Do you think your child is a fussy eater? Are mealtimes a battle and fussy eating behaviours are becoming a strain on the family? Are you worried your child is not getting the right nutrition as a result of fussy eating? This is a common concern that I discuss with families, and my tips below can help you.
Avoid unpleasant mealtimes
We can easily make mealtimes unpleasant for our children without even realising it. The good intentions are there, but are the techniques you are using helpful? Bribing, forcing, and pressure to eat can lead to unpleasant and anxious experiences around both familiar and new foods. If a child associates an unpleasant experience with a food or mealtime, this can lead to anxiety and fear of foods. This can make mealtimes even more challenging. Ensuring that food experiences are pleasant, relaxed and fun for both you and your child is extremely important to build healthy relationships with food. If a food is refused, just try again another time. Children are also extremely good at recognising their own hunger and fullness cues, and pressure to clear their plates can affect this ability negatively. It is important that we allow children to self regulate to prevent problems later down the line.
Avoid food bribery
Do you use bribery to get your child to eat their greens? For example telling them they can have pudding if they eat their broccoli. Although this may seem harmless, it doesn’t support healthy messages about food. By rewarding or punishing your child depending on which foods they eat, can cause them to dislike a food. This is because of the negative experience that surrounds it due to bribery or pressure. Rather than enjoy that food, they tolerate it to get the food they want. It can also create a bigger desire for the bribery foods. Instead encourage all food groups, and ensure that meals provided have a good balance. Try to keep messages neutral when it comes to the different foods eaten. Avoiding pressure, avoids food fear.
Continue to offer refused foods
Are there foods you hated as a child but now enjoy or even love? I’m going to guess yes. Your children are the same. Just because they refuse a food, this doesn’t mean that they dislike them, or will not be willing to try them again. Foods taste different when we are children to when we are adults, and with repeat exposure we learn to like previously disliked foods. Therefore make sure you continue to offer familiar, new and previously refused foods, but remember to keep your messages and environment positive. We can all change our minds.
Be their superhero (role model)
We all know that children love to copy us. Whether that be a good or bad thing. Children learn from what they see and experience, particularly from their close family. So it is so important we demonstrate positive role model behaviours. We can do this by simply sitting together as a family to eat, and enjoying our meal. With busy lifestyles and routines this can be a challenge for some families, but it is nevertheless one of the most effective ways of avoiding or managing fussy eating. By taking the time to sit together to eat family meals, e.g. everyone eating the same meal, at the same time, children experience a positive/ relaxed mealtime environment. Building this into a good routine, demonstrating positive food interactions, and having conversations that are not about food, can create a more secure environment where your child is more open to trying foods.
Try not to worry
Children are on a continuous path of learning, and they all learn at their own pace. This applies to their eating as well as vocabulary, numbers, letters etc, therefore perseverance is key. It is rare that fussy eating as a child causes long term problems in the future, but if you are concerned, or feel that their fussy eating is difficult to manage speak to a qualified health professional such as a Dietitian or a Doctor. You can find more information on my page The Children’s Dietitian, or get in touch via my contact page.
Learn more about what a dietitian does by following this link, or learn more about how I can help you via my about page.
For more advice around healthier kids plates head over to my blog on getting your 5 a day: How to get your kids to eat 5 a day!