But remember, you do have control over what you offer your child to eat. You control what you buy at the shops and what’s in the fridge and pantry and whether or not you head for the fast-food drive-through.
#2 Create routines
Very often, anxiety around mealtimes comes from a place of feeling out of control. Parents predict the worst outcome and fear that their child won’t get a balanced diet and therefore won’t thrive.
Limitations in a young child’s ability to communicate can be behind their unwillingness to co-operate at mealtimes. Children under the age of six are 80% more likely to take in information through their own eyes and experiences rather than through a verbal input – so telling your young child what’s for dinner may not actually be the best way to start a peaceful mealtime.
A better, more positive step is to encourage your child to play an active role in the meal preparation. You can also show them pictures of what the meal is (for example a picture of a roast chicken and vegetables) so that they can visualise what lies ahead.
#3 Pick your battles
Play to your strengths and outsource your stress. Get your partner involved in mealtimes, encourage positive chatter at the table and hold your tongue if you’re tempted to threaten, bribe, scold or raise your voice. If you’re on your own and dinner time is too stressful for you, you could try and anchor the child’s nutrition at lunchtime when the child is happier and more willing to co-operate and choose a lighter, healthy snack in the evening.
#4 Teach by doing
Eat by example. Teach them the importance of nourishing our whole bodies with whole foods. Put a fruit bowl within easy reach of your child and encourage them to help themselves at any time of the day. Share an apple, a mandarin or banana together and let your child learn by ‘doing’ with you.
#5 Focus on the good
Avoid referring to foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. A much better alternative (which has long-term upsides for positive attitudes to food and healthy eating habits) is to use the terms ‘always’ and ‘sometimes’ foods. Teach them about our gut biome and how we must be balance the ‘sometimes’ foods with 5 servings a day of ‘always’ fibrous foods.
We are all placed on this earth with our own unique set of sensory preferences and tolerances and eating isn’t as straightforward as you might think.
For a child to take the plunge and taste a new food, there must be a tremendous collaboration of physical and mental processes. All sorts of selection criteria are involved, including past positive or negative associations, the processing of oral motor functions for biting, chewing and swallowing and deciphering their feelings of hunger and satisfaction.
Understanding these complexities may help you to appreciate just how difficult it is for some children to experiment with taste and texture and why some of them take a little longer to branch out into foods that aren’t packaged or evenly shaped.
So, celebrate when your child tastes a new food – even if they spit it out! Building flavour profiles is essential before foods will be willingly accepted into their regular diet.
But what happens if you’ve taken all these steps and your child still refuses a meal? Don’t worry. That’s completely normal.
Always remember, another meal will follow and your child will not starve! There’s no harm in teaching a child what hunger is.
Spoon-fed children can be robbed of the pleasure of learning how to satisfy a feeling of hunger. Sometimes, it’s only when they reach toddler age that they experience the pleasure of taming their own appetites.
Also, when a child doesn’t eat, it can be because their body is telling them that they are fighting against a nasty bug. This is the body’s survival mechanism – but sometimes parents don’t get the message! Try and suppress any distress or concern you may be feeling about an uneaten meal and trust the process of autophagy to build your child’s immune system. Rest easy and trust that they will wake with an even greater hunger – and you never know, you may just get an extra tablespoon of oats down or better still, your little one may even try something new!
If you still feel that your anxiety is affecting your child’s nutrition, reach out to me and let’s have a chat. I promise there’s a solution that will change your family mealtime forever.
International nutritionist and founder of Little Fusspot Beth Bonfiglio has become known worldwide as the “Supernanny of Mealtimes”.
Beth understands the impact that poor eating can have on the physical and mental health of children. She has worked with leading occupational therapists and psychologists, researching and developing strategies for dealing with various fussy eaters.
Beth has now pulled together years of her work into a series of online courses tailored to helping three different types of fussy eaters. The courses aim to make this highly-specialised care accessible and affordable to families with little fusspots on a global scale. You can also find Little Fusspot on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
