Shape Your Child's Eating Habits Using Their Hero's Favorite Foods
Does your kid eat only a small variety of foods? Do you want to help him try new foods? How can you recruit his heroes and the famous people he admires to improve his eating habits?
Sometimes, the variety of foods a child is willing to eat is too narrow to create a healthy, balanced diet. As a parent, your personal example of eating different kinds of foods is very important, but sometimes it is not enough. One way to encourage children to try new foods is to use their role models.
If your kid is into sports, show him what his favorite athlete loves to eat. If he is more into cartoons and video games, find what his heroes love to eat or which foods they use to increase their magical powers. If your child is young, look for different kinds of foods mentioned in their storybooks, and start a conversation about those foods.
Their heroes don't always eat healthy foods, but it is a great opportunity to talk about eating different kinds of foods in the right amounts, without making them feel that this a “bad food.” Starting a conversion about varieties of foods is the first step to encouraging your kid to try new foods. Their favorite superheroes, role model cartoon characters and bed-time stories are a great start.
Examples Of Famous People/Characters & Their Favorite Foods
Children’s Stories
In Snow White, the queen disguised as a witch tries to killed Snow White by giving her a poisoned apple. The apple was two colors: half red and half green. This is a great place to talk about the different colors of apples (and fruits all together), and try tasting them.
When Cinderella wants to go to the royal ball, she rides in a magical pumpkin. This is a great start to talk about pumpkins and think together with the child about tasting different foods made with pumpkin.
When Little Red Riding Hood went to visit her sick grandma, she brought in her basket: wine, cheese and bread. You can create with your child a basket and encourage him to try different kinds of cheeses as part of the story.
Winnie The Pooh's favorite food is honey. Honey is a great natural sweetener and you can suggest your child add it to his food instead of eating foods high in added sugar. For example, add honey to plain yogurt instead of eating sweet yogurts with a lot of added sugar and artificial flavors.
The Cookie Monster from Sesame Street loves to eat chocolate chip cookies! Oatmeal cookies are his second favorite. This is a great place to talk about the right portion size for eating cookies (not exactly like the Cookies Monster does it…).
Athletes
Dwight Howard, an NBA player with the Atlanta Hawks, loves candy but during the season he replaces it with pecans and almonds.
NBA superstar LeBron James, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, counts among his favorite foods turkey, shrimp and cereal.
David Beckham, a world famous soccer player, names snails as his favorite food.
Rafael Nadal, a professional tennis player, loves to eat Nutella.
Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt says hot wings are his favorite food but tries to instead eat plenty of eggs and vegetables like yams to help his training.
Cartoon Characters, Super Heroes & Video Games
Garfield, the fat orange tabby cat, counts as his favorite food lasagna.
Bugs Bunny's favorite food is carrots.
Most Pokémon characters eat regular foods like humans do. Several species are even capable of consuming dreams and emotions!
SpongeBob Squarepants works as a fry cook at a local fast food restaurant The Krusty Krab. He mainly cooks burgers called Krabby Patties.
Popeye the Sailor grows stronger when he eats spinach. His girlfriend Olive Oyl was named after olive oil by creator E.C. Segar. Their pal Wimpy loves to eat hamburgers.
Homer Simpson's favorite food is donuts.
The Ninja Turtles' favorite food is pizza.
Super Mario's favorite food is spaghetti. In the Super Mario video game, they must eat mushrooms to get to the next level.
The Minions' favorite food is bananas.
Food is a healing item in the Skylanders series. It can be found in specific places as well as randomly dropped by enemies. In the Skylanders world, there are many kinds of food: sandwiches, pretzels, cheese, pizza, take-out boxes, ham, pies, etc., but they all function in the same way.
Celebrities & Public Figures
Barack Obama, former U.S. president, counts broccoli as his favorite food. As for the first daughters, Malia Obama loves ice cream and Sasha Obama says her favorite food is sushi.
Oprah Winfrey loves “Garret’s Popcorn.” It is popcorn with a caramel and cheese flavors mixed together.
Tom Cruise's favorite food is lobster.
Jerry Seinfeld, comedian and actor, says his favorite food is peanut butter.
Dan TDM, a famous YouTube personality, chooses sweet chili chicken as his favorite meal.
Singers
Justin Bieber's favorite foods are spaghetti and pizza.
Taylor Swift loves to eat sandwiches. That's why she always has ham and chicken in her fridge. Her favorite sweets include a tube of cinnamon rolls or a tub of cookie dough.
Britney Spears says her favorite food is chocolate.
John Legend's favorite food is fried chicken.
Katy Perry's counts mushrooms and ice cream as her favorite foods.
Beyoncé loves Popeye’s fried chicken and biscuits.
Rihanna's favorite food is chocolate ice cream.
Justin Timberlake says breakfast cereal is his favorite food.
Black eye peas is a famous dance-pop group, named for a type of bean in the legume family.
Red Hot Chili Peppers is a successful rock band, whose name is a very hot seasoning used in Mexican and South American kitchens.
If you know the favorite foods of other famous people and/or characters that can influence children's eating habits, please write me and I’ll be happy to add them to the list.
