On the Right Track

The Benefits of Writing Down What Your Family Eats

By Teri Brown

Tracking her family's eating habits has motivated Brown to make some dietary changes. She now makes a conscious effort to ensure that their breakfasts and afternoon snacks are healthy and though she has found that keeping track of everyone's daily intake can be a bit time consuming, it is worth it – as long as the information is put to good use. "We can talk about it and recite our food intake daily, but it takes a long time to institute changes into dietary routines – for all of us, not just the kids," Brown says.

There are several different ways you can track your family's diet. One way is with a food journal. You can ask each person at the dinner table what they ate during the day and make notes of it in the journal. If your children are older you can also put a sheet of paper on the refrigerator and they can check off how many fruits and vegetables they have eaten or how many glasses of milk they have had.

After you have tracked your family's diet for a week or so, you can take the information and use it to form goals that are specific to each person. For instance, some children are naturally more drawn to fruits and vegetables than others, but perhaps they are not getting enough protein. You may have a child that is underweight and needs more milk in her diet. You can then use tracking to motivate everyone to meet their dietary goals.

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