Tips to keep in mind in childhood.

| From the beginning, a child's diet is diversified until all the food groups have been introduced and within these, the different varieties of food that exist.

Children go through various stages of growth and learning, which can cause greater or lesser difficulties to eat correctly, depending on the moment they are living.

For example, a child around 2 years old may begin to have less appetite than a few months ago, this happens because the growth rate decreases and the nutritional needs decrease in proportion to it. As long as their health is good, we should not worry about the amount of food that our children eat or do not eat during a certain period of time. Your appetite will vary depending on your activity and your nutritional requirements.

At first, our children do not understand balanced diets, but we will ensure that their diet is correct if we follow from the beginning, especially two premises. Avoid creating unfounded food aversions and prejudices, and introduce a sufficient variety of foods into your diet.

To achieve this we can take into account a few tips that can facilitate the task:

• Present food in an attractive way, with different textures and colors. That does not mean that we always end up resorting to fried, battered, breaded, sauces, etc. Vegetables and fruits have a multitude of colors and textures, let's take advantage of it!
• To introduce a new food into your diet, it is best to offer it at the beginning, when you are most hungry.
• Do not stop giving a new food, because the child rejects it the first times. Let's try different ways of cooking and presentation so that you get used to the new flavor.
• Make sure that the child always eats accompanied. Adults also eat better together, for them it is even more important.
• Encourage the little ones to be calm and comfortable, and therefore eat better, through a relaxed atmosphere at the table.
• As soon as possible, incorporate the child into the family routine, eating at the same times and the same foods.
• Trying that our children feel they participate in the eating act, being able to eat alone, serving themselves, etc. Even if they drop their food and get stained.
• Later on, encourage them to also participate in the purchase and preparation of food. It is always more attractive and fun to eat something that you have prepared yourself!
• Children should not be pressured, they should eat at their own pace. We adults know well that rushing is not good, although it is difficult for us to try not to pass it on to our children.
• Never present food either as a reward or as a punishment, food serves to nourish us, it should not be associated with positive or negative feelings.
• Encourage our children to try all foods. They are influenced by their environment, family, friends, school, advertising ... and they often try to imitate us. If our diet is correct, it is much simpler than yours is also correct.
• Understand that children do not always finish the entire ration of food that we have served them. If they are no longer hungry, we will remove the food and wait for the next meal to offer food again. We should not give other foods that they like more as long as they eat, this would contribute to a monotonous and unbalanced diet only based on the foods they choose.
• Avoid often having chips, sweets, soft drinks, etc. They are caloric but not very nutritious foods, and they will satisfy the children making it difficult for them to eat as it is advisable that they do so at meal times.
• Try not to skip any meal, especially breakfast, which is essential for a good physical and mental redemption during the day.