Healthy Eating Tips for Youth

1. Be a positive role model. If you practice healthy habits, it is much easier to teach your children to do the same.
   
   
2. Be supportive. Focus on the postive instead of the negative. Everyone likes to be praised for a job well done. Celebrate successes and help children and teens develop a good self-image.
   
   
3. Promote healthy eating patterns by offering nutritious snacks, such as vegetables and fruits, low-fat dairy foods, and whole grains; encourage children to regulate their own food intake while setting appropriate limites on choices; and model healthy food choices.
   
   
4. Avoid the use of food as a reward. Candy and snacks as a reward encourage bad habits. Find other ways to celebrate good behavior.
   
   
5. Make dinnertime a family time. When everyone sits down together to eat, there is less chance of children eating the wrong foods or snacking too much.
   

—American Heart Association, 2006, www.americanheart.org