Tips to Help Kids Make Healthy Snack Choices

The lessons in this unit help kids to understand that food is fuel. Food is what you eat and drink to give your body energy to move and think. Rather than classifying foods as good or bad, encourage children to stop and think, then choose the best fuel (i.e., foods that supply nutrition and energy, rather than empty calories).

You can extend a lesson with videos from the fit video series, What Food Does for Your Body. Each video highlights a food group or category, and serves as a great resource to introduce or review the benefits of eating a variety of foods. See the Extend the Lesson section of this page for a list of videos. 

For more information on healthy eating, go to ChoseMyPlate.gov.

Ask students to share healthy food and beverage choices they’ve made at home since your last lesson. Share the video, Healthy Snack Food Quiz, with kids to get them thinking more about their snack choices. Ask follow-up questions to encourage them to share about how those choices made them feel.

To use this with your students click here.

What Do You Know About Healthy Snacks?

Students take a quiz about snack choices. They show their answers by standing on their right or left foot. Be sure to let your students know that they can use thumbs up or thumbs down if they don't feel comfortable with hopping on one foot.

Learn to Make Healthy Snacks for You and Your Friends

Share some tips on making healthy snack choices easier, such as having healthy foods ready ahead of time (fresh veggies cut), placing portions of snack foods (nuts, cheese, etc,) in small bags, and or making snacks look fun (making faces or shapes with healthy foods). Next, have students draw their ideas for healthy snack choices.

Check for understanding: How can you make healthy snacks the easy choice?

Practice making Healthy Snack Choices

Encourage making healthy snack choices by asking students to draw a snack choice using My Healthy Snack printable. For example: crackers, fruit, and cheese make a healthy snack. 

Have students share their healthy snack ideas with partners or the whole group. Ask if anyone heard about a new snack food they’d like to try. Compliment them on having healthy snack options in mind and comment that this makes choosing healthy snacks when you’re really hungry a lot easier!