Picky Eaters

This month we will tackle toddlers and their eating habits.

Once your baby is over a year and enters toddlerhood, they often become picky eaters. Foods they previously loved, they no longer want; they may eat the same thing for days, then suddenly will not touch it.

Toddler girl covering her mouth and refusing to eat a bite of broccoli - part of toddler territory!

What’s a parent to do? Sometimes, we just want them to eat…anything!

This article will help you through this phase to keep your sanity, keep them on a healthy diet, and resist the temptation of giving them anything (usually sweets or junk food).

A child’s diet during the first few years can establish life-long eating habits and health outcomes. Parents can train the palate toward healthy foods by what they feed and do not feed their child. Offering the same foods repeatedly can predict later food preferences. Choosing nutritional foods will help to prevent obesity and a multitude of diseases later in life. However, it is not only what you feed your child but also how you feed them that can determine later habits.

Picky eating is common. Up to one third of toddlers and preschoolers are selective eaters.

Children's appetites normally slow as they enter toddlerhood and become preschoolers (ages 2-5). This coincides with a normal slowing of growth and weight gain. The most rapid growth occurs during infancy, then growth slows, only to increase again at puberty.

There are responsibilities for both parent and child in eating behavior:

1. The parent decides what, when, and where to feed.

2. The child decides what and how much to eat of the food they are given.

The parent can also be a model for the child, demonstrating their enjoyment of eating healthy food and describing taste, texture, color, and what it does for the body.

Research shows that repeat exposures, up to 15 to 20 times, may be necessary before a child eats a new or previously rejected food. Patience is key! Serving a variety is helpful, as is pairing a new food with a familiar, preferred food. This method can increase the acceptance of new foods.

Offering new foods as snacks, rather than at mealtime, is helpful. Giving a small amount of a new item several times a week, as a snack, with an item they already like, often results in a child tasting and eating the new item. If it is refused or spit out, offer again in another day or two. Treat the new food like any other food. If they like it, give more and reward your child with positive feedback for trying something new. This can be singing a song, dancing, or even a sticker. Studies show this method is highly successful.

The takeaway here is repeat exposure without pressure.

A variety of snacks in a compartmentalized tray which allows a child to pick and choose. A muffin tin works too.

Snacks in a snack box can also increase the appeal. This combination of pita bread, hummus, boiled eggs, vegetable sticks, and fruit slices provides a healthy meal.

The best predictor of what a child eats is what the parents eat and serve.

Children model themselves after their parents’ eating behaviors. What you don’t eat is just as important as what you do eat. Parental influences are most important during the first few years before school, friends, and marketing exert influence. Take a look at your eating habits. If you want your child to eat vegetables, serve and eat more of these, since they are constantly watching and imitating you.

What you do matters more than what you say.

Develop a structured mealtime to eat together as a family, without distractions. This creates a calm, low-pressure feeding environment and time for connection. If your child refuses what is offered, don't prepare them a separate meal. They can have a healthy snack prior to bedtime or skip that meal. This reinforces to them to eat what they are served and teaches consequences. As long as your child is growing appropriately, a missed meal once in awhile won't harm them.

Children are good at eating what they need for their growth and energy. As long as your child continues with the same energy level and is tracking along the growth curve, their decreased appetite is not worrisome. Avoid forcing your child to eat, or to eat everything on their plate, if they resist. Allow children to feed themselves as early as they are able and put them in charge of how much they eat. Respect your child's autonomy and allow them control over their eating.

Here are my top twenty suggestions for creating healthy eating habits and improving vegetable intake:

1.Offer new items daily or every other day to increase the variety. Watch closely for any food reactions. This applies to non-allergenic foods. Serve small portions and allow them to ask for more.

2. Offer lots of variety; you choose the foods but let them decide how much they eat. Parents control what is offered, not what is eaten.

Variety includes different foods and the same food prepared differently. For example, a potato can be baked, boiled, roasted, or mashed. You create variety by changing the preparation method, appearance, and texture.

Eggs cooked in a variety of ways such as scrambled, fried, boiled, poached, and as an omelet. Changing the preparation method and texture creates variety and offers the same food in a new way.

3. Consider rewarding your child with stickers (not sweets) for trying new foods.

4. Continue offering green vegetables. Try new ways, such as steamed, baked, roasted, and in smoothies.

5. Be wary of giving too many snacks or beverages during the two hours before mealtime. A toddler doesn't need more than 2 snacks. Between meals offer water, not juice. Offer healthy snacks, low in salt and sugar, and not overly processed.

6. Watch the milk intake. More than 16-24 ounces (2-3 cups) daily can lead to constipation and iron deficiency anemia, and make them full.

7. Repeat exposures don’t have to be daily but should occur several times a week. As mentioned, pairing a new food with an already preferred food increases the chance of accepting the new food.

8. Provide vegetables in as many colors, shapes, and textures as possible. Make a game of who can eat the most colors in a meal.

9. Consider offering milk or water half way through the meal, rather than at the beginning, so they don't fill up on fluid.

10. Keep cut-up vegetable sticks available in the fridge to serve as snacks. Use veggies for dips and spreads, such as carrots with hummus or celery sticks with nut butter. Serving veggies at the start of a meal when everyone is hungry may be more appealing than with other food items later.

A tray of veggies and dip. Keeping washed and cut up veggies and fruit in the fridge that are easily accessible can increase intake.

11. Load up salads, soups, sauces, pizza, scrambled eggs, smoothies, casseroles, and even hamburgers with finely chopped, grated, or pureed veggies. Use veggies in foods your child already likes, for example, peas tossed in with mac and cheese.

12. Add vegetable noodles such as zucchini noodles to regular noodles or look for vegetable-based pasta.

13. Make vegetarian meals a couple of times a week. (See https://www.feedfuturehealth.com/post/meals-with-a-deal for ideas for inexpensive, mostly plant-based meals).

14. Involve your child in meal preparation. Studies show that when a child helps to prepare the meal, they are more likely to try what they helped to make. Allow your child to play with a few veggies as you prepare them to see, feel, smell, and taste them. Have your child help to choose which veggies to buy at the store.

15. Make muffins, cookies, brownies, and bread with fruit and veggies.

16. Maintain an enjoyable mealtime atmosphere by offering veggies every meal but not pressuring your child to eat them. Have them help to serve their own plate.

17. Forcing a child to eat something is a scary experience for a child. Keep mealtime relaxed, offer variety, but allow your child to choose the amount.

18. Fill half your child’s plate with vegetables and fruit at each meal. That is the recommendation of MyPlate.gov. Consider serving veggies at the beginning of the meal when everyone is their hungriest with veggie sticks and dip, a salad, or soup.

Depiction of a plate of food from MyPlate.gov showing half of the plate filled with vegetables and fruit, the other half with one third grains, and one fourth protein.

19. Don’t give up! Repetition and patience are key since taste preferences will continue to evolve. Remember it can take 15 times of offering before a child will eat something.

20. Finally, model in yourself what you desire for your child. Eat what you want them to eat and don’t buy what you want them to avoid.

Take inventory of what you stock in your pantry and fridge. Minimizing exposure now to fewer ultra-processed foods, and serving more whole, natural foods is insurance for a healthy future.