Ten Ways to Create a Healthy Food Environment at Home

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Lifestyle is the product of a series of small day to day decisions. These decisions are strongly influenced by our environment, both physical and social. Safe streets encourage the choice to walk to school or work; office vending machines encourage the decision to have mid-afternoon candy breaks; televisions in every room promote sedentary activity. We have very little control over some environments, such as what billboards we see when driving on the highway. But other environments, like the home, are largely within our control.

When it comes to the home, parents are the nutritional gatekeepers, and can create an environment that fosters, supports and promotes healthy eating. We recognize that the role of nutritional gatekeeper is challenging, made difficult by rampant marketing of unhealthy foods to children, and the ubiquitous availability of such foods. We fully support improved regulation in this area, so that a parent’s job is made easier. At the same time, parents can make certain changes in their homes to promote health. Here are 10 things parents can do to make healthy food choices the default option at home.

1. It starts at the market

Only bring home foods that you want your family to eat. You can easily avoid arguments with your family about what to eat by only buying the foods that meet your approval.

2. Inventory your home

Look around your house and ask, what foods and beverages are easily accessible and highly visible? Do you see more unhealthy or healthy foods? People tend to eat more of foods that are most visible, so restock your kitchen with foods and drinks that are healthy and keep the unhealthy foods out of sight.

3. Pre-portion family meals

Rather than placing large bowls of food on the kitchen table and allowing family member to serve themselves (this is known as “family style”), portion foods on plates before serving and leave serving bowls on the counter. Research shows that people eat more food when given large portions. By pre-portioning food, your family will be more likely to eat the amount they need, rather than the amount they see. Family members will not be prompted to take seconds by the mere presence of food, and will be able to tune into internal cues of hunger more readily. Try using smaller plates, too. Ten-inch plates seem to be just right.

4. Set mealtime rules

It is a good practice to have rules for mealtime, as children respond well to limits. Examples of some effective mealtime rules are:

• Eat together. Mealtime is valuable family time. Although we recognize this can be difficult, try to schedule family members’ extra-curricular activities around a common dinner hour on most nights of the week. Research shows that youth who regularly eat with their families have better outcomes in several areas, such as vocabulary growth, academic achievement, substance abuse, behavioral problems, eating disorders and obesity.
• No television, phones, or computers at the dinner table.
• Everyone – both children and adults – takes a portion of each food. While we don’t advocate forcing children, or adults, to eat certain foods, having a food on the plate does increase the likelihood that one will eat it. You may want to extend this rule to requiring everyone to also taste each food. This is a great technique for gently encouraging family members to try new fruits and vegetables.
• Monitor how “full” we are when eating. A common rule in households is to finish all the food on your plate, but this rule teaches children to monitor how much to eat through external cues. By not insisting on a “clean plate,” children can learn to evaluate how hungry they are and how much food they really need.
• If you have young picky eaters, you may need to set rules around how they should behave when they don’t care for a food. Children do not have to like the food they’ve tried, but they are not permitted to be overly dramatic or negative about it. Dramatics tend to draw attention from parents. The attention will reinforce and encourage the picky eating behavior rather than discourage it.

5. Reward good behavior with things other than food

Using food as a reward or punishment may be effective in the short-term, but is linked to weight struggles later in life. Find other ways to mold your children’s behavior. Time-outs work well for discouraging certain behaviors in young children. Alternatives to food rewards abound: let your child choose a special outing; keep a box of toys that are played with only on special occasions; create a system where your child earns points towards something she or he values.

6. Make water and low-fat milk the drinks of choice

These are the best beverages for your family, and should be the most available drinks in your home. Water satisfies thirst, is free when it comes from the tap, and also contains fluoride, which is great for teeth. Low-fat milk has important nutrients like calcium and vitamin D, which build strong bones. Soda, sports drinks and other sugar-sweetened drinks have no place in a child’s diet. It is not surprising that the increasing rate of obesity coincides with the increasing rate of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. A common beverage for children is 100% juice, but we recommend limiting juice intake. The majority of fruits and vegetables in one’s diet should come from whole foods, as excessive juice intake is linked to tooth decay, diarrhea and obesity.

7. Eat at home

Limit dining at restaurants and you will not only save money, you will also eat more nutritional foods.

8. Separate feeding from caretaking

Many of us show our love through food. A lot of people feel guilty denying their families certain foods, even if it’s in the name of health. Try to create an environment where feeding is different from caretaking. There are many ways to show love, such as a hug and a simple “I love you.” By providing healthy foods to our families, we can send the message that we love our families so much, we want them to be healthy.

9. Walk the walk

Children are wonderful imitators! Many of their food preferences and their willingness to try various foods come from watching their parents. Multiple studies have shown that parental modeling of a healthy diet is linked to children’s intake of healthy foods. Try to set a good example and know that it will have a positive impact on kids.

10. Share your feeding practices and rules with others

Babysitters, grandparents, older siblings, and other caretakers should all be sending children the same messages so that a consistent environment is created.

Parents often feel anxious about intervening in their children’s food choices and eating habits. Below are some common concerns and ways to handle them. It is important to remember that because we are surrounded by unhealthy foods, and subject to ever-present food marketing, rules and limits for our children are necessary.

• I am worried that if I say anything about food or eating, I will create an eating disorder in my child. This particular concern gets a lot of media play, and because of it, parents are fearful of intervening in the food realm at all. To be sure, eating disorders are serious illnesses. However, there is no evidence that encouraging healthy eating will lead to an eating disorder. In fact, research shows that school programs promoting healthy eating actually decrease eating disordered behaviors and attitudes in girls. Other research suggests that mothers who provide healthy limits on children’s intake have daughters who have healthier attitudes toward food several years later. We recommend focusing on healthy behaviors, rather than weight per se, to cultivate a healthy attitude toward eating and one’s body.
• There are so many things to worry about with respect to raising kids
 food just seems like the last priority and another battle I don’t want to fight. We are very sympathetic to this sentiment. Many parents feel overwhelmed by academic and social pressures, violence, drugs and alcohol, sexual issues and more. However, of all the potential dangers facing our children, the health consequences of poor nutrition are likely to impact the most children. Because these consequences often take many years to surface, nutrition concerns don’t seem as pressing as, say, violence in schools. We encourage parents to try and consider the long-range effects and stay the course. That being said, there will be times when you just don’t have the energy to “do the right thing” nutritionally; be forgiving of yourself, and think about how you will do it differently next time.
• When I try to get other people on board with feeding my child healthfully, they tell me I’m being “militant” or a “food nanny.” They often say something like “It’s just this one treat.” It can be difficult to align others in your child’s life with your food philosophy. One thing to remind them is that there are many people in your child’s life who like to provide treats, and that these can really add up over time with the vast number of occasions we celebrate. You can encourage them to offer non-food treats. Finally, you can ask that they respect your approach to food and parenting in the same way that they (hopefully) respect your choices around discipline or other aspects of parenting. While the food environment around us continues to spiral towards increased marketing of unhealthy foods, ambiguous health claims on foods, and pervasive access to unhealthy foods, it is comforting that the home remains a place where parents still have some control. By making these changes to your home environment, you are tipping the scale in favor of health – in effect taking the guesswork out of healthy decisions for your family. Being a nutritional gatekeeper is a big task, but one we hope has become a little easier with these 10 steps.

Gabrielle Grode, MPH is a Research Associate at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University who focuses on obesity research in school and community settings. She also has worked in local government and non-profit organizations on obesity prevention initiatives. Both authors are currently studying nutrition and physical activity practices and policies in preschools. For more information, resources, podcasts and newsletters on obesity, please visit www.yaleruddcenter.org.

Kathryn Henderson, Ph.D. is Director of School and Community Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University where she is also an Associate Research Scientist. As former Clinical Director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, she has treated and supervised the treatment of children and adults with obesity and eating disorders, and has published on the topics of obesity, weight bias and stigma, environmental contributors to obesity, and the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity.

WLS Lifestyles – www.wlslifestyles.com – Copyright 2009

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