Mindful Eating Worksheets – Free Checklist
In a world of constant distractions, teaching children to focus on the task at hand becomes challenging. This is particularly true when it comes to eating habits. The Mindful Eating Worksheets free checklist PDF is an educational tool designed to cultivate a mindful eating practice, encouraging healthier relationships with food, especially for children with food aversions or sensory preferences.
UNDERSTANDING MINDFUL EATING
Mindful eating is a practice that focuses on the full experience of eating and drinking. It emphasizes observing the colors, smells, flavors, textures, and temperatures of our food; paying attention to our body’s hunger and fullness cues, and relishing each bite.
Mindful Eating Placemats
HOW MINDFUL EATING CAN HELP CHILDREN WITH SENSORY PREFERENCES
Children with sensory preferences or sensory processing disorders often have a restricted diet. They might avoid certain textures, tastes, or colors of food, which can limit their nutrition and lead to mealtime struggles. Mindful eating can be a beneficial practice in such situations.
FOSTERS FOOD EXPLORATION
Mindful eating encourages an exploration of food using all five senses. It involves closely observing the colors, smells, textures, and flavors of the food. For children with sensory preferences, this could mean exploring the feel of a food with their hands before tasting it, or smelling a food before trying a small bite. This gradual exploration can help desensitize aversions over time and help children feel more comfortable with a variety of foods.
PROMOTES POSITIVE FOOD EXPERIENCES
Mindful eating can help children build positive associations with food. When they focus on the enjoyable aspects of eating—such as the satisfying crunch of a carrot or the sweet taste of an apple—they can start to develop a more positive relationship with food. They can learn to appreciate the sensory experiences that they enjoy, rather than focusing solely on the aspects they dislike.
SUPPORTS SELF-REGULATION
Mindful eating teaches children to listen to their body’s cues. They learn to eat when they’re hungry and to stop when they’re full. This can help children with sensory preferences to better regulate their own food intake, as they become more attuned to their body’s needs.
Sensory Strategies Workbook
FACILITATES A CALM MEALTIME ENVIRONMENT
Practicing mindful eating can lead to more relaxed mealtimes. It encourages a focus on the present moment and the food, rather than rushing through meals or feeling stressed about trying new foods. A calm environment can help children with sensory preferences feel more comfortable and less anxious at mealtimes.
In summary, mindful eating can be a valuable tool for children with limited food intake due to sensory preferences. By encouraging a multi-sensory exploration of food, promoting positive food experiences, supporting self-regulation, and creating a calm mealtime environment, mindful eating can help expand these children’s diets and improve their relationship with food.
MINDFUL EATING WORKSHEETS CHECKLIST FOR CHILDREN WITH STRONG SENSORY PREFERENCE
Mindful eating can be a powerful tool to help children with strong sensory preferences broaden their acceptance of different foods. Here is a specially designed checklist that parents, teachers, occupational therapists, or speech therapists can use to guide children through the process of mindful eating.
BEFORE EATING:
- Identify Feelings: Are they truly hungry, or are they eating out of boredom or stress?
- Prepare the Environment: Minimize distractions and ensure a calm, stress-free setting for meals.
- Observe the Food: Engage the child in looking at the food’s color, size, and shape.
DURING EATING:
- Encourage Smelling: Before tasting, ask the child to close their eyes and take a deep breath to smell the food.
- Food Story: Discuss where the food comes from and who prepared it, to create a positive and interesting narrative around the meal.
- Promote Slow Eating: Encourage the child to chew each bite thoroughly and to take their time eating.
- Taste Exploration: Guide the child to identify different tastes like sweet, salty, sour, or bitter.
- Texture Recognition: Ask the child to describe the texture – is it smooth, crunchy, squishy, or hard?
- Listening to Food Sounds: What sounds does the food make while biting into it or chewing?
- Acknowledge Feelings: Continually ask how the food makes them feel, giving them space to express both positive and negative feelings.
AFTER EATING:
- Recognize Fullness: Encourage the child to listen to their body and identify if they are still hungry or satisfied.
- Reflect on the Experience: Engage in a conversation about the meal. What did they enjoy most? Was there something they didn’t like?
- Express Gratitude: Guide the child to express thanks for the meal, fostering a positive attitude towards food and eating.
The key to this Mindful Eating Checklist is patience and repetition. Over time, this process can help children with strong sensory preferences learn to explore and accept a wider variety of foods.
Interoception Body Chart Check
WHY MINDFUL EATING IS BENEFICIAL: CULTIVATING HEALTHY EATING HABITS IN CHILDREN
In the hustle and bustle of daily life, patterns of mindless eating are often unknowingly established. We regularly eat while being distracted, leading to overconsumption, making unhealthy food choices, and losing touch with our bodily cues. These patterns can instill unhealthy eating habits in children from a young age, particularly in those grappling with sensory issues or food aversions.
The practice of mindful eating serves as an effective solution to these challenges. By focusing full attention on the process of food intake, mindful eating fosters a healthy relationship with food. This practice can have significant positive impacts such as facilitating weight loss or weight gain, managing food cravings, and curtailing emotional and binge eating.
THE ROLE OF THE MINDFUL EATING WORKSHEET AND PLACEMAT
This Mindful Eating Worksheet serves as a valuable resource for guiding this practice of a mindful eating exercise. It is a great way for teachers, parents, and related service providers to incorporate mindfulness into their educational curriculum. Similarly, a Mindful Eating Placemat operates as a visible prompt of the various adjectives used to describe food. When used alongside the worksheet, it reinforces mindful eating habits during meals.
Providing coloring pages featuring images of diverse foods and their associated adjectives can be a fun and engaging addition to the placemat. For instance, pairing a piece of fruit with adjectives like “juicy,” “sweet,” or “crunchy” can stimulate children’s senses and ignite their curiosity about food.
ENGAGING CHILDREN THROUGH THE LANGUAGE OF FOOD
Here is a child-friendly list of 50 ways to describe food, divided into categories.
- Soft
- Crunchy
- Squishy
- Smooth
- Flaky
- Chewy
- Crumbly
- Sticky
- Creamy
- Gooey
Taste:
- Sweet
- Salty
- Bitter
- Spicy
- Tangy
- Sour
- Rich
- Savory
- Mild
- Zesty
Smell:
- Fresh
- Fruity
- Smoky
- Minty
- Earthy
- Fragrant
- Zingy
- Aromatic
- Buttery
- Citrusy
Sound:
- Crackling
- Sizzling
- Poppy
- Fizzing
- Crunchy
- Crisp
- Rustling
- Squishy
- Slurpy
- Bubbly
Look:
- Bright
- Dull
- Shiny
- Spotted
- Colorful
- Dark
- Light
- Vibrant
- Speckled
- Swirly
Children can use these adjectives to describe their eating experiences, fostering a positive relationship with food over the long term.
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE MINDFUL EATING WORKSHEETS CHECKLIST
Practicing mindful eating exercises, like savoring a piece of fruit or making conscious food choices, can be an excellent method to bring these principles to life. The key is to start small and gradually weave mindfulness into our daily routines, improving eating habits.
