‘I’m a dietitian and mum - here’s how I get my kids to eat veggies’

Is your kid a constant snacker? That could be your first red flag. 

One of the most common issues parents and cares have when feeding young children is getting them to eat enough, or even some vegetables, on a daily basis.

Vegetables are an important part of the diet for growing kids, providing a range of key nutrients including Vitamins A and C as well as dietary fibre.

Plus, the eating habits we develop in childhood tend to stick around through adulthood, so getting kids used to including nutrient-rich veggies as part of their daily diet is important for lifelong health.

So, as a dietitian with two young boys, here are my best tips for getting them to eat more veggies, minus the mealtime fights and tantrums.

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Getting kids to eat their veggies is up there with some of the biggest tasks for parents. Image: iStock

Make it taste as good as a treat

When food tastes and looks amazing it is easy to eat it, which is why soggy broccoli is far less likely to be eaten than chopped pieces of brightly coloured carrot or cucumber.

Whether you make carrots or zucchini into chips in the air fryer; serve vege and fruit platters with a sweet dipping sauce or use veggies to make child-friendly dishes such as sushi or pizza, the key is to make them taste and look appealing.

Take the focus off

Take the focus off vegetables by adding them to every meal so the family gets used to seeing them, rather than them making a once-a-day, special appearance at dinner time when kids are tired, and often simply not that hungry.

Offer chopped veggies as a snack in the same way you would fruit and pack them into snack boxes and lunches as you would any other snack.

The more children come to understand vegetables are just like any other food, the more they are likely to eat them without noticing. 

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Timing is everything

In this day and age, kids are very rarely hungry. Rather, they bounce through the day with a range of snacks and treats every hour or two, which means that when it comes to 6pm and a plate of meat and vegetables, they can give or take it.

For this reason, including vegetables at times when they are especially hungry can be a way to get an extra serve or two each day. Think a few baby carrots or tomatoes as part of an afternoon snack offered in the car when driving home from school; or immediately offering vege chips, frozen peas or chopped salad vegetables before dinner when you are being harassed for food.

No vegetable talk

You never hear a parent forcing a child to eat their ice-cream or banana bread, yet, we are often unaware that we as parents are putting undo attention on vegetables by talking about them in a way that suggests kids are doing us a favour by eating them.

The more we focus on a behaviour, the more likely it is to continue, which means if you are constantly focused on a child not eating a food, it actually increases the likeness of that behaviour. Neutralising all vegetable talk, is an important step in normalising the regular intake of vegetables as part of healthy, daily balanced diet.

Source: iStock.

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Focus on just a couple

Indeed, when it comes to health and nutrition, the more veggies both kids and adults eat the better, but the reality is that as long as kids are including a couple each day, ideally of both green and orange vegetable varieties, they will be getting a good proportion of the nutrients they need.

Often parents are frustrated that kids are only eating a particular type of salad or vegetable, and focused on what they are not eating rather than being happy with a couple.

For example, if your fussy child is happy to have a green juice each day and to munch on a raw carrot, that is a pretty good starting point. Aim for just one or two and build from there rather than worried they are not sitting down to a plate of cooked veggies each night.

Originally published as ‘I’m a dietitian and mum - here’s how I get my kids to eat veggies’