How to kick start healthy eating behaviors in your kids?

There is growing science around allowing children to self-regulate their appetites to prevent reducing obesity in children.

Children are born with built-in biological processes that enable them to know when they are full. Rather than fight against nature, create a structured environment that enables kids to learn to trust their own bodies.

"Children are born with an ability to eat to their energy needs and then stop," said Alexis Wood, an assistant professor of nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine, and lead author of a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association. 

Bribing kids to finish all of their healthy foods like lima beans and broccoli is a parenting crutch with deep roots. But parents could inadvertently make their children overeat. A growing body of scientific evidence has suggested tactics like that one are counterproductive and could potentially lead to childhood obesity. 

Don't do that, Wood said. It is important to eat for your own internal satiety, not for an external reward.

Incorporate healthy foods into things they already like. Pairing nutritious foods like carrots and parsnips with something sweeter, like a dipping sauce, is a way of helping kids warm up to healthier choices.

Serve healthy food consistently: Kids with a sweet tooth might not gravitate toward vegetables, but you can nudge them along first by serving healthy foods without expectation that kids have to eat them. And create a household environment where "less desired food choices are just not around," Wood said. 

Children between ages 2 and 5 often become picky about the foods they eat, developing an urge to show control over their bodies and their surroundings. 

Dietary salt is linked to high blood pressure and in certain demographic groups. It is important to note that dashing table salt on foods for added taste is a trick kids learn from adults. You can show them a better way. Besides just serving children foods naturally low in salt, you can instill a taste for healthier seasonings by using herbs, spices or lemon juice in your cooking instead.

Parents should also model healthy eating behaviors for their kids and make sure to "enthusiastically enjoy" those foods as you eat them.