8 tricks nutritionists use to ge

Getting most teens to eat healthy can be a struggle under the best of circumstances. Sure, they know what they’re supposed to do when it comes to fueling up right, most teens just don’t.

It’s not just you who has to deal with this: Nutritionists have trouble getting their teens to eat well too. And surprisingly, they don’t stress over it. “It’s important to understand that they’re not going to eat perfectly and you shouldn’t expect them to,” Karen Ansel, R.D.N., mom to a teenager and author of “Healthy in a Hurry,” tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

That doesn’t mean you need to just let your teen eat terribly, though. Below are the tricks nutritionists have found work well with their teens.

1. Appeal to their vanity

“At this point, I accept that he visits fast food restaurants and pizza shops and probably overdoes it on sweets. This is part of growing up and learning how to take care of himself,” says Samantha Cassetty, M.S., R.D., a mom of a teen son and a nutrition and wellness expert. But she uses this to help with teaching moments. “We talk about what he might notice when he’s not eating well compared to when he is. For example, his skin might break out or he might get a stomach ache,” she says. “This isn’t judgmental — it’s a fact-finding mission to help him link his eating choices to how he feels so he can ultimately use this info to make a different choice if he wants to.”