Getting teenagers to eat well

[kidsnutritionist]

Hey!

I am looking for some insight from mums, dads or other family members about feeding their tweens and teens for a bit of public health work I am engaged in.

What I would love to know from everyone is:

What successes have you had getting your tweens (8-12) and teens to eat well?

Any meal ideas always seem to go down well?

What difficulties to have getting them to eat well?

What advice would you find useful to help?

Any insight would be hugely appreciated and thank you for you help in advance.

For me I’ve always talked openly about food and which is healthy and why and which is unhealthy and why -broccoli has this in it, strawberries have this in it etc-from my children being little. I think starting young with this discussion is key tbh because they listen more and if they’ve always eaten healthy then that’s half the battle. An example of this is I’ve always given my children water to drink from being tiny. People would comment that it was cruel because water is boring 🙄 but they’re now 11 and 10 and their main drink is water (the eldest has very rare treat drinks and youngest loves milk) whereas a lot of their friends say oh I hate water because parents seem to think that giving water is boring or unkind bizarrely.
My eldest is 11 and he wants to be healthy and listens when I talk about health. He eats plenty of fruit and veg daily and will eat some things he doesn’t actually like because he knows it’s good for him. He still eats unhealthy things too, but I find filling a dinner plate with loads of veg helps!

My teens barely eat veg even though I promote healthy eating

I always get grass fed/ organic meats as they like meat

plus multi vits