If you have made this resolution before and failed, forget about those failed times. Forget about the steps you did not take or the motivation you lost or the fit your teenager threw when the fried chips left the house. Have a fresh start attitude. Invite the family for an ice cream sit down and a fun and quick family meeting and have them share the positive fresh start attitude with you. Let go of the ‘what if’s’ or the ‘what about’s’! Make the decision together that you all want to work on getting healthy and pick a start date. If the family has some say then it is a motivator for them as well.
When shopping for lunchbox items, take time to consider each child’s cravings and find relative options. Does your teenage love salty snack mixes? Buying some lightly salted almonds or pretzels and fruit snacks and dumping them together in a baggie is much more enticing then throwing the bag of fruit snacks and a separate sack of nuts in the lunchbox. Look below at the difference in how you present the food. Surely by taking food from their original packaging can open up a variety of fun and healthy mixes and encouragement to eat these choices. Adding stickers and fun messages can be an enticing move as well. It’s a little trick I use with a house of boys that eat home lunches at school. You can make a few of these up on the weekend and have them ready to grab for lunch in the week. Switch each bag up a bit for each day with different combinations.
Setting goals as a family and using tricks like presentation for enticement can help everyone stay motivated and encouraged to make healthier choices. Start with better for you lunchboxes. When out shopping for your healthier lunchbox foods, keep an eye out at your local Walmart in January and February for specialty marked Del Monte® Fruit Cup® Snacks and Del Monte® Fruit & Veggie Fusions. You will find a Better For You Lunchbox booklet on these fruit cups with over $6 in savings on great lunch choices throughout the store.
