Check out Alec Rosenberg’s July 5 post to the UC Food Blog. Rosenberg, UCOP’s communications coordinator for health and ANR, gives parents advice on how to get their kids to not only eat their fruits and vegetables but to build healthy nutrition practices that will last a lifetime. Here’s an excerpt:

I have two active young sons. They get plenty of exercise. Their diets, however, can be a challenge.

They have different tastes — one could eat breakfast items all day; the other could eat dinner items all day. One likes sugary sweet foods; the other likes salty, fatty foods.

My wife is a great cook who makes balanced, nutritious meals, but it’s not easy pleasing everybody. There is one thing we all can agree on: We love fruit. We can eat fruit throughout the day. It might go with breakfast, with lunch, as a snack or mixed in with a salad at dinner.

I think my kids like fruit not only because we make it available and encourage them to eat it, but because they have sampled fresh fruit at farmers markets, watched it grow in our backyard and harvested it themselves at U-pick farms.

The federal government’s new MyPlate nutrition guidelines emphasize fruits and vegetables — they’re half the plate. But it’s not enough to try to force-feed your children canned carrots. Food can be fun. Giving kids a hands-on experience with fresh fruit can help them appreciate its importance.

For Rosenberg’s full post, check out the UC Food Blog.

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