FEEDING SMILES: Behavioral strategies to promote healthy eating habits from childhood

In Mexico, there is a significant problem related to the lack of quality in children's nutrition, with a relevant impact on their psychomotor, emotional, and social development, as well as significant health risks. This problem has two seemingly opposite sides, but both are the result of inadequate intake of nutritious foods. On one hand, it is about malnutrition, and on the other, childhood obesity (UN, 2019). Both problems must be addressed, and if you are responsible for feeding a minor or know someone close who does, this guide can help you promote healthy eating habits from childhood.
In this guide, we will talk more about nutrition, as it is the objective, but it is worth recommending to the reader that they do not lose sight of the importance of promoting a less sedentary lifestyle that includes daily physical activity in the form of play, which can also be with some sports discipline. Certainly, culture plays an important role in eating habits. Just go to any restaurant and look at the menu for kids where you typically find nuggets, hamburgers, or fries as the main options. But calm down! Throughout the chapters, some strategies will be discussed so that you can make healthy changes to your family's diet, while also enjoying the pleasures that come with eating certain dishes as part of our culture.

This guide is the product of research that began in 2022 with the design, followed by the implementation and finally the evaluation of a virtual workshop aimed at caregivers of children under five years old to introduce and put into practice a series of behavioral strategies aimed at promoting the acceptance of healthy foods. More than ten editions of the workshop were held during the year 2023, with the participation of nearly one hundred mothers in total.
The contents and materials used in the workshops are included in this guide, and the experiences gathered during these workshops have been included in different chapters. Therefore, this guide aims to be a resource for the interaction between the mother, father, or caregiver and the child aged between one and five years during mealtime. The aim is for the adult responsible for a child's nutrition to have tools and resources to promote healthy eating and improve the nutritional habits of the little ones. Therefore, we would like the reader to see it as a kind of theoretical-practical manual, but with the characteristic of being flexible to adapt it to their particular situation, and to be able to contact the research team to provide feedback and share experiences.
The purpose of this guide is to disseminate, promote, and implement a series of behavioral strategies aimed at fostering healthy eating habits in boys and girls from an early age. This will be achieved through the familiarization and acceptance of recommended foods for daily consumption and the promotion of learning about the selection of a healthy diet from childhood, while maintaining a respectful and positive interaction between the caregiver and the child.