories.
- Enjoy being active yourself. You don’t need a gym membership to be active. Take the stairs, walk kids to school, fold the laundry standing up, dance around the house, do the vacuuming. You're the best role model for your child so show your children that you enjoy moving your body.
Also see Ideas for keeping kids active.
Positive body talk
To help your child have a positive body image, don't compare their body to others. Talk about the amazing things their body can do – run, jump, skip, tickle – not what their body looks like. Role-model this in the way you talk about your own body and other people's. All bodies deserve respect. See the video in the recommended links below.
Parenting support
Your child may behave in ways you find difficult to manage. See the Parenting section for information about child behaviour and what community support, including parenting programmes, is available. Many of these programmes are free. You can also talk to your GP or practice nurse. They'll give you advice or refer you to a parenting programme.
Other things to keep in mind
Spend time with your children. As well as the ideas above, you can do things like play a game or read to them. Spending time with your children is really important to them, no matter what their age.
Take note if your child isn't eating their lunch at school. It’s a good idea for them to bring leftovers home instead of throwing them out (this reduces waste at school too). Sometimes children can be bullied over what they have in their lunch box. If your child tells you they're being bullied, or you suspect they are, you can find some resources that can help in Bullying information for parents.
HealthInfo recommends the following videos
- Healthy Tasmania – Positive body image
The way you feel and talk about bodies and eating has a big impact on children's self-esteem and feelings about their own body. Teach children to be confident in their own body.
HealthInfo recommends the following pages
- Active Canterbury – Active families and whānau
Suggestions for parents and caregivers to encourage children to be more active and make healthy food choices.
- All Right? – Activities for the whānau
Tips and resources to help you connect with your whānau and culture.
- Kiwi Families – Gardening activities
Suggestions for planting a vegetable garden and other fun activities in the garden.
Written by Family Adviser, All Right? Wellbeing Campaign. Adapted by HealthInfo clinical advisers. Last reviewed September 2021.
Review key: HIHEC-62690
