For kids, healthy eating starts with food preparation process

Looking for an effective way to improve your kids’ eating habits? Instead of forcing certain foods (eg., broccoli) on them, because that almost always backfires, try getting them more involved in the preparation process through home cooking or outside classes.

Derek Hersch, the co-author of a study focused on that premise and a staffer with the Food Explorers program at the Minnesota Heart Institute Foundation, recently told WebMD, “It is important to expose children to healthy foods in a positive way. Creating habits and behaviors at this age is the most important part of it.”

Along with Sarah Haas of the Academy of Dietetics and Nutrition, Hersch’s findings appear in the Center for Disease Control’s Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice and Policy.

“If you get [kids] involved in cooking, they are 100 percent interested and want to do more,” Haas said. “It’s amazing.”

Read the rest on WebMD.com.