One of the best ways to educate kids about healthy eating habits is to start controlling their food portion size. There are plates made for kids that are colorful with little images for the kids to know which type of food should go in which place setting on the plate. This portion control plate is an easy way to control kids’ food portion size, but what do you do if you don’t have this plate?
Today we’re going to discuss some of the simple ways parents can control kids’ food portion size. This is an important part of parenthood, teaching kids healthy eating habits. The best way to eat healthy is to learn what an appropriate portion size is so that you don’t grow accustomed to consuming large portions of food.
These tips will help curb kids’ snacking habits and allow you to encourage healthy eating habits without your kids realizing what you’re doing. Thus you’ll have fewer tantrums and more success with portion control using these tips.
Single Serve Snack Bags
When you go to the grocery store and walk down the storage aisle that features Ziploc style bags, you’ll find that some are labeled ‘snack’ size. This is the best option to create single serve snack bags for kids. Take a handful of snacks or make a trail mix that your kids can easily snack on during the day, but only place them in the snack size bags.
This will keep your kids’ snack sizes portioned correctly and help them understand what snack portion size is acceptable.
Use Labels
Some kids have a portion control issue to the point that you simply can’t label everything with rules or limits because they won’t listen. Insert parents of teen boys in this category! For some reason, teen boys just have this desire to eat food constantly. Perhaps it’s their growing bodies that demand more food, but you must teach them portion control.
Put labels on snacks and cereal boxes so that the kids know how much they can consume of the item. You can put “only 2 per day” or “small cereal bowl once per day” on the items so that your kids will start to develop healthier portion control habits.
Use Small Plates
When you sit down to dinner with your family start using the smaller dinner plates. These plates tend to be last on the list for families to use, but they provide the right space for proper portion control. Hide the large dinner plates so that your family must use the smaller size dinner plates.
This will keep your whole family working together towards a healthier lifestyle by eating less food during each meal.
As we mentioned you can easily purchase the food portion control plates for kids to inspire them to eat the right portion size, but it’s best to use the other tips we shared above. When it comes to teaching kids to eat the right portion size, you’ll need to set the example and consume proper portions during meal time too.