Feeding the Choosy Child

The Two Most Important Points to Remember

The most important thing to bear in mind when feeding a child is that he have many more taste buds than you do. If a food tastes strongly to you, it will be overpowering to your child. The second most important thing to remember is that compromise is always your best bet.

There are two extremes of feeding often employed by well-meaning parents. The first involves the parent controlling all aspects of feeding, using food as a mean of bribing or treating their children, and restricting all access to unhealthy foods. The second, equally dangerous, feeding method involves the child controlling all aspects of his eating, and thereby guaranteeing that he subsists solely on a few of his favorite foods. Compromise is refusing to keep sugary cereal in the house, because cereal is eaten every day, but occasionally purchasing a sweet pastry as a breakfast treat.

Don’t Worry Too Much

Offer your child a variety of foods. Only give children a few choices and never ask an open-ended question such as, “What would you like to eat?” Try to not worry about the missing food groups at each meal. The chances are good that they’ll pick up the other pieces at another meal. Pay attention to their intake over time, not at a particular meal or during a single day. If your child truly develops a pattern of refusing a certain food group, find a way to reassure yourself. Most fruits and vegetables contain similar nutrients, so if he accepts one and refuses the other, he’ll be okay. Your child suddenly starts to refuse milk? Stay calm and stock up on some calcium fortified orange juice and grain products. Remember that this will pass, eventually.

Healthy children will eat when they are hungry, and will stop when they are full. A parent who tries to set a strict schedule for meal times, or who demands that a certain portion size be eaten, can ruin this amazing gauge. It’s best to serve a small portion at first, and then let your child decide if he wants more. The general guide for portioning out food is to offer one tablespoon for each year of the child’s age. It’s a good idea to let your children serve themselves whenever possible. This will give your child a sense of control. Do not enroll your child in the clean plate club! The mindset of having to eat everything served will wreck children’s ability to listen to their own bodily cues.

Don’t Forget About Snacks

The average child will eat between five and six times a day, with two or three hours between each feeding. Until a child is about six years old he won’t be able to acquire all of the nutrition that he needs from three square meals. A young child’s stomach simply isn’t large enough! That’s why choosing healthy snacks is so important. Thinking of these as small meals helps in choosing appropriate foods. A snack to an adult is usually simply for pleasure, because they’ll get the necessary nutrients from meals. However, every bite has to count for children.

Trying New Foods

So, how do you get your child to try new foods? The importance of generating curiosity about new foods cannot be emphasized enough. You can discuss anything about the food, with the exception of taste. Let your child decide for himself what the food tastes like. Involving children in food preparation is another way of enticing them to try previously unexplored food choices.

Many children won’t eat casseroles or mixed dishes, because they can’t tell what is in the dish just by looking at it. However, if they help to make the dish – they’ll know exactly what is in it, and will be much more likely to try it. It often helps to serve the new food alongside one of the child’s favorite foods, and when he or she is hungry. Don’t serve several new foods at the same time. If you create an entire meal of new foods, and one item doesn’t appeal to the child, he or she will most likely refuse to eat any of it. If this happens, you could lose your chances for acceptance of four or five food items that the child might possible have tried under different circumstances.

Knowing When It’s a Problem

When does a picky child become a child with a serious feeding problem? When the child’s refusal to eat begins to seriously impact his growth and development. At this point, it’s important that a physician be turned to for intervention. The physician is likely to refer you to a registered dietitian and/or a therapist specializing in behavioral management.

Try Again

Lastly, remember that all of our food tastes are acquired. Research has shown that it takes a child between eight and ten trials of a food item, before he or she will develop a taste for it. Be patient!

Child Eating Cake

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