Unhealthy eating habits stem from a lot of things surrounding children and their environment. This can have serious consequences in your child’s future that may result in developing health problems. This article will delve into what makes a child develop unhealthy habits, and the negative impacts unhealthy habits can have.
Effects of Being Unhealthy
The effects that come with eating unhealthy food as a habit outweigh the momentary pleasure that may come with eating these foods. These effects can include:
- Obesity
- Risk of diabetes
- Risk of high blood sugar
- Deficiencies
- Mental health problems
- Behavioural problems
Following the development of these problems, it can be daunting for any parent to deal with them. There may even be repercussions that come from this, such as social out-casting that can happen in children’s groups.
They may also make your child unwell and can develop mental problems from the stress because of change.
Unhealthy eating leads to a deteriorating lifestyle that will worsen the longer this unhealthy food habit is around. By stopping it now, you are effectively saving your child!
Self-Indulgence and Addiction
Generally, self-indulgence is when you don’t know how to restrain yourself from eating unhealthy food, often due to the taste of sugar. Sweets, chocolate, and ice cream are some of the main suspects in these cases. The sweet sugary taste can easily become addicting to children.
It’s important to remember that children do not have the same sugar intake as adults do. So, they can easily go over their daily limit by eating one or two chocolate bars a day.
Although children may want to self-indulge constantly, you can easily turn this around by offering them alternatives that have less sugar but taste the same. These can be things like sugar free fizzy drinks, chocolate made with less sugar, and sweets that are less sugary.
Even fruit or vegetables can help with this as some fruit generally have a sweeter taste like apples or strawberries. We’re sure most people have heard the saying ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’!
Influence
We all know that children can be influenced by their surroundings and environment. One of the dangers of leaving your child with devices like tablets, phones, or game consoles is they can end up watching things that may influence them to think in a certain way.
But the influence can also lie in real life and even in your home.
Your child is more influenced by their parents than anyone else and tends to follow your behaviour. For example, when you are sneaking chocolate or drinking lots of unhealthy drinks in front of your child, it may lead to them following your lead.
They will then develop unhealthy eating habits from watching you, and as said above, their daily sugar limit is less than adults.
By cutting down on your own indulging and eating healthier, you may influence your child to eat healthier, too. This may not work for every child, but it is worth a shot. It certainly will help your own health!
Routine
When does having treats become more than a treat and start becoming routine? And how can we break this?
Usually, this happens when you reward your child every day with sugar, maybe as a reward for cleaning, or eating all their dinner. They’ll learn this routine, and they may start to crave it every time after whatever they do to “earn” this reward.
This can be unhealthy as they will constantly seek this reward and may even expect it for everything they do. They get dressed, eat dinner, brush their teeth, and then they think they deserve a reward. And not giving in to their “demands” may lead to confrontation and behavioural problems.
This routine can be avoided by rewarding your child with non-food items like a new book, toy, or a trip to the cinema or a museum.
Coping Mechanisms
Children tend to develop coping mechanisms if they experience stress. These can range from crying, biting their nails, and filling themselves up with sugary foods. This can be described as emotional eating.
It can be hard to figure out how to help as stress can be difficult to help with, especially for a child. But many different solutions can help with their eating habit.
Try to store your sweets, fizzy drinks, and chocolate in a place that is hard to reach or hidden from your child. It’ll prevent them from eating without knowing when to stop as children don’t understand the consequences.
Conclusion
Hopefully now you understand how habits develop and how you can help to prevent them. Your child’s health is very important especially in their early ages since they could end up making themselves even more unhealthy later in life.
Unhealthy habits can be beaten if we all help each other!
We at Veginom want to help you and your children’s health in any way we can! Promoting a healthy lifestyle is our goal for the future of today’s children. If you need any further assistance, then feel free to contact us here.