Family mealtime provides a unique opportunity to teach both proper nutrition and good behaviors.  However, if you have a picky eater in your home, family meal time can be a sore subject.  As you get ready to send your kiddos back to school, the dietitians at JTA Wellness have compiled a list of research-backed parenting tips to help you out with your picky eaters.  With time, effort, love and patience, any child can acquire a taste for not-so-favored foods.

Strategies for Success:

  1. Set a good example!  If you eat a variety of healthy foods, your child will be more inclined to follow suit.
  2. Minimize distractions. Turn off the television and other electronic gadgets during mealtimes. This will help your child focus on eating.
  3. NEVER offer dessert as a reward!  Withholding dessert sends the message that dessert is the best food, which might only increase your child’s desire for sweets. Also, treating food as a reward sets an unhealthy standard that food is a suitable pay-off for all things uncomfortable, and introduces a bad habit of emotional eating.
  4. Don’t be a short-order cook: Preparing a separate meal for your child after he or she rejects the original meal promotes picky eating and sends the message that picky eating is an acceptable behavior. Encourage your child to stay at the table for the designated mealtime — even if he or she doesn’t eat.  Keep serving your child healthy choices until they become familiar and preferred.  Remember, as a parent it is your duty to provide a balanced, nutritious meal for your child.  If they choose not to eat it, it is not child abuse to let them go hungry.
  5. Don’t force it: If your child isn’t hungry, don’t force a meal or snack on them. Likewise, do not force your child to clean his or her plate. Forcing can ignite, or reinforce, a power-struggle over food and cause your child to associate mealtime with anxiety and frustration. If you stay calm, your child will be more likely to try new foods.
  6. Stick to a routine: Serve meals and snacks at about the same times every day.  Also, offer water instead of milk or juice between meals. Allowing your child to fill up on juice, milk or random snacks throughout the day might decrease his or her appetite for meals.
  7. Make it fun. Ask your child to help you grocery shop, and get them involved in planning and preparing meals. Encourage your child by talking about a food’s color, shape, aroma and texture — not whether or not it tastes good. ***Tip: Serve new foods alongside your child’s favorites!
  8. Be patient!  Young children often touch or smell new foods, and might even put tiny bits in their mouths and then take them back out again. Your child might need repeated exposure to a new food before he or she takes the first bite. Keep in mind that it takes nearly 15 separate samples of a food before the brain decides whether or not to like a food. Your child’s eating habits won’t likely change overnight — but the small steps you take each day can help promote a lifetime of healthy eating.