Picky eating is a common woe of many parents. It is characterized by a consistent unwillingness to try new foods or by having very strong opinions on food preparation methods, food preferences and food group choices.
For many parents, meal time with a picky eater can turn into a battle of wills.
Feeding children can be frustrating, even if your child is not a picky eater. Children’s tastes can change at the drop of a hat; they may like a certain food one day, but refuse it the next.
Your child may warm up slowly to new foods. Your child may only eat a very small list of foods.
Many children outgrow their picky eating habits around age 4 or 5, but until then, it can be quite frustrating. Here are some tips to help deal with food when it comes to your picky eater.
• Get children involved in the process. Children like to learn about food. Learning about food is something that children are naturally interested in because it involved multiple senses. So get your child involved in the food process wherever you can. Your child can watch food grow and help pick food. Let your child touch foods at different points in the preparation process. For example, with a sweet potato, let the child hold/touch the sweet potato before it’s peeled, after it’s peeled, when it’s chopped into pieces, when it’s mashed and wherever else. This will help with learning to accept new foods.
• Don’t use food as a reward. Avoid rewarding good behavior with a sweet treat. Avoid rewarding a clean plate with dessert. Both of these things send the message that dessert is the best food and this could only contribute to an increase in your child’s desire for sweets.
• Provide structure, but don’t apply pressure. You are responsible for the what, when and where of eating. Your child is responsible for how much he/she wants to eat and whether he/she wants to eat. Offer your child three meals and two to three snacks each day and let the child decide how much to eat. At each meal and snack offer some favorite foods and some not-so-favorite foods.
If you provide structure and opportunities to eat, even if your child doesn’t eat a whole lot at one planned meal/snack time, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that another meal/snack time is coming soon.
• Allow the child to spit out food (with manners). Change is difficult. For a child, a new food is change. It can take a child as many as 20 or more times to fully accept a new food and there are many different stages to the acceptance process. One of these stages is putting the food into the mouth but spitting it out, politely, into a napkin. Let this happen. Encourage it because it’s part of accepting and learning about food. It may not seem like it, but it is progress towards accepting the new food. Other signs on the road to acceptance include smelling the food, touching the food, tasting the food, and finally, chewing and swallowing the food.
No matter what, always remember, that it is perfectly OK to ask questions or seek help if you are worried about that your child is not getting good nutrition or that your child’s picky eating habits have moved beyond “ordinary” picky eating habits.
A registered dietitian and your child’s pediatrician can help you make sure that your child is getting all of the nutrients and calories that he/she needs.
Here’s a fun recipe to try:
Low-Fat Gingerbread Cookies
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup dark molasses
3 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
1 teapsoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1½ tablespoons egg whites
¼ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar and applesauce until smooth. Add in egg and molasses and mix well.
In another large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves. Add to sugar and molasses mixture and mix well.
Divide dough into two flat balls. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Dust the surface of your work area with flour. Work with one dough ball at a time (keep the other refrigerated until you are ready for it).
Roll dough out to a thickness of ¼- to 1/8-inch. If dough is sticky, sprinkle with a little flour.
Cut the dough with a cookie cutter shape of your choosing.
Place cookies 1 to 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
For the icing, mix egg white with lemon juice. Add powdered sugar and mix well. Add more powdered sugar is icing is too thin (or add more lemon juice if icing is too thick). When cookies are completely cool, add icing to a piping bag and decorate your cookies.
Makes 48 cookies.
• Nutrition facts per cookie with icing: 67 calories, 1 gram fat, 15 grams carbohydrate, 1 gram protein.
Source: Recipe adapted from SkinnyTaste blog
Jessica Oswald is a family and consumer sciences agent and dietitian with the Alamance County branch of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service. Contact her at email@example.com or (336) 570-6740.