was planning to wait until September, when kids go back to school, to write an article about feeding children healthfully, since schools receive much of the blame for the childhood obesity epidemic that this country is facing. Schools have gotten a lot of negative publicity—and rightfully so—about their abysmal food service programs, their use of vending machines to sell soft drinks and the dwindling frequency with which physical education classes are required. That’s why I was shocked to learn recently that is it over the summer, when school is out of session and parents are responsible for their child’s meals and physical activity, that kids actually gain the most weight (they grow taller, too, of course, but they grow wider at a faster rate).

I interpret this to mean that schools, parents and caregivers could all stand to make some improvements in the ways in which they promote healthy eating and physical activity to children. Since it is summer, I want to focus on what can be done at home by parents and caregivers that could really make a difference in children’s weight and health:

1. Model healthy behavior. Good child nutrition is, by extension, good family nutrition since a child cannot be expected to eat more healthfully or be more active than their parents. If you want your child to eat his or her vegetables, then you need to eat yours, too. Please don’t underestimate your child’s perceptiveness – they will know if you deny them a soda and then you sneak off to drink one secretly, so a “do as I say, not as I do” policy will always backfire on you.

2. Turn off the television. Overweight children eat 50% of their dinners in front of the television while healthy weight children eat fewer than 35% of their dinners in front of the tube. TV should not be part of any meal, regardless of your child’s weight, since it distracts from eating, which means that satiety goes unnoticed and extra food (and calories) is consumed. Eventually, children who eat while watching TV will want to eat every time they sit down in front of it, no matter whether they are hungry or whether it is actually a mealtime. Television at any time of the day is strongly associated with overweight, since kids spend time sitting instead of moving around. Commercials for foods like sugary cereals and soft drinks also provide feeding cues (signals to eat) and can have a lot of influence on kid’s food choices. The average American child spends over 3 hours a day watching TV, and another 3-4 with other media like video games and computers. Studies show that the more time kids and adults spend watching television, the more they weigh. Meals are important and we need to teach children to value them. Turning off the TV, removing them from bedrooms and eating areas and limiting viewing time to two hours a day is a good place to start teaching children healthy habits.

3. Make shared meals an important event. Connecting with each other should be the goal of a family meal. This is another way to teach children to honor themselves and their food. Sharing meals helps build strong family bonds that are important for self esteem, emotional support, and personal connections, as well as general physical and mental well-being. Eating with others also discourages overeating. Children and adolescents benefit enormously from family meals, which promote a healthy weight as well as a higher intake of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and calcium-rich foods and a lower intake of sodas and fried foods. Children who share meals with their families have better language and literacy development and teens are less likely to engage in risky behaviors than kids who eat on their own. Eating a home-prepared meal is more healthful, but eating a family meal away from home still has social, educational, and dietary benefits. Assess your family’s schedule and try to set a realistic goal for the number of meals a week that you can eat together. Dinner is often a difficult time, so breakfast might be a better option.

4. Involve kids in the kitchen. Cooking is an exciting sensory experience that will help connect kids to the food they will eat. It’s like one big edible science experiment, which is engaging, creative and fun for children. When kids are involved in food preparation, they are more likely to taste new foods due to both familiarity and a sense of pride in what they have created. Familiarity is really the key to increasing the variety of foods that children will eat. Kids need an average of ten exposures to a new food before they start to assimilate it into their diets, so be patient but never pushy. Remember, if they see you eating (and enjoying) vegetables, they will be much more likely to eat them themselves. Take the kitchen concept one step further and try growing your own fruit and vegetables with your kids. This will not only deepen their connection to healthy foods, it will also increase the amount of physical activity they do since gardening is physical labor.

5. Don’t push food on kids. A lot of parents and caregivers think they are being helpful when they force children to eat. In actuality, you should not force a child to eat nor should you restrict the amount they eat. These actions will make the child feel bad about themselves, their bodies, and their eating—and it will make you miserable. It will also strain your relationship and make the child’s eating even worse. Research shows that when parents pressure kids to eat (and almost all do), children don’t eat as well or grow as well as they should. It is important to offer children new foods to taste, but it is just as important to allow them to decide if they will try it or not. Do not worry, a child will not go hungry when there is food around so don’t use that fear as an excuse to push. Children are born knowing when they are hungry and when they are full. By pushing a child who is not hungry to eat, you will destroy their relationship with their satiety so that they no longer recognize naturally when they are hungry or full. If your child does not like to eat large amounts at a meal, then serve smaller meals more frequently so they can get adequate nourishment. Also, make sure that they eat food before they drink caloric beverages so that they don’t fill up their little tummies with liquids before solid food.

6. Don’t tell kids when to stop eating. This is the other side of the same dangerous coin. You should never tell a child when to stop eating. If a child is overweight, parents often fear that the problem will only get worse if the child keeps eating. However, a child who is told that they can’t have something will only want it more (and will usually find a way to get it). Restricting food can lead to anxious or disordered eating behaviors that are carried into adulthood. If your child tends to eat more than what is appropriate and he or she is overweight, there are some non-judgmental things you can do. For instance, at mealtimes, plate everyone’s food in the kitchen and serve it at the table instead of serving family style. This will help prevent everyone from putting more food than they need on their plates. Use smaller plates so that less food looks like more, since a large plate with normal portions of food can easily look empty. Serve minimally processed foods that are nutritious and low in calories, such as vegetables, grains and lean proteins. These foods tend to be the most filling. Always remember that there is a division of responsibility in the feeding relationship. It is up to you to offer a variety of healthy foods to your child, but it is up to them to decide if and how much they will eat. In order for it to work, you must respect your child’s individuality, and you must be faithful in your promise to prepare and teach the value of healthful meals and snacks for your family.

7. Don’t bring junk food into the house. Make life easier on yourself and protect the healthful environment of your home. If you don’t have soda in the fridge and chips and cookies in the pantry, then it will be a lot easier to avoid food fights. Having junk food around and constantly telling kids that they can’t eat it sends a confusing message and creates a lot of tension around eating. Only bring food into the house that you want your children to consume. You should not deny treats, but enjoying an occasional ice cream outside of the house will mean that ice cream gets eaten infrequently instead of frequently. When it comes to making food choices, take an authoritative approach to teaching your kids healthy habits: respect them, but set clear boundaries. This approach has been proven to be more successful than being either authoritarian (too strict without respecting your child’s feelings) or permissive (indulgent without boundaries).

8. Build activity into your child’s day. Physical activity should be fun and a part of play time for kids, it should never be something they dislike of feel bad about. Try to think about how you feel about exercise now and how you felt about it as a child. Retaining the fun and playfulness should be the goal, rather than making it drudgery, if you want this healthy habit to stick. Organized competitive sports are only one way to bring exercise into your child’s life, but they are not the best option for all children. Noncompetitive activities such as dance, yoga, biking, and walking can be good alternatives to soccer and other game sports. Do things as a family, such as taking walks (or walking somewhere instead of driving), hiking or swimming. Chores such as gardening and mowing the lawn also count as physical activity.

Conflicts around eating well and being active create negative feelings about positive activities. For this reason, it is imperative to respect and validate your child’s feelings while teaching him or her the value of healthful habits. Doing healthful things together, such as cooking or exercising, provides many opportunities for modeling good behavior and praising children. There are also books you can read together to learn more about healthy foods. A good one is called “The ABCs of Fruits and Vegetables and Beyond” by Steve Charney and David Goldbeck. Also, Harvard Professor David Ludwig has some great ideas for parents in his book “Ending the Food Fight,” which outlines a nine-week program for ending the food- and activity-related tugs of war in your home. Even if your child is not overweight, all children need to learn how to practice and value healthy habits when they are young so that they can grow to be healthy adults. Prevention is essential to health and, with the right guidance, your child can be empowered to lead a healthy life.