USDA's Guidelines for a Healthy Family Diet

The USDA recommends you eat foods that help achieve and maintain a healthy weight, promote health, and prevent disease.

World Health Day is just around the corner, and now is a great time to learn easy ways to help your family be healthy. Check out our list of family-friendly ideas to incorporate healthy living into your everyday life.

1. Set a Family "Moving" Goal

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When you're looking for school lunch ideas, it's easy to throw a handful of cheap, pre-packed lunchbox fillers into your shopping cart and call it a week. But what are those shortcuts really costing? Besides the empty calories, sodium, and sugar, there's the guilt you feel sending your child off to school with something you'd never cook or eat at home. For example, did you know Lunchables have between a quarter and a third of the daily recommended sodium for an adult?

Places to Go

Creating memories with children means taking them to places where you can have fun and create memories together. In the diapers and naps stage, outings are necessarily short, but when children reach the preschool years, the possibilities become endless. Consider the following guidelines before you head out and you can eliminate many of the problems that can get in the way of the good times you want to have together:

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Nutritional Health for Women

The idea of a family dinner out at a restaurant sounds so appealing in theory. Eating out can be a way to celebrate a special occasion, to get in some quality time as a family, or to explore a new area when traveling. The reality of dining out with kids can often be very different though. Sometimes, they may struggle with sitting still and using indoor voices. Other times, you may find yourself doubling the server’s tip due to food thrown on the floor or shattered plates needing to be cleaned up. 

Do you have a teen in the house? Then you know as well as anyone that teens are always hungry. And when it comes to busy teenagers, the microwave can be an amazing tool to whip up some delicious (and healthy) food on the fly. Not only is the microwave fast, it's safe to work with and easy to clean when accidents inevitably occur. Here are four easy microwaveable recipes your teen can turn to when they're short on time but big on hunger:

You've made a fabulous dinner complete with creative, kid-friendly finger foods, and then it happens; the stare down. A tiny voice declares, "Mom, I am not eating that!" as her nose wrinkles. Picky eaters are tough to please, so now it's time to get a little extra creative in the kitchen.

Following a vegan diet has become a very popular lifestyle choice for many families. Though people may have found it difficult to stick with a vegan lifestyle in the past, things have become much easier for vegans thanks to clearly labeled grocery ingredients and lots of vegan options both at the grocery store and at restaurants. With vegan foods and meals so much more accessible and scientific evidence showing benefits of vegan diets, it’s no wonder why more parents are deciding to raise their children vegan.

Eating Healthy is on almost every adult's New Year's Resolution wish list, accompanied by a resolution to feed your family healthier. As far as resolutions go, it can be one of the easiest to keep. After all, it's not that specific of a goal, and after a few weeks of consciously making healthier choices, these choices become habits. Especially if those choices are simple, sustainable, and easy to remember.

Family Movie Time

Time

• 1 to 2 hours

Materials

• Pencil
• Movie video
• Healthy snack

Directions

1. Work together to plan a movie night for the family.
2. Include interviews of all participants to pick a movie and menu that will work for everyone.

Extensions

Expanding Your One to Three-Year-Old's Diet

Even though he's only one or two years old, it's never too early to help a child begin to develop healthy eating habits. You can do this in part by offering a variety of nutritious foods that are appropriate for your child's developmental stage. For the most part, you can put away the baby food now. After age one, your child can eat just about anything, as long as he's not allergic to it, and as long as it's in kid-friendly form—either pureed, mashed, or cut into small pieces.

Healthy Eating: Hunger vs Cravings

The question is, is it a craving, or am I really hungry? We first need to understand the difference between a physical food craving—or actual hunger—and an emotional food craving. Cravings can be caused by either physical or psychological needs. Emotional cravings or eating triggers are usually caused by psychological needs, while hunger is a biological function of the body's real need for food. Emotional cravings can lead to bingeing. Learn to listen to your body and know what it is trying to tell you.

Editor’s Note: We know raising kids can be hard. That’s why we’re dedicated to making your life easier with the latest and greatest parenting advice and products. We wanted to let you know that if you chose to purchase one of the items featured in this post, we may receive a small commission for it.

Tips and strategies for toddlers

Encouraging Good Eating Habits in Toddlers

Teach your child to feed himself by letting him feed himself. It gets messy, but be patient. Eventually the mess will probably bother your child more than you! Yay!

Strategies for successful dining

Dining Out with Youngsters

Breakfast in the Park

Our family often has picnic lunches and dinners at the beach, but I hadn't thought of having breakfast in the park until a friend suggested it. What a great idea for early risers-and you'll definitely beat the crowds!

• Breakfast foods
• Blanket or tablecloth
• Sweatshirts
• Hot cocoa

Directions

There is a lot of support for mothers and birthing parents during the prenatal period, but postpartum care looks a bit different. Upon leaving the hospital following childbirth, you will be armed with supplies like maxi pads, diapers, and witch hazel wipes but may be feeling a little uncertain, overwhelmed, and uncomfortable as you embark on the next journey — the fourth trimester.

Kids in the Kitchen

Rushing home and frantically pulling together something fairly nutritious (that the kids may or may not eat), while listening to the cherubs arguing about whose turn it is to pour the milk, is no way to spend precious family mealtime. Try putting the kids in charge once a week. If it doesn't work, at least they'll know what it feels like to be totally frazzled and unappreciated.