Have a fussy or picky eater in the family? You need to read this.
Fussy eating is a complex and multifactorial situation. It can be frustrating, and disheartening and can leave parents and kids feeling stressed around food and meal times. (This is not how we should be feeling! Food should be fun!)
There can be many reasons why a child is fussy around food;
Medical reasons
Nutritional deficiencies
Poor feeding skills or skills don’t match the food
Psychosocial reasons; stress or anxiety around food or meal times, pressure to eat etc
When it comes to feeding challenges, the research shows that in children with normal development, 25-35% will have feeding challenges. For children that have developmental delays, 80% will face feeding challenges and only half of each of them will “outgrow” it.
As frustrating as fussy/picky eating is, it can be a normal and age-appropriate part of development in children. At around the age of 18 months - 36 months children can go through big cognitive shifts and development, which can result in food and eating regressions (did your baby eat loads of great foods when you started solids but now as a toddler they just flat our refuse? This could be why). Some children can even develop what’s called Food Neophobia; a fear of trying new foods. This is actually considered a normal part of development. If this happens, the best thing you can do is to continue to offer food - ALL OF THE FOODS! The continual offering of the foods they have previously tried and had in their diet is the best way to move through this regression. Once a new food has been introduced, it needs to be in the diet at least once a week for 12 months.
So, what can you do at home to help.
There is a technique/practice called Division of Responsibility and it can be very helpful in supporting kids through these regressions, teaching solid boundaries around eating and food choices as well as helping them to develop a healthy relationship with food.
What it is:
The role of the parent/caregiver: To decide what the child is eating, when, and where they are eating.
The role of the child: To decide how much they eat, and if they eat at all.
This technique of Division of Responsibility helps to teach your child (and you) to trust your child knows when and if they are hungry. By fulfilling your role in deciding when they eat, you can set firm boundaries around when the ‘kitchen is open and closed’. If they choose not to eat the lunch you have provided, that is fine, but they also won’t be able to access the kitchen when it is closed and will need to wait until the next meal is served.
The guide for timing between meals for children is 3 hours, allowing them to eat 5-6 meals a day and not grazing through the day.
What if your child only eats one kind of food/one food group?
An expansive and varied diet is key to a healthy, thriving and happy child (and microbiome!), so when they have a strong preference for one coloured food (and sometimes it’s usually the beige foods), you can start to offer and include other beige foods; mushrooms, different types of potatoes, different types of onions, parsnips, turnips, swede, different kinds of bread, different kinds and shapes of pasta etc.
You can still start to offer your child a more expansive diet and still work in with their preferences.
This will help to prevent Food Jags.
What are Food Jags??
Food Jags occur when we eat the same food, in the same way on repeat. Ideally, we should be rotating through our foods so we aren’t eating the same food more than once in 48 hours. This can be quite challenging when your child may only eat a small handful of foods. Avoiding Food Jags and getting into that situation can help to improve diet variety and expand the diet.
Food Jags can also happen when big shifts or changes happen in a child’s life; starting or changing schools, moving towns, a family member moving in or out of the home, a pet dying etc.
A tip to start navigating around this is to change up those repetitive foods in different ways each time it’s served, but not so much that the child will reject it.
Take chicken nuggets as an example, some slight variations might look like this:
serving the nuggets cut up lengthways
serving them cut up into cubes
serving without the skins on and having them separate
serving with toothpicks to eat with
serve on a different coloured plate
These small changes can be very effective in helping to prevent Food Jags and burnout.
If you’re concerned your child might have a small/restrictive diet or might be a picky eater, try keeping a food log and noting down every single different type of food they like to eat.
If that list is <20 foods, they would qualify as a fussy/picky eater, >20 foods is a fairly varied diet.
If you’re concerned about your child’s diet or if you think they may be a fussy/ picky eater, feel free to reach out -I’d love to have a chat.
Casey x