Healthy eating is very important to me. I go out of my way to encourage healthy eating in my kids and try very hard to get them to eat five a day.
I can’t tell you I get it right all the time and I can’t honestly say my kids eat five a day every single day, but it happens more often than not. There are a few tricks that I employ to make this happen and one of them is to create ‘food art’.
I basically get the usual meal time rule book and rip it up. I’ll place some fresh fruit and vegetables in front of the kids and either encourage them to make something out of it or I’ll ask them what they’d like created and I make it for them.
As I say, the rule book gets ripped up. The kids will eat sweetcorn, sliced carrots, kiwi, blueberries, strawberries and so on, all in the one sitting. Not only that, but they’ll eat with their fingers (washed hands, obviously). The result has always been clean plates all round.
The results of a survey carried out on behalf of kitchen appliance manufacture Beko, however, paint a sorry story. According to the survey, 50% of parents have given up trying to get their kids to eat five a day.
To encourage families to eat more healthily, Beko has teamed up with the FC Barcelona football team and launched a campaign called #EatLikeAPro. The idea is simply to get families to eat healthily and it’s provided some great online resources to help mums and dads work with their children to make this happen.
By visiting the #EatLikeAPro website, you can get ideas for recipes such as frozen yogurt lollies, bunny-shaped wholewheat brown bread and the Delicious Defence Smoothie to boost the immune system. There is also a ‘cheer’ generator so you can get personalised messages from the FC Barcelona team and also recipes that would appeal to mum and dad.
Beko challenged Helen, Izzy and I to create some food art inspired by the #EatLikeAPro website. As this is an activity we already do, we leapt at the chance.
I chopped up some carrot, kiwi and strawberries and washed and dried some blueberries and raspberries. I also laid on some yogurt and off the kids went, creating their food art.
The pictures show what went on. Izzy created a snowman, Helen created a mermaid and the third piece of art, well, I’m not too sure what that was meant to be. The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter. It looked good and the entire lot was eaten; every single bit of food on every plate was consumed.
I was inspired to make food art because I wanted to make sure my children were getting enough fruit and vegetables. It’s all very well giving kids food and expecting them to eat it but children are no different to adults, they simply want it presented nicely. Turn it into a game where they can create something with their food food and the results can be fantastic.
If you do struggle to feed your children five a day, I hope this post has provided some inspiration. I thoroughly recommend creating food art but do also visit the #EatLikeAPro website if you want more ideas.
Do you struggle to get your children to eat five a day? Do you have any ideas for getting children to eat healthily? Please do leave a comment below and don’t forget to check out the #EatLikeAPro hashtag on social media.
Disclosure: This commissioned article was produced in association with Beko
4 thoughts on “#EatLikeAPro and get your five a day with Beko”
My girls love fruit and veg I’m not we manage 5a day everyday but we try this is a fab campaign. I was shocked by the statistics.
Oh yes, those stats were pretty shocking, right? You may not always manage five a day, but at least you try. Not even bothering is where the problem lies I feel.
We don’t always manage five-a-day either but it’s something that we encourage as much as possible – it’s so important to establish good habits early on. 🙂
It is vital I think Tom. Looking back to my own childhood, I know huge efforts were made to broaden my diet but I was so fussy. It wasn’t until later in life that I started eating healthily and I’d want my own kids to follow a good diet.