IMPROVE THE DIET OF FAMILY

We all know how hard it can be to encourage your family to try out a new diet.

Whether you're a mother of 3 with a health-orientated conscience, or a teenager with a passion for fitness - we've all attempted to persuade our family to eat better and healthier at some point in our lives.And we probably failed in the long run.

Why is this? Well it's usually because the way in which we usually push diets upon our family is in such a way that promotes only short-term obedience, and in the long term it will have little staying power whatsoever.

This article will address what leadership techniques we can use to encourage others to try new foods or adopt a new way of thinking towards food, in a way that promotes healthy attitudes that will persist after months - long after fad diets will loose their grip.

We can learn these methods from existing practises that business and political leadership figures use to persuade others on a whole manner of topics. I'm not talking about financial bribes or other unethical methods - but simple and ethical techniques that you can put to use RIGHT NOW to improve the health of your family.

1. Indirect influence.If you're a parent, you'll find that your child will often feel lectured and 'switch off' whenever diet becomes the topic of conversation.

This isn't something you can change in easily, but this can be 'side stepped around' by using indirect persuasion methods.Examples of indirect thought leadership could be leaving attention-grabbing leaflets about health lying round the house.

If your child is curious, and the leaflet is attractive and appealing for their age group - its likely they'll pick it up and have a read if they have nothing else to do.

So carefully orchestrate an opportunity for you to 'accidentally' present your child with a good chance of reading the leaflet. It may sound like a lot of work, but it's for your child's benefit, so I'm sure you'll agree that it's worth it.

2. Leading By Example.I have seen terrible situations where parents demand that their children adopt a healthy attitude torwards food, when they themselves clearly have eating issues and poor control when it comes to the types of foods they ate.As a simple and unbreakable rule, I would suggest you always live by the same diet (or better) than the one you are constraining your child to.

If you indeed eat even better than you make them do, then they should feel like they have been given a 'break' and aren't as worse off.It's easy to giggle about the effect of stealing your kid's chocolate every once in a while, or raiding the fridge in the evening - but if your child realises you are doing this (which they probably will), then you're undermining your own 'campaign' in the house.

I hope you remember and use these 2 pieces of advice. I have implemented them both in my own family to great effect, and I hope you share the same success in using leadership skills to improve the future of your family.