Are you concerned about your child's weight, but don't know where to start? Consider replacing their junk food snacks with some of the foods on this list.
Start out with fresh fruit of any kind. Let your child choose some new fruits at the grocery store and then have a fun fruit tasting party at home. Try the exotic stuff alongside the everyday.
Get an air popcorn popper and show your kids how much fun it is to pop and eat, even without the butter. Instead spray with a tiny bit of water and then salt it. To satisfy a sweet tooth, toss popcorn with a small amount of reduced-calorie maple syrup--it'll taste liek caramel corn.
Pretzel thins and cheese. You may want to buy cheddar cheese, which has a stronger flavor; a little goes a long way.
Boil up some eggs. Let the kids have fun peel and eat the eggs, which will keep them feeling full because they have a lot of protein in them. Serve them with salt and pepper.
Get silly with your kids and make ants on a log. Spread a modest amount of peanut butter on celery sticks and then place raisins or minitaure chocolate chips on top (which are the ants).
Serve cut veggies with salad dressing. You can let older kids carve the vegetables into sculptures before eating them.
Offer seasoned shrimp. Boil shrimp with Cajun spices and then let them peel and eat these high-protein, low-calorie snacks.
Make roll ups out of lunch meat and cheese. Serve this treat with toothpicks, as little rolls of any lean meats with little slices of cheese rolled up inside them.
Fruit smoothies. Blend frozen fruit and low cal juice and serve with a crazy straw. You can put yogurt in if your kids like it that way.
Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt contains two times the amount of protein as regular yogurt. It comes in all kinds of flavors--even honey and chocolate!
If you model healthy eating habits, your kids will be more likely to eat healthfully as well. Try picking up some healthy eating cookbooks for more ideas.
