Our expert dietitian Sarah Noone shares her top tips for healthy eating at home

We know that a healthy diet is important in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke as well as maintaining our overall wellbeing. However, with the cold winter nights and dark mornings, it can be difficult to stay on track with healthy eating. Thankfully our registered dietitian Sarah Noone is on hand with some top tips.

Make it enticing
Simply putting fruit on display in an attractive bowl has been shown to increase fruit sales in shops, so, why not use clever trick at home to encourage the whole family to eat more fruit.

Keep healthier options upfront
Put the healthy food at the front of the cupboard or fridge and make the less healthy options harder to reach. We tend to take the easy route when we can, so, making fruit and veg more visible and the less healthy options harder to reach, can help the healthier choice become the easy choice at home.

Model healthy eating
Remember if the kids see you eating something at home, they are more likely to eat it too. Try to avoid using treat foods as a reward as this can promote the idea that healthier options are not as appealing or something to look forward too.

Home in on healthy options
Try and ensure that most of the food in your home is nutritious and wholesome. We all generally choose foods that are familiar, easily available and ready to be eat.

Eat less without knowing
The shape, size and colours of objects can influence our perception on how full we are. For example, large plates make us think our food portions are smaller and white plates make our plates look emptier. So, why not try using smaller plates and smaller sized serving utensils when plating up food at home.

Have distraction free meals
Try to turn off all screens at mealtimes. Distraction at mealtimes can lead to mindless overeating. Family meals can be a good opportunity to talk about healthy eating habits and engage your children in conversations about what a healthy meal looks and tastes like.

Make it a choice
Giving children a choice between healthy options e.g. apple or banana, lets them feel like they had a choice in deciding what to eat and biases them towards wanting to like it more.

Give Healthy Food a Fancy name
Another way to make healthier options more attractive to children is to give meals exciting new names. So instead of bean burritos you can say we are having a the ‘big bad bean burritos’ for dinner tonight.