Tip tips: Supporting parents with healthy eating at home

Supporting families with healthy eating is an important part of promoting children’s overall well-being. By building positive relationships and sharing simple, achievable strategies, you can help parents feel more confident in creating healthy eating habits at home that work for them and their children.

Top tips for supporting parents with healthy eating at home

Help parents to make small changes: Support parents to make small, realistic changes such as keeping fruit visible or having easy-to-grab, healthy snacks available
Encourage family mealtime routines: Share the value of family meals, while recognising barriers like shift work or busy schedules. Help parents find workable alternatives, for example, just one shared meal a week would be beneficial
Promote a balanced, non-judgemental approach to food: Guide parents away from labelling foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Instead, encourage language like ‘everyday’ and ‘sometimes’ foods, to support a healthier relationship with eating
Empower parents to involve children with mealtimes: Suggest age-appropriate ways children can participate, for example, giving choices, helping to prepare food, or setting the table. Emphasise this as a positive strategy to increase willingness to try new foods
Address feeding challenges sensitively: Advise parents to avoid pressuring children to eat. Share strategies like repeated exposure to foods and respecting hunger cues, especially for children with limited diets
Focus on overall balance, not perfection: Reassure parents that healthy eating is about patterns over time. Offer simple, affordable meal and snack ideas to help them get going, such as those available from the NHS Healthier Families website
Provide guidance on drinks: Support parents to reduce sugary drinks and promote water and milk as everyday choices to support children’s oral health
Keep advice realistic and inclusive: Acknowledge financial, cultural, developmental and time constraints. Having a positive relationship with families will help you to tailor advice to their precise situation.

NDNA products to support you with this tip

PANCo - Training

Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials