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Five tips I would recommend to help improve nutrition and encourage smart eating habits is:
Are they young enough that they must depend on you to buy food? As in, are they unable to drive or get themselves to the grocery and/or convenience store? If so, don’t bring anything into the house that you don’t want them to eat. None of it. It may mean that, for a while, everyone in the house must forego the treats (yes, you, too), but if the “undesirable” foods aren’t not available, the kids can’t eat them. And you and the other adults can set the good example.
You can also make substitutions. Brown rice, whole grain bread, air-popped popcorn, for example. And start using more herbs and seasonings in your cooking.
It will probably be a rough go at first. Lots of tears and tantrums (the kids may cry, too), but if they are hungry enough, they’ll settle down and eat the stuff you want them to eat. They may not like it, but they’ll eat it. Hopefully, it will only be a temporary measure while they adjust. Then you can start re-introducing the other things — as an occasional TREAT, not as everyday meals.
Good luck!
Depending on their age, have them start cooking with you. My two and four year old steal my veggies all the time when I cook. My two year old just stole a red bell pepper tonight as I was doing dinner prep. The see me making it, help to the ability they can, and nibble the things I eat. I just made made kale chips on the oven with them putting on the olive oil and salt, and when they were finished, handfuls of it were gone in seconds. Parmesan butter Brussels sprouts are a favorite, as is roast corn. The more they can help, the more they see it, the more they are invested in it.
I’ve had some success with a combination of two things - keeping away junk purchases to the best possible, and having an agreement with them to experiment different foods and describe it to me.
So my oldest hates blueberries, but won’t know if it’s blended in pancakes. My youngest hates peas, but loved it mashed in baked veggie bites. Both like spinach in pancakes and pasta, but only if chopped small 🙄
They like ketchup, so I’ve had success with veggie fritters (not “healthy” but it gets the veggies in)
One likes some veggies with yogurt. The other like steamed broccoli with ranch. I get a small amount of different veggies and fruits which they will try first time to tell me what they felt. I lucked out with steamed beets, sweet potato, butternut squash, kiwis and pomegranate that way (different for each kid btw)
The challenge is cooking or prepping. I was always cooking small amounts of different foods to see what worked. Now I have a handful of combos they like and been pretty much sticking with them each week.
One thing that worked a lot - playing games like I spy, word games or 20 questions while eating. It made meal time fun for them, since we don’t play them other times.
Unfortunately you need to do a lot of experimenting to find out what really works for your kids. It requires lot of patience and flexibility while you continue to set an example with your food habits.
If you don’t have it, they can’t eat it. I follow this same practice for myself even very effectively. Strict control of input, I go shopping once a week only, I order online for pickup so Im not enticed by other things.
> They’ll eat 2 or 3 heaping bowls of white rice (one of them will eat 2 heaping bowls of white rice covered in peas, carrots, and corn but never anything else while the other will only eat maybe a quarter bowl with anything nutritious added). They’ll eat any amount of pasta til it’s gone as long as it’s plain, plain with butter, or has certain sauce out of the can. They’ll devour a box of Ritz crackers or a bag of lays potato
Stop serving family style as a first step? Measuring portions is a good skill for them to learn anyway.
If they are not teenagers and not overweight I also wouldn’t be too concerned about the immediate impact of the white foods as long as they are getting enough vitamins & minerals. It’s important for them to understand why white foods are a problem but as their palates improve with age so should this, keep challenging them with new textures and flavors.
Also totally agree with the involving them in cooking and shopping like others have mentioned. Get a cook book and work with them on meal plans, work up to them having a night of the week to plan & cook as they gain confidence.
Make only healthy nutritious foods, period. Don’t buy anything else. The younger they start, the better. If a kid never has the bad stuff, they’ll never know what it tastes like and will eat healthy from the start. If a kid is hungry enough, they will eat what they have available…start with simple wholesome meals, doesn’t have to be exotic. Maybe they can’t handle spice. Maybe they refuse to eat raw foods. You can make delicious foods with a little experimentation! It may be work, but it’s one of the best investments you can make in your kids.
Kids are wired for easy carbohydrates early in life; it’s evolutionarily advantageous for them to go for large calories as much as they can get them.
Also children perceive tastes more intensely than adults. Plain rice to them tastes better than to you. Exactly the opposite for a slightly bitter broccoli, unfortunately.
You may have to adjust your family diet to ensure they get enough nutrients, top up with green juices, fruit for dessert, soups, smuggle veggies into fruit smoothies, cook the pasta or rice in fresh vegetable&bone broth, add vitamin gummies, all that jazz. Cute shapes and “stories” on the plate envourage eating different bits too.
There’s a great OT account about supporting kids eating: https://instagram.com/kids.eat.in.color?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
good luck!
Please research ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder) and have discussions with your children about the foods they don’t like and won’t eat. Is it a flavor thing, or is it a texture thing? It’s very possible they don’t have ARFID but if your children do have it then forcing them to eat foods that are triggering them (without them being able to say no) is often setting them up for further problems and eating disorders later on in life, on top of being really painful for them mentally. If you find out that they do have this eating disorder, there are treatment plans that can help them incorporate unsafe foods back into their diet in a way that is not torturous to them. I was one of these kids and my mom made sure that there were none of my safe foods in the house and it lead to me developing bulimia and anorexia on top of the original ARFID, and lead to years and years of pain and therapy. Please don’t just force your kids to eat foods that are painful to them. Ask your children. Listen to them. Do some research.
What you can’t buy, they cannot eat how old are they? Do they depend on you for the food? My son is the same way unfortunately, but I’ve started incorporating vegetables to where you can’t notice that they’re vegetables. For example if you buy a spaghetti squash it looks just like pasta but it’s squash, you can make spaghetti with all the meat and the Fixin‘s, without all the carbs and calories of the pasta if they’re young enough they won’t be able to tell! And it’s pretty good to! Also another thing I’ve done is I bought some popsicle silicone molds and I made some coconut blueberry Popsicles… 28 cal apiece and they’re freaking delicious I’m sure the kids will love them there’s a way to incorporate some sweet stuff, but healthy the recipe is blueberries, coconut milk, Spiriva, little bit of cornstarch so that way the Popsicles don’t turn icy, almond milk, even some sugar-free Cool Whip if you want to get fancy lol, blend it all together pour into the molds and there you go delicious Popsicles that are healthy without all the junk but kids go crazy for!
Take them grocery shopping and let them pick any fruit or vegetables in the store too try. One new plant per week.
Also remember to give very small portions. They don’t need the same portion sizes as adults. Let them ask for seconds.
I’m not a pro or anything but I’ve been educating my son (who’s 5) on healthy foods and explaining why it’s important. He will primarily eat what i eat ( obviously some days are mostly junk but they’re pretty rare and he acts crazy)
I’m at the point where even if i offer my son garbage food (me being lazy) he will literally tell me to that he wants “real food”.
For a little bit he was a sugar addict and getting a hang of it was a nightmare but now he actually will try to avoid too much sugar because of the way it makes him feel and behave.
For him stir frys and ramen with veggies was a game changer. Seasoning is important, he really likes steaks. Also, depending on the age making sure the healthy foods are easy to eat are a plus. For example, making oatmeal thick enough to stay on the spoon, otherwise he would give up and if you get too hungry you automatically turn to carbs and sugar.