Tune In to Dinner Time

Are SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer sabotaging your child's eating habits? If he or she is seeing too much of those characters, then perhaps so.

Too much TV is associated with poor eating habits in kids, there's no doubt about that. A recent survey of more than a thousand parents found it to be true. The survey also revealed that not eating meals together as a family tends to keep fruits and veggies off the menu. So flip off the set and switch your clan's focus to what's on the plate and who's around the table.

What with gymnastics on Mondays, soccer on Tuesdays, swimming on Thursdays, and maybe your own book-group meetings on Fridays, sitting down together for dinner isn't always possible. Still, try to schedule TV-free family dinners several times a week, and some family breakfasts, too. Even kids who resist usually wind up enjoying their parents' undivided attention and the opportunity to talk about events of the day.

Making family meals a daily habit that children look forward to helps them develop healthier attitudes about food and discourages destructive weight-loss behaviors. Keep meals lively by ending with a joke or riddle to solve by the next meal. Or have everyone share something that went well or not so well that day. Ask other parents how they keep mealtimes fun.