How to make mealtimes more manageable for picky eaters — and parents

This story is part of Amy Bell's Parental Guidance column, which airs on CBC Radio One's The Early Edition.

It seems like every family has at least one picky eater. Most toddlers go through a selective stage when they are about 12-18 months old and start to come out of it by the time they hit kindergarten.

But for some, it becomes a never-ending battle that kids seemingly never grow out of. This can be a source of stress and shame for many parents, especially when eating beyond the confines of their own home.

Jenn Messina, a wellness coach and dietitian who is well versed in the world of picky eaters, says parents need to know they aren't the only ones fighting to feed their kids.  

"You're not alone. This happens a lot more than this is talked about," she said.

A first rule of thumb, she says, is that parents shouldn't always serve only what their children want.

"Make sure you are serving foods you eat and like regularly," she said. "If they're eating chicken fingers and fries and you're eating stir fry — that's not going to be a great food exposure for them." 

Win the war, not the battle

If you're deep in the trenches of dinnertime battles, you need to play the long game. Patience isn't exactly what a frustrated parent has in abundance when they've cooked another meal that remains uneaten, but you can't admit defeat too early, says occupational therapist Lauren Hershfield.

Hershfield is also the co-founder of The Feeding Group, a collective of dietitians, occupational therapists and speech language pathologists that work together to get to the root of picky eating and find the best ways to help families.

She says it can take up to 15 positive interactions with a new food before a child finally accepts it. But, she adds, you should manage your expectations: sometimes just playing with the food can make a child curious about a new flavour. 

"This may mean making faces out of cut veggies, making roads out of peppers, pretending to be animals," she suggests. "This increases curiosity and just opens the eyes that food doesn't have to be stressful and we can take play-based steps to get there."

While this can seem tedious, time consuming and frustrating at times, it's important. Our relationships with food and mealtimes last a lifetime, and need to have a positive and strong foundation. 

Pickiness can be a sign of more complex issues

Of course, its very important to make sure your picky child is still getting the nutrients they need to grow and learn.

Loss of weight, mood swings and cutting out entire food groups are all signs that parents need to re-evaluate how they're handling selective eating. For some kids, extreme reactions and aversion to certain foods can be a symptom of more complex issues such as autism or ADHD.

"Use your intuitions around picky eating. There's a lot of things that could be going on that we want to investigate," Messina says.

"For example, say your child never mouthed toys as an infant ... or tags on their clothes bother them. I would definitely be looking into talking to a pediatric occupational therapist to see if there is sensory-specific stuff going on." 

Don't cater to picky eaters

It was when I patiently peeled a hot dog wiener for my son — yes, peeled the skin off a hot dog so he would eat it — that I realized how deeply I was catering to my son's dietary whims. 

But I remembered too many meals growing up where I tearfully choked down what was placed in front of me while I was reminded of all the starving orphans in the world, and I was determined not to put my kids through that.  

"I think we all carry our own food trauma because of what's happened to us as children," says Messina. "And we realize maybe we have a difficult relationship with food because we were rewarded with sweets, or couldn't leave the table and were punished.

"I do think parents now realize that isn't the way they want to feed their kids."

There is so much pressure to be perfect: to have perfect kids that eat perfectly prepared meals. But Hershfield says nutrition is not just about one day.

"Children have really good eating days and children have really bad eating days. Just like we do," she said. 

If your toddler only eats broccoli when you call it "dinosaur trees," so be it. Your child survived off juice boxes and goldfish crackers today? Fine.

Focus on modelling and cultivating a healthy relationship with all sorts of foods and cultivating some culinary curiosity. Childhood has so many phases that pass, and hopefully your picky eater will turn into a fantastic foodie before you run out of patience — and chicken nuggets.