Healthy Eating & Picky Eating Resources For Families & Children
Depending on their age, children react differently to foods. Some children will not like trying new foods. Others will no longer like a food that they enjoyed a few weeks previously. Some children will sort foods that have been mixed together, or examine them for a long time.
All of these reactions are completely normal. It is caused by a child’s fear of unfamiliar foods.
This webpage brings together resources on healthy eating and picky eating, as well as related infographics, videos, and recipes put together by volunteer students at Ottawa University for families with young children.
Resources on Healthy Eating:
- Tips for Healthy Eating, by Bonnie Baxter
- Picky eaters? Here’s how to get your kids to eat like the French
- Get Enough is full of healthy recipes, as well as a Get Enough Helper App that can help you keep track of what you eat to ensure you get enough of what you eat.
- Cru Cru’s Fantastic Healthy Feast, which includes very cute and imaginative snacks made in different animal forms, etc.
- A Practical and User-Friendly Guide to Breakfasts + Snacks + Lunches
- Heart-Health Guide for your Family
- Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide
Build a Healthy Meal: Use the Eat Well Plate (interactive)
Infographics on Healthy Eating:
Check-out our videos of healthy meals to enjoy with your family!
Student volunteers, Meryam Echaib, Jennifer Pascha, and Khalil El Mrini from the Nutrition program at the University of Ottawa have put together a series of healthy eating videos. Make sure to check-out their step-by-step recipes below.
We’ve also included three fun videos created by Jessica Swizawski, from the Athropologiy and Sociology program at Ottawa University to help make food preparation fun for your whole family.
Step-by-step recipe for the meals:
Picky Eating:
Resources on “Picky Eating”:
- Health Canada. (2021, January 7). Involve kids in planning and preparing meals. Canada Food Guide. Retrieved March 10, 2022
- McCarthy, C. (2020, June 23). Study gives insight – and advice – on picky eating in children. Harvard Health. Retrieved March 10, 2022
- Broad, J., et al. (2021). Child involvement in meal preparation and grocery shopping is associated with lower levels of food fussiness among young children. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 46(12), 1559–1562.
- Van der Horst, K.,et al. (2014). Involving children in meal preparation. effects on food intake. Appetite, 79, 18–24.
“Picky Eating” Infographics:
These infographics, recipe book and related resources were created and compiled by our four Ottawa University students in the Nutrition Program based on a fall 2021 survey that our Outaouais community completed.
A special thank you to Mona Farahbakhsh, Isabelle Guindon, Caroline Laurin and Nada Tasra for joining us for their fall placement as student volunteers.
Connexions Resource Centre promotes the health, social wellbeing and vitality of the English-speaking community through empowerment, participation and collaboration within the Outaouais.
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