Providing children with nutritious meals is the first part of creating a healthy eating environment, while the second part is related to how we talk about food.
We often hear people saying things like, ‘Please finish your meal and then you can have pudding’, or ‘You can’t have chocolate as it’s bad for you’.
Offering food as a reward
We often promise children a treat if they are ‘good’, but these treats are frequently the foods that we label ‘bad’, such as chocolate or ice cream. So, imagine a child’s confusion when you reward a positive behaviour with something that usually has negative associations.
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