Some parents think that the easiest way to ensure their children eat good, nutritious food is to ban junk food from their diets. But kids need to taste and learn about all foods, and denying them junk food will just make them more determined to eat it. Here are some tips for getting junk food into perspective in your house...

Allow your kids a few treats

There’s no denying that a daily diet of junk food is bad for your child. But eating it occasionally is okay, so don’t ban it outright. If you tell a child they can’t have something, they tend to become a bit obsessed about wanting it. So let junk food be just one of many foods your kids can choose to eat, letting them taste it and enjoy it from time to time, perhaps once a week or once a fortnight.

Help them to eat mindfully

When your kids are eating treat food, talk to them about what it’s made out of and what it tastes like. Is there a lot of fat in it? Is it sweet? Don’t turn it into a lecture about how bad junk food is, but make them aware of what they’re eating, even if it just slows them down and stops them scoffing the whole lot in a minute flat.

Treat all foods equally

Take the same approach with other foods you may have on offer. Why is lettuce crispy? Is the apple sweet, sour or both? The idea is to start encouraging your kids to determine what’s in the food they’re eating and identify the different tastes and properties of each food.

Don’t make junk food the enemy

Children often want to try something if they know you don’t like it. So talk about junk food as food that isn’t that good for you but is okay now and then.

Give a different reward

Don’t use junk food as a reward. You might like to make Friday night takeaway night because it’s easier when you don’t have to cook, but don’t use treat food as a bargaining tool throughout the week, as in: “If you don’t eat your lentils, you won’t have McDonald’s on Friday.” Junk food is just food – not something to aspire to.

Cook your own treats

Occasionally cook your own junk food equivalents such as hamburgers or fish and chips to show your kids how much better food is when it’s made at home with fewer additives.

Offer alternatives

Make sure you offer your children lots of different, interesting and fresh foods to try throughout the week. No child is going to eat fruit out of a bowl if the fruit is overripe, under-ripe or unappealing. Make sure you buy fresh fruit every few days. In-season fruit always tastes best.

Expose kids to different flavours

Expose your children to a variety of tastes and encourage them to try different foods. The idea is to help your children enjoy and detect all sorts of flavours. After a while, if they’re getting enough healthy, nutritious food to taste and eat, they will start to enjoy those foods as well as junk food. Most children will happily eat a punnet of strawberries with as much enthusiasm as a handful of hot chips – they just need to be offered them.

Avoid always being the boss

Try not to always be the boss when it comes to food choices. While it must be clear that you’re the boss of what food comes into the house, you can allow your kids to make their own choices about which food to consume. The trick is to make sure there are lots of healthy choices available to them and only a few junk-food choices.

Create a food chart

Talk to your older children about which foods are good for everyday eating, sometimes eating and occasional eating, and ask them to write out a food chart for each day. This might include two pieces of fruit but just one packet of chips. Most children will be happy to follow a plan if they’ve been involved in creating it.

Teach good decision making

Aim to teach your children how to make good diet decisions for themselves. This means that as they grow into young adults, they will have the tools they need to feed themselves well and to avoid any diet related health issues.