How to Make Your Kids Understand the Value of Food

posted on Aug 23, 2022

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” These words by Mother Teresa are enough to make most individuals emotional and teary-eyed. But if you don’t feel so, look at it from another perspective. When you see food wasted in your house, don’t you feel it could have helped the hungry? Of course, you do! However, young children don’t have the emotional ability to understand this. They think having lunch and dinner is a chore, and they can waste some of it. But you, as responsible parents, know it is far from the truth. You know the reality of food and how precious a commodity it is as millions of children from around the world go hungry each day.

So, what can you do? Well, the easiest solution is to give it to someone who needs it. But let’s face it, very few households have tramps outside their house, waiting for food. Since this isn’t an option in most cases, you can always teach your children not to waste food by valuing it. And this value needs to be instilled in your child’s mind early on. They must be made to understand that the world has many people struggling to make ends meet. These individuals face the struggle of finding food to feed their families each day.

Yes, we understand that some of you may feel that your children are not ready to hear the morbid truth of hunger, the fact is that they must realize that arranging food is a really difficult task for a lot of people out there, and thus, they must respect and be thankful for what they have. So, in this article today, we, at Gurukul The School, ranked among the best school in Ghaziabad, will provide insight into how you can teach your kids to develop empathy for not wasting food. Read on.

The Other Side of The Plate: The Many Faces of Food

There are very few lessons you can teach your kids that are more important than the value of food; but now, we’ll look into it from not only an emotional standpoint but also its nutritional value:

• Hunger, Malnutrition & Starvation: Food is a source of nourishment, and it is used as a tool to counter starvation. Starvation is the lack of sufficient food that causes misery and pain. It can happen in many different ways, like natural disasters, wars, or famine. Starvation is the cause by which many ancient civilizations fell, such as the Mayan civilization. Kids must understand that if lack of food can bring down great civilizations, then how badly it can affect us if we don’t respect it. They must also be shown how developing countries fare without proper nutrition. They must be shown how grateful they become upon receiving food aid from governments. Your job will be to garner some sympathy in their minds for such countries, and we guarantee it’ll work.
• Source Of Human Survival & Nutrition: We all know that kids can’t understand the concept of nutrition. So, what do you do now? How can you make your kids love their food? Now, this is a tricky task but easy at the same time. The easiest way to do this is by showing them it’s tasty. Take them to a restaurant that serves mouth-watering yet healthy food. This way, they’ll not only get to taste the flavorsome food but enjoy its nutritional value as it’s healthy. Understandably, you can’t take them to a restaurant daily, so make it a point to try replicating the restaurant’s items at home. Give them the incentive that if they behave themselves and eat their lunch and dinner in its entirety, you’ll cook the food again during the weekend. There’s your solution!

A Healthy Childhood is a Gift & a Right!

We, at Gurukul The School, one of the best school in Ghaziabad, firmly believe that if you teach your children to respect food at an early age, know that you have managed to achieve something really big as a parent. So, teach your kids that food is something to be cherished and celebrated, rather than wasted. And whenever there is something extra, it is always better to give it to someone who needs it. Remember, a child who understands the value of food is more likely to have the skills of empathy and responsibility, and this is when you can be sure that your child’s development as a human being is on the right track!