My husband David is the world's healthiest eater, the type who always gets broccoli on his pizza. When we met, a typical dinner for me was chocolate chip pancakes, or maybe hot dogs and beans with white toast. My eating habits have greatly improved these days (but I can always get David to join me in digging into the Haagen-Dazs). Happily, our daughter Lola seems to have inherited David's healthy-eating gene. She eats, or is willing to try, absolutely everything--sushi, asparagus, spicy chili, you name it. The pride that we feel at Lola's great and varied eating is tempered heavily, however, by the fact that our three-year-old son will only eat foods that are white or tan. This stresses me out to no end.

I know I'm not alone in wanting my kids to eat healthy. With lots of parents worrying about getting their kids to eat well each day, and our general fixation on fitness, it seems to me that it might help us all if we worked to develop healthy eating habits alongside healthy fitness habits. Here’s one way to work on both.

One of the kids' favorite poses in my yoga class is Rainbow pose. It's challenging and fun, and before and after we practice it, we talk about "eating a rainbow." Together, we go through the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, in case it's been a while since you've thought about it) and think of foods from nature of each color. We talk about how and when we like to eat them, or how we could start.

When I'm grocery shopping with my kids, I try to buy natural foods in lots of different colors, and let the kids help pick them out. And we try to create at least part of a rainbow on our plates at mealtime. (A package of Skittles doesn't count, much to my kids' dismay.)

RAINBOW POSE (also known, in adult yoga, as Side Plank Pose)

Begin on hands and knees, and lift your knees off the ground so you're in plank pose (the top of a pushup). Bring your feet close together and roll onto the outside of your left foot, supporting yourself with your left hand and raising your right hand high. Take a few breaths here, come down and rest, and try the other side. In between, talk about how you can "eat a rainbow" too.