My Kids Eat Ridiculously Healthy

Despite the photo, it's true, my kids eat ridiculously healthy, at least over all.

When Eason was born we decided we just wouldn't give him any sweets. While his friends were eating cake at birthday parties, we would just slip a bowl of fruit in front of him and he never noticed.

Then one day, when he was about 3 or 4 years old, he finished his fruit and asked for cake. I said "no" and told him that we would talk about it later.

At some point after the party I explained about eating healthy, which meant trying to eat food that has more good stuff in it than bad stuff. Since then I have had to reinforce that eating sweets is not going to kill you, or make you sick, or make you get fat immediately, but that it's just better to avoid food with little or no nutritional value.

Eason really bought into this and what we thought might only last a few years has persisted to this day (he's 7). Now we occasionally have to reinforce to others that they don't have to modify what food they make available for his benefit. He just doesn't want to eat sweets (which is what we've focused on as being unhealthy).

When he was three he went trick or treating for Halloween for the first time. All was well and he was having a great time until someone actually asked him "do you want some candy" at which point he said "NO!" with some disgust on his face. We had to explain that he should just accept whatever was offered and say "thank you".

That night, after I devoured his treats - and became somewhat sick, as would be expected, I realized that I was being a bit hypocritical and I determined that I would try not to eat anything I wouldn’t feed my kids. I've been fairly successful with it ever since. Eason still likes trick or treating with his friends to this day.

So far Andi is following in Eason's footsteps, though there are hints that it might be more difficult to convince her of the benefits of not eating sweets. But in the end, she's already gone without sweets for longer than we ever hoped for with Eason, so whatever happens now is all good.