Meal-Time Activities: Build a Healthy Plate

by Tiffany Rudd

Eating healthy has always been important to me. Those of you that know me well...stop laughing. I didn’t say I actually eat healthy, just that it’s important to me. :)  

Seriously though, one of the things I would like my children to learn growing up is how to care for their bodies and make healthy choices. So, I did some research on the new guidelines and pyramid and created a quick meal-time lesson. 

It took just a few minutes before we started to eat and as we dished out our food, but I think it is a lesson that will stay with them. 

1. Print out enough Healthy Plate graphics for your family and have your kids cut out each pie shaped piece. You can find a link to the graphics at the bottom of this post and can print in color or grayscale.

2. Have you kids arrange the pie-shaped pieces on their plate and discuss what each piece represents. 

3. I also printed this list of “10 tips to a great plate” from choosemyplate.gov to talk about some other healthy eating tips. 

4. As you are dishing dinner onto each plate, put each part of them meal in it’s designated area. Have the kids help check that portion sizes match the “Healthy Plate” pieces. 

My main goal was for my kids to see what foods we should be eating the most of and what foods we should eat less of or eat less often. The pie-shaped pieces made an easy to understand visual, even for my 4 year old. We may not always eat perfectly around here, but at least I can feel good knowing I am trying to teach my children about healthy choices.

Print the Healthy Plate Graphics HERE

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