Here's an age-appropriate teaching system that supports parents as they teach their children to eat healthy.
For many parents of young children the thought of a family meal without complaints, whining or coaxing seems all but a scene from The Brady Bunch’s kitchen table. Getting the good nutrition into their children has always been an important yet unrewarding task for parents. But now with the childhood obesity rates hanging over American families like a black cloud, many parents are starting to take this frustrating job very seriously. Sarah Vinch felt the pressure of being proactive against childhood obesity with her own young children. This was her motivation behind the creation of the füdoo Board™.
With a füdoo Board™ at your family’s kitchen table, you will know that you have offered a balanced meal to your child and your child will know why it is important to eat it. Each füdoo Board has designated areas for each type of food a child, ages 2-8, needs to eat on a daily basis. The parent and child use food magnets to fill in each space on the board. The “food” side is the front and the “do” side is the back. Children can use a marker to record any activities or highlights from their day on the back side.
Vinch developed this educational product with her teaching and parenting styles in mind. The creation of the füdoo Board stemmed from two main beliefs. Nutrition and healthy lifestyle practices must be taught during early childhood and the teaching tool must have age appropriate qualities for young children and family use. “The füdoo Board had to do more than just record what a child ate for the day,” she says. “There are so many more identifiable characteristics of young children learning to eat with their family.” Unique aspects of the füdoo Board system include:
- Positive reinforcement for trying new foods. “Toddlers in particular can be very hesitant to try something new. With füdoo Boards you get a sunshine “New!” magnet for trying it.”
- A “Sometimes Food” magnet spot at the bottom to practice moderation of unhealthy foods. “It’s fair to think a child will eat a “Sometimes Food” in their day. With füdoo Boards a child can record the serving of “Sometimes Food” and move on. We don’t fuss about it, but we remember moderation,” Sarah explains.
- Color coded magnets and clearly, identifiable pictures to help children who are not reading yet understand what the magnets mean and where they belong on the board. “Children are capable of talking about healthy food choices in an empowered way with the füdoo Board system,” says Sarah.
- The color coded magnets also lend themselves to balanced meal planning for children. By combining all of the food groups within a meal and drinking water with the meal, there is a magnet of each color of the rainbow for the child to record on their füdoo Board. “We call them Rainbow Meals. Not every meal is a Rainbow Meal, but we do celebrate when we eat one.” says Vinch.
- New names for the old food groups. füdoo Boards have moved away from the traditional names for the food groups. Vegetables are now “germfighters”, meats are now “build muscle”, fruits are now “something sweet” and so on. Sarah asks, “What are the food group names teaching the children anyway? They just get tired of hearing ‘Eat your vegetables!’ and tune parents out. “ füdoo Boards use teaching words for a parent or teacher to talk about what the child is eating and why it is good for the child’s body. “Teaching words attach some type of positive value to the food. A parent can use the teaching words to converse with the child about what is so important about the food on the child’s plate,” explains Vinch, as she declares, “Never say ‘Eat your vegetables!’ again with the füdoo Board teaching tool.”
