ENCORE: How to Get Your Kids to Eat a Healthy Diet, Part 1

Health innovator Dr. Dina Rose, author of “It’s Not About the Broccoli: Three Habits to Teach Your Kids for a Lifetime of Healthy Eating,” inveighs against parents’ efforts to get kids to “just try it”. Her approach emphasizes proportion, variety, and moderation. She wants to make introducing new foods an exploration—not a contest of wills. To that end, she’s developed a unique educational tool—The Super Food Explorer Kit. Widening kids’ diet requires patience and ingenuity. Why it’s important not to resign yourself to feeding kids only a narrow range of “favorite” foods. What’s “sensory-based food education”? Why does Dr. Rose claim “nutrition is irrelevant”? Are kids’ palates hard-wired to reject vegetables and exotic foods? How do you deal with over-eaters? Is it right to reward kids with ordinarily “forbidden” foods? What’s wrong with “Finish your dinner, and then you can have dessert”? Can parents and caregivers be overly stringent, engendering backlash? How do you handle treat-laden holidays like Halloween, Easter, and Christmas? What food policies would Dr. Rose like to see changed to advance kids’ health? Click HERE for part 2.