Mindful eating: 8 steps for children to learn to eat consciously

The term mindful eating is on everyone's lips today, and it becomes synonymous with the habit of eating consciously what you eat, basically respecting the needs of the body and avoiding binge eating. It sounds complicated, but it is not so, we can explain and make part of the method to our children

Mindful eating guidelines for children to learn to eat consciously

1- To start, before eating, we will all pose a question together, are we hungry? With the different answers, we will be able to establish schedules that adapt to all the members of the family unit. Detecting hunger on time is key. The children will have to learn it and not wait to be 'starved'. It may be useful to offer food regularly, at least initially, until you are able to establish schedules and routines.

2- Once the child is able to recognize if he really is hungry, he should learn to listen to his stomach. By paying attention to signs of hunger and satiety, observing them before, during and after eating, you can learn when and how much to eat at each meal.

3- Another step of mindful eating so that children learn to eat consciously goes through set the table, children can participate, and so we put in background, we will eat.

4- The time of the meal must be respected, you have to eat sitting at the end of the month. Adults may eat at work, and children at school, but for dinners, and for weekends, we should use the dining table and identify it as our place of food. In addition, you have to eat without doing other activities, do not put toys on the table, or mobiles and especially do not turn on the television, we will use all our senses to eat.5- Before starting to eat we will

establish a relaxation routine , we breathe and release the air a couple of times to forget what we were doing before and focus on what we are going to do now, eat.6- When the plate is placed on the table,

we encourage the child to observe what is in it , what does it contain? What colors can we see? what does it taste like? What flavors can we detect? Are there different textures? What flavors and textures do we like the most and which ones less? Thus, children will be aware of the sensations they experience through the different colors, textures and flavors of each dish.7- Since we do not all receive the signal of satiety at the same time, we

should respect the times of our children . You have to give them time to experience sensations and to decide when they have finished, we should not eat fast but conscious and chewing well. Not usually more than 20-30 minutes are needed, even some children will have enough with less.8- When we finish eating,

we get up and pick up the table , we are already satisfied so, until the next meal -when we feel hungry again-, we are finished. In this way, we avoid eating or pecking unnecessarily.With these tips, you can already put into practice at home the mindful eating or teach your children to eat consciously.