Nutrition: Lunch Box Packing & Healthy Snacks

This is a great time of year to be thinking about healthy eating for the whole family. I’ve used these two tools – the lunch box packing list and the healthy snack ideas list – to help teach my kids about nutrition and encourage them to make good choices in the moment. I hang these printed reminders on the fridge so the kids see them every time they are looking for food.

I offer these two printed checklists for free on Teachers Pay Teachers.

I’ve found that nutrition is a tricky and constantly changing target for all of us in my household. Picky eating, combined with busy schedules, combined with constantly changing nutrition science, makes it hard for all of us to eat healthily. As a result, we have learned to talk about nutrition often at our house to help our kids navigate this complex topic.

A few tips for anyone tackling this:

• Be patient – it is a long process for kids to internalize all the different aspects of what makes some foods healthier than others. Even as an adult I’m still learning!
• Most foods have a place somewhere in our diet. The primary goal should be wide variety, and appropriate portions for different kinds of foods.
• Food is very personal. The Trip Clip’s lunch box checklist maker and healthy snacks list are both fully customizable so you can edit them to target exactly what’s most needed at your house for your kids.

I’ve also written blog posts about how I used both the lunch box checklist and the healthy snack ideas list with my kids that talk about how to get the most of of these tools!