Ewww! I'm Not Eating That!
The dish on how to handle your picky eater.
When my daughter Madeline was 3, she divided foods by color, and the only color she really liked to eat was white. Besides whipped cream, marshmallows, vanilla ice cream, and the noodles in canned soup, she requested cotton-textured white bread spread thickly with margarine. One day when the store was out of our usual brand of margarine, I got a different kind. The result: Madeline threw a tantrum and refused to eat anything for lunch.
If you're like me, you react to your child's hunger strike by turning into a short-order cook. You concoct special dishes only to have your picky eater thumb her nose at them. Or maybe you bribe ("You can have some ice cream if you eat all your chicken"), bluster ("No TV tonight unless you eat at least four bites!"), or appeal to his egotistical side ("Don't you want to finish all your dinner so you'll grow up to be as tall as Michael Jordan?").
But you don't want to head down that rocky road. That way only leads to escalating battles. Trust me, I know. Plus, such tactics backfire because children know when they're being pressured to eat, even if parents' pressuring takes the form of praise, warns Ellyn Satter, author of Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family (Kelcy Press).
One reassuring thing to keep in mind: It's perfectly normal for children to be finicky about foods at around 1 year to 18 months of age, because the growth rate for a toddler is only about a third to half of what it was when she was an infant, says Satter. Unfortunately, when parents see their child's appetite take a nosedive, many grow anxious and will try almost anything to make their youngster eat. When this happens, a power struggle may ensue and your little darling might even become a manipulative tyrant at the table. Sound familiar?
Other reasons for picky behavior: As a child's intellectual development progresses, he becomes more suspicious of unfamiliar foods. "His survival instinct tells him to refuse it until he checks it out, which can take many tries," notes Satter. "Some preschoolers are also simply very sensitive to certain tastes and textures," adds Loraine Stern, M.D., coauthor of The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Nutrition (Villard Books).
Building better eaters
Until your child outgrows this stage, there are things you can do to ensure that mealtimes are happy occasions for the whole family. The best tack a parent can take is to provide a variety of nutritious foods and adopt a relaxed approach. All those little bites and sips your child takes may not look like much, but you may be surprised to find out that they've added up to a wholesome diet. "Your toddler's eating habits can look like a nightmare on a daily basis," says Evelyn Tribole, author of Stealth Health (Viking). "But if you keep track of what your child eats over the course of a week, it tends to even out, as research has consistently shown." Having said that, here are key ingredients for instilling healthy eating habits in your child from early on:
Allow for several kinds of eaters within your own family. With so many reasons kids are picky, you're likely to see different types of eating patterns emerge at your dinner table. My two oldest daughters are prime examples. As a toddler, Miranda consistently refused to try any new dish. Molly, 2 years younger, was always grabbing food off other people's plates. She was an adventurous eater who would try London broil, Brie, and moo shu pork, while Miranda could scarcely be coaxed into taking a bite of a banana. While their different attitudes about food can be chalked up to inborn traits, my own attitude may have been a factor as well. Perhaps I was more relaxed about Molly's food intake because she was my second child, and being more experienced this time around, I wasn't as determined to get food into her as I had been with her older sister.
Stick to one main course a night. "This is where a lot of parents go wrong," notes William G. Wilkoff, M.D., author of Coping With a Picky Eater (Fireside). "They fix steak for Mom and Dad, chicken nuggets for one child, and macaroni and cheese for another." Instead, plan a meal that includes something everyone will eat and rotate your kids' favorites. One night cook your daughter's preferred vegetable to go with pasta; the next night make your son's favorite rice dish to accompany a meat entree that you like. Besides saving time, this sends the message that compromise is a part of family life.
"Of course, there will be times when you can't please everyone," Dr. Wilkoff says. "Your picky eater won't be thrilled with anything you put on the table. In that case, relax; tell yourself no child has ever starved from an unwillingness to eat." And try some of the following strategies. Plan meals that allow for individuality. Have a make-your-own taco night that includes all the fixings: low-fat cheese, lean ground beef, chopped tomato, and greens. Or bake potatoes and let everyone stuff their own spud with low-fat grated cheese, diced lean ham, and assorted vegetables. Making homemade pizza allows kids to select their own toppings. And even though you should cook only one main course, be flexible within that framework. It's fine if one child wants the pasta with butter and another kid wants it with marinara sauce, since this is a minor adjustment.
Tend to your own eating habits. By eating poorly yourself, you may be inadvertently contributing to your child's finicky food habits. "If you skip breakfast, rarely eat vegetables, and snack on chips, your child will want to do the same," says Tribole.
Let your child be her own food boss. In addition to being a good role model, teach your child to pay attention to her own hunger signals. Since children's appetites wax and wane, it's far more important that they be allowed to respond to their appetite than to teach them that they have to eat because it's dinnertime. If your youngster declares she's not hungry, don't appear concerned. Tell her she must sit at the table until everyone is done but don't force her to eat, says Dr. Stern. (If your child protests and is unable to sit still, let her play quietly on the floor near the table.) Then put her plate in the refrigerator, and when she complains an hour later that she's starving, give her the dinner. If your child still refuses to eat, offer her nutritious substitutes, like whole-grain bread and fruit.
Don't push meat on kids who don't like it. It's common for young children to have an aversion to meat because it can be difficult for them to chew, notes Satter. But don't worry; there are plenty of good protein substitutes, such as cheese and eggs.
Set the right mood. Good feelings about food start early in life. Encourage these associations by pulling the baby's high chair up to the family table and having your toddler eat with the family as often as possible. "If your child is included, she gets a chance to see that mealtime is a family occasion where everybody can be together in a relaxed atmosphere and share conversation," says Elyse Sosin, a nutritionist at the Adolescent Health Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. And remember, ambience is important, too. "Keep the conversation upbeat and cheerful," says Satter. This is not the time to lecture your older child about practicing the tuba or calling attention to how much or how little your youngest one eats.
Whet your child's appetite with imagination. Sometimes, just renaming a food makes it more appealing. When Tribole started calling her fat-free sour cream and cilantro mixture "Godzilla dip," her kids loved it. (That's how she gets them to eat raw vegetables.)
Rachel Berliner named her line of organic vegetarian frozen meals after her finicky daughter, Amy, and has devised creative ways to tempt her daughter into trying new foods. "To get Amy to eat broccoli, I called them little trees," her mother recalls. "I steamed them and put on a little butter, and she loved them." Berliner also invented ways to get Amy to like tofu. She would cut the tofu into thin strips, sauté it in butter and tamari, and let her daughter dip it in ketchup.
Sneak in the good stuff. Lynn Fredericks, author of Cooking Time Is Family Time (William Morrow), has found another ingenious way to get her children to eat veggies: She sneaks them into kid-pleasing pasta dishes. Fredericks adds sauteed pea pods and peeled baby carrots to pasta and tops it with dill and butter.
Be smart about snacks. Kids' tummies are so small, they need to take in calories throughout the day rather than just at mealtimes. "Make snacks count by providing nutritious foods like cheese and crackers, yogurt, or cut-up fresh fruit," suggests Elyse Sosin. But be careful about spacing them far enough in advance of lunch or dinner. If you offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich one hour before your main meal of the day, your child probably isn't going to be enthusiastic about your gourmet chicken dish.
Try, try again. "It's important to recognize that children's palates are constantly changing," says Fredericks. So even if they turn up their noses at the fish you serve this week, they may very well ask for seconds if you try offering it to them a month from now.
You can also try cooking with your kids. This gets them excited about what they eat and makes them feel more involved. "I've found that a great way to get my kids to eat greens is to put them to work tearing up lettuce and taking the stems off fresh herbs," says Fredericks. "Even a 3-year-old can snip dill with safety scissors."
It certainly works with my little fussy eater! When Madeline was 3 years old she loved sprinkling the cheese on pizza and shredding lettuce (which she occasionally deigned to eat). At 6 she sets the table, rolls out pie dough, and beats eggs for the batter I use to make "letter" pancakes every Sunday morning. Now letter pancakes (we spell her initials) are Madeline's favorite breakfast food. Of course, it helps that they are also white.
Healthy eating tips from chef Anne Rosenzweig
Because her daughter has many food allergies, Anne Rosenzweig, mother of Lily, 7, and chef and owner of the Lobster Club in New York City, spent a great deal of her child's toddlerhood devising healthy dishes that don't contain eggs, peanuts, wheat, or milk. For instance, the first "bread" Lily ever tasted was actually a corn tortilla. "Her birthday cake at age 3 was a stack of tortillas with a candle," recalls Lily's mom. "Instead of peanut butter sandwiches, she eats almond butter sandwiches. And a favorite snack that I send to school with her is a bag filled with dried cranberries, dried apples, and cereal. Lily loves it, and so do all her friends."
Rosemary Black is an editor at The New York Daily News.
