If you missed PART I of “Spread the Health!,” read that now! For every one else? Let’s continue on shall we?
Look how healthy and happy they are! 
In part I, I discussed how important it is to spread the health to everyone around you, especially those living in your household. I received several comments yesterday from ladies who said they can’t control their significant other and that they are old enough to make their own decisions. However, lots of readers agreed how important it is to keep our kids healthy.
When it comes to getting healthy, every single person has to start somewhere and persistence and education are key! Even if you have to spend YEARS, STILL be an influence! Experiment with the following 5 ways to help spread the health!
1. Start slowly. Change won’t happen overnight. My husband didn’t know a darn thing about nutrition before we started dating. He lived off of Mountain Dew, white bread, fast food, and spaghetti for years while living on his own. These are not habits that just go away. You must ease your family in to health. Start by keeping fresh fruit and veggies that you have pre-cut on the counters, or offer to pack your husband or boyfriend’s lunch; pack him what he usually likes but then add a banana to the mix, OR get the kids in the kitchen with you! Have THEM pack their lunch and give the kids choices. Have them pick between two HEALTHY foods. For instance, tell them they can pack an apple OR an orange. Don’t even make chips an option. Just a few ways to get the health ball rolling.
2. STOP cooking two meals. Besides being a pain in the butt, there is no reason why your husband or children cannot be satisfied with the meals you are cooking. Children should be exposed to a WIDE variety of foods from the get go and your husband should be on board with that. If your children see that Dad isn’t eating something, why should they? Exposure and imitation are the BEST ways to get the kids to try new foods. So how can we get Dad on board? Pair foods that you know he likes, with new foods he’s never been too fond of. For example; beans have ALWAYS been a tough sell to Brandon. He claimed he NEVER liked them. I think it was more that he just wasn’t exposed to them. I LOVE beans and since they make an excellent source of protein and fiber, I made quite an effort to show him how wonderful they really are. I found casserole, stews, and soup recipes which incorporated beans in minimal amounts just to give him a little taste. What happened after a year of exposure? Last night we made vegetarian bean burritos. Go figure.
source3. Share knowledge/DON’T preach. Nobody wants to feel inferior about their food choices. Try not to make your significant other feel bad about eating a certain way, just share your own knowledge. I LOVE reading new things about nutrition and I’m ALWAYS eager to share with someone. Brandon happens to be the lucky guy to hear all about the reasons WHY we should spend extra for organic produce, WHY I would prefer to avoid HFCS, and WHY it’s important to read ingredient labels. I was not preaching to him, just happily informing. I also wasn’t trying to make processed foods he loved the enemy, I just showed him ways we could make those same things healthier. For example; instead of store bought bags of French fries, we started baking our own. Instead of drinking soda every day, we bought a juicer. Instead of Oreos or Chips Ahoy, I would bake my own desserts from scratch. Instead of eating meat for every meal, we compromised at 3 times a week. Instead of lunchmeat every day, we started experimenting with salads, eggs, and salmon, and various other lunchmeat-less meals. Pretty soon, Brandon WAS influenced with what I was sharing with him. It’s to the point now that he won’t go to McDonald’s, RARELY drinks soda, asks me to buy him whole wheat bread, and reads labels sometimes better than I do (just to name a few).
4. Even kids can’t eat anything they want. I’ve seen a lot of parents who choose chicken fingers and fries for their kids at dinner, make juice the only source of fruit in their diet, and think ice cream is its’ own food group. Children are not immune to obesity and disease. We need to help them build a healthy foundation for proper growth and development. If YOU are eating a salad, then have your kids eat one too! If you need more advice, read my tips for how to prevent a picky eater! Also check out my Baby Bites I and II series!
source5. Exercise. This is still a topic I struggle with. Sometimes your significant other is just not that in to working out. Just try your best to set an example and ASK your husband, wife, or children to be active with you! Brandon and I might not do aerobics together, but we hike or rollerblade in the park, take nightly walks, or go play tennis together. I do my best to encourage activity. If your husband is too macho for Pilates or your kids don’t have the patience, get them to join an intramural team or have a family fun day at the park. Be creative! Just get your family moving!
All I’m asking in this post is to bring home what you learn and share it with your significant other and/or family. Make gradual changes. TEACH your husband/wife and children to read nutrition labels and show them what to look for. Make them understand WHY you don’t want to buy foods with high fructose corn syrup and tell them how chemicals are not REAL food! Get the WHOLE family on board in the journey to be healthy. Even though it might take YEARS, one small change builds upon another, leading to a lifetime of disease or illness prevention. Be the change you want to see in others, but also give others the proper nudge in the right direction; and that’s all I have to say about that.
These are great tips! I haven’t given up on changing my bf’s habits but I also try not to stress about it too much. He knows how I feel and I’ve already seen him start to come around slowly, which is better then not at all.
I am SO thankful that Peter is on board with how we feed Makenzie and opening up to trying the meals I come up with. I really hope it sets up a good balance for both kiddos down the road.
Tough topic Erin. I think it’s really difficult to tackle family health. One pet peeve of mine is parents who don’t sit with the children and eat with them. It’s hard to make the whole mealtime work without that.
I love this little series, me and my boyfriend sometime lock horns over healthy eating and getting enough exercise, well in all fairness he is super active anyway as he plays sports for a living but I think it would be nice to incorporate being active into our lifestyle, so that it’s not just as a work thing. I also have to cook two meals but two completely different meals, I just add meat to his. We will find a happy medium eventually!
I agree with step number one whole heartedly. My husband and I have been together for 7 years and he will just now eat white bread, swapped his morning snack of brown sugar pop tarts for an apple and eats a banana with lunch instead of 2 high sugar granola bars. It took quite a bit of coaxing and a lot of time but I am so greatful for the progress he made. One thing that does work really well in our house is that I always include my husband in our meal planning for the week an I make sure i pick veggies he will enjoy. Since he usually reserves veggies for dinner(we’re working on that) I want to make sure I pack as many in as possible!!
I received my NuNaturals package in the mail two days ago and I am in LOVE!!!!! I cannot thank you enough for the goodies and I am having way too much fun experimenting with them! Thanks again!!
Great post Erin!
I especially love your point about NOT making two meals. I seriously cringe when I hear parents say to their children, “oh, you don’t want this? Ok, what do you want?”. Giving them full rein to choose what they want, each night, is just setting both the children, and the parents up for disaster.
I’m so lucky that I was raised with two parents who worked out on a regular basis, and instilled in me the knowledge of health and fitness. I’m also lucky that Nick loves to workout and will always go on a walk or bike ride with me!
I know that Ryan has benefited greatly from some of the healthy lifestyle choices I brought into our home when we started living together. He tells everyone that I added 20 years to his life! Now, we try to encourage each other to make continued good choices. Thankfully, we both love taking long walks, so we go on at least one a day. And then of course, we are big vegetable fans! I love it when he brings home a big bag of goods from the Farmer’s Market. Thanks for sharing all these great tips!
I think I really need to stop making more than one meal a night…this is a terrible habit that I’ve adopted and it must stop!
Great suggestions Erin! It definitely takes little steps to getting people to eat healthy, but it’s worth spending a year building at it in the end! The point that hit home with me was when you said you don’t preaching to your husband, just happily inform him. That is exactly what I do with my husband. I never tell him he has to eat this and not that, I explain how I love a particular food and how it’s so good for you. Most the time he’ll try it and usually love it too!
Great great advice! If you start kids young eating the same kind of healthy things you do, hopefully it won’t be an issue.
I do cook two meals sometimes but not too entirely different meals! I’ll add chicken to his but i wont make him a chefboyarde while i have whole wheat pasta!
Great tips again! I know a big reason why I’ve always been so active is because of my mom’s example. I love doing pilates DVD’s with her because we laugh but we get a good workout! My hubs and I don’t often do the same thing at the gym, but taking an evening walk together is such a great way to wind down the day after dinner and talk.
I couldn’t agree more with the kids one. It drives me insane when people say the only thing their kids will eat are chicken fingers and fried crap. Well, if you never had that in the house to begin with, they wouldn’t want to eat it! I’m not a parent and I can imagine sometimes it’s a struggle to get kids to eat, but I want to scream at them to be smart what you stock the house with in the first place! I didn’t know chicken nuggests even existed as a kid until I went to friends houses!
Excellent tip in the Stop making two meals..and I totally agree that getting your partner to work out with you is a great idea (esp if he/she doesn’t “like” working out) – my husband would not work out every morning if I wasn’t there encouraging him! I posted a killer healthy soup recipe today w/lots of veggies & quinoa…perfect for the family – hop on over and check it out
http://thehinzadventures.blogspot.com/2011/08/7-vegetable-quinoa-soup.html
xoxo from Trinidad
These are great tips, especially the one about not preaching. I think leading by example is the best way to get others on board!
Thanks for this post! I struggle with this with my boyfriend because I really don’t want to preach and I know it’s a transition period of sorts. In terms of working out, I find fun things most easy to do together. We are newly into biking!
[...] original post here: Spread the Health! Part II | The Healthy Apron Posted in Nutrition | Tags: between-two, cooking-two, even-make, health, husband-didn, [...]
It still baffles me that people cook 2 meals for themselves and their children. When I was growing up we ate what my parents ate and never thought twice about it. If I didn’t want it or made a fuss then I didn’t get dinner. That sounds harsh but really it wasn’t about not liking the food. It was about testing boundaries. Going to bed 1 time without dinner didn’t ruin my health or make me starve it taught me that I wasn’t in charge, my parents were. It taught me that they make the rules and I follow them no questions asked. It also exposed me to a lot of varieties of foods. I mean I was 6 years old eating stir fry shark. People always think that is crazy but not me. I ate what mom and dad ate and honestly I liked it.