10 Tips for Parents of Picky Eaters

By Maggie McHugh, MS, RD, CDN

Most parents, at some point, can admit that they had a picky eater at their dinner table. This causes worry and frustration resulting in dinner time stress! Young children may eat more on one day and less the next day. Their appetites depend on their rate of growth and their activity level. Most children instinctively know how much to eat on a daily basis. Once they consume all or most of their daily “calorie budget,” they stop eating…resulting in most of their dinner left sitting cold on their plates. Children tend to stick to their calorie budget, unlike many adults (as much as we hate to admit it).

Here are 10 tips to get you (and your child) through this typical picky-eating phase.

1. Maintain a division of responsibility in eating. This means:

• Parents are responsible for what, when, and where food is provided.
  
• Children are responsible for how much and whether food is eaten.

2. Get your child interested. Have your child learn about food by using their senses. For example, have your child try different types of fruit and vegetables by focusing on colors. Declare “red day” and have your child pick 1 red fruit or vegetable at the store to bring home. Another idea is to give your child a sample of food to feel and smell before and after it is cooked. For example, have your child feel and smell uncooked rice before and after it’s cooked, and discuss the differences.

3. Enjoy “food play.” Involve your child in preparing fun, creative snacks or helping out with dinner. Getting your child to make faces, designs, and shapes with healthy foods allows them to be creative and to become more familiar with a food. Asking them to help out with dinner by mixing batter, washing produce or spreading sauce will teach cooking skills and how to follow directions. This also allows for more family time.

4. Don’t be a short-order cook. Giving your child too many options for meals will only complicate matters, and can be time consuming and costly as well. Provide small portions of a variety of healthful foods at a meal, and let your child choose which foods he will eat. Remember to maintain a division of responsibility in eating (see tip #1).

5. Provide a variety of healthful foods. Providing a variety of healthful foods will ensure that they will get the nutrients for proper growth and development. This will encourage healthful eating habits in the future, and you won’t feel so bad when they only eat 1 or 2 items off their plate…at least it was good for them, right?

6. Introduce a new food with a well-liked food. Introducing a new food with one of their favorite foods may entice them to try it. Only introduce one new food at a time. More than one new food can be overwhelming for some children.

7. Do not force. Force or pressure doesn’t work, and it will make your child like a particular food (or even meals) less. If you offer a new food and let them decide if they will eat it. Usually they will at least try it. They will come to understand that they will not have to finish the food and, therefore, be less reluctant to try.

8. Act as a role model. If you want your child to have healthy eating habits you must have them yourself. They learn by watching. It is important to eat dinner as a family, and show your child that you eat healthy too.

9. Do not use food as a reward. A great example is dessert. “If you eat your peas, you can have ice cream.” This is telling the child that ice cream must be better than peas. More significant, using food as a reward could lead to further eating problems in the future.

10. Keep introducing the food Children are very cautious of unfamiliar foods. That’s why they usually say “yuck” at the sight of a new food on their plate. The important thing is to keep reintroducing the food. They may eventually touch it; they will watch you eat it; they may even finally put it in their mouth (and then spit it out). Studies show that it can take up to 15 – 20 tastes of a particular food before a child will actually swallow it.

After following the above tips, if you still feel that your child is eating too little or too much, talk to your pediatrician and a registered dietitian.

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For more great tips from Maggie on keeping your family nutritionally on their toes, click here.

Maggie McHugh, MS, RD, CDN is a local Registered Dietitian and co-founder of Eating for You (and baby too), Inc. She can be contacted at (585) 271-6310 or www.eating-for-you.com. To ask Maggie nutrition questions, visit the Ask Maggie page of her web site.