Editors’ Note: This is the first in our “Ask Lunchtaker” series. We get a lot of questions from parents about food-related issues, and are selecting a few situations to talk about here. Do you have a food-related dilemma? Contact us and ask! Oh, and the names have been changed below, but the scenario is real.
Question from Lynn
I have an EXTREMELY picky 5 year-old eater. His diet basically consists of mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza, peanut butter and jelly, and the daycare’s spaghetti (he won’t touch mine at home). He refuses to try anything new, going as far as putting himself to sleep to avoid eating. How can I get him to try new things?
Lunchtaker
We’re sure you are exhausted dealing with this! To help have an idea where to start, tell us more about your household … what do you eat typically for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Does he have siblings? If yes, older or younger? What is your parenting style around food: do you threaten, encourage with dessert, leave it alone and figure it will sort out eventually, argue over food at the table, etc?
Our daughter has a friend who is also a very picky eater, with a household divided on how to handle it. Her Dad is a short-order cook, making her whatever she wants, and her Mom will threaten to take something away, move up bedtime, withhold dessert, but all without following through (this child eats a lot of pancakes when they both cave in!) The child has LEARNED that if she waits it out, her parents won’t follow through and she’ll get what she wants. However, we’re pretty sure that another family in the same situation may have a different style, following through and still getting no results!
Response from Lynn
I can relate to the short-order cook! Mornings are rushed for us: I’m gone before he takes the kids to daycare. The kids usually eat pop-tarts, cereal or toast. My daughter sometimes makes herself waffles. Lunch is at daycare, and we typically have a home-prepared dinner. Like you said, I tend to be a short-order cook with my son because I know he won’t eat what I’ve made and I’m never quite certain how he’s eaten during the day. We have an 11 year-old daughter and she’s been a great eater from day one. She’ll try any veggie, loves fruit and was eating hunan chicken when she was 2!
When I push him to eat something that I know isn’t too “exotic” for him to try, I’ll tell him if he doesn’t eat it, he gets nothing more for the rest of the evening. I have never sat and watched someone actually put himself to sleep at the table to avoid eating his dinner before … but that’s exactly what he does! He’s become famous for this in our house. We are going to a picnic in a couple of weeks and I’m actually going to pack a PB&J sandwich so I know he’ll have at least one thing to eat because he doesn’t eat any other meat.
I suspect he knows he can wait us out, that we’ll cave and give him something to eat that he’ll enjoy. Sunday he wouldn’t eat our BBQ of hamburgers and hot dogs, so I told him that was it, or nothing else the rest of the night. Shortly after dinner was over he walks in (grinning) with a ketchup-laced bun his Dad made him, because he didn’t want him to go hungry. He’s starting kindergarten this year, and I’m trying to avoid having to pack his lunch with the same thing every day. I know I’d be bored, but maybe he doesn’t care.
Lunchtaker
Thanks so much for all your information! We have several ideas for you to try: pick and choose what makes sense for you and your family.
First, take a deep breath and don’t worry. Many kids have these issues, and you are not alone. There are so many steps you can take, just remember to be patient and don’t give up.
Incremental changes to healthier food. Sit down with your husband to decide what, as a family, you’d like your food philosophy to be. Where do you think you fall in the healthiness spectrum? Are you happy where you are at? For example, when we hear cereal, we think Kashi Go-Lean Crunch or Raisin Bran. However, if you mean Cocoa Puffs or Fruit Loops, you’d have to take baby steps to get away from sugary cereal with no fiber before you could go to non-sugary cereal with lots of fiber. Based on what you told us for breakfast, you want to make sure you have more fiber in your diet. Regular Pop Tarts have less than 1 gram of fiber per serving, but the high fiber Pop Tarts have 5 grams of fiber or 20% of your RDA. If you are eating regular ones, switch to the high fiber ones. If you enjoy regular English muffins, buy the high fiber ones. You may already be doing this, but if you aren’t they are good steps to take. This is especially important as your son starts Kindergarten. The extra fiber will digest more slowly in his system so he won’t “crash” from his breakfast after he gets to school.
Get on the same page. You and your husband must be on the same page. If you agree that after dinner you won’t give your son anymore food if he hasn’t eaten, you can’t cave. He will not starve. He may cry and kick and scream, but he won’t starve. If either of you gives in and gives him something he wants, you will be starting at square one the next time and he will simply wait you out. Each time you commit to what you say, it will feel like the hardest thing in the world. When you are talking, agree on what he has to try: is it a “Thank you bite of everything on his plate” (just a taste to thank the chef for making the dinner), or does he need to clean his plate? We definitely recommend the “Thank you bite” for teaching manners and learning new foods. It’s difficult to argue with one little bite of something to say thank you to Mommy or Grandma or Daddy for making it. Eating an entire plate of something new is a different story, and much more likely to end in conflict. That said, remember to have some familiar foods on his plate and add one new thing. Agree on the terms. Will he be sent to bed without dinner if he won’t eat his thank you bite? No dessert? What is your plan? Once you agree, you and your husband stay strong and execute your plan.
We’ll share a couple stories about my daughter where you can see it in action…
Our daughter HATED pineapple. Each time we had it, we would give her one thank you bite to try. She’d cry, carry on and refuse to eat it. We would always remind her that it takes up to 14 times for your mouth to become acquainted with a new taste and know if you like it or not. She continued to protest. She also continued to have her one teeny bite. It took at least 14 times (we lost count), but she does enjoy it, albeit mixed with other things like in a fruit salad. We did the same thing with banana, only after 14 times she truly hated it. After that amount of time, we let it lie: she had enjoyed enough thank you bites of banana to say that she really didn’t like it.
We had a similar thing with shrimp with her (and found it actually it extends to all seafood). We’ve tried hiding it (not deceptively, just trying to make it not a focus like fish tacos with nice spices instead of a flat piece of fish) and also the “thank you bite” strategy. This is one place where we realized that a strong front is really important. She completely freaks out about that one bite of fish. We absolutely insist that she taste just one bite. We don’t have fish often, but when we do it is guaranteed to be an awful evening. As this behavior wore on, it started to wear on us: my husband would start to backpeddle the slightest bit, and then she realized she could get out of the whole affair by whining for an hour.
I finally told her we had given her one microscopic (literally!) piece of fish to try and she needed to taste it and move on with her evening. She wouldn’t do it, and got sent to bed without dinner. This time we offered the leftover fish as tacos the next night and went through the same routine. We reminded her that it would end the same way for her and that she would again be hungry. She cried and carried on and again went to bed again without dinner. We didn’t have fish again the next night, but we did purposely have it 3 or 4 days later. She started to have the same fit and we just said we hoped we could enjoy her company at dinner this evening. She quietly ate her bite of fish, scowled and then enjoyed the rest of her dinner. We’ve had fish in various ways since, and we can tell that there are some types she actually likes (but will never admit).
The thank you bites are a non-issue. We’ve been through shrimp enough to know that she really can’t stand them and they went the way of the banana. We still enjoy shrimp from time to time, and on those evenings we also make chicken as a second option and invite her to taste the shrimp. Like your son, she is very strong-willed, and we decided we needed to push to make our point. Our point is simply that you owe the person who made dinner a polite thank you bite, nothing more. Our other point is that you may not like something out of the starting gate. The thank you bite gives a positive spin to it, and allows you to taste something multiple times.
Additional Things to Try
Packing lunch. Dr. Oz recommends that for adult weight maintenance, you should enjoy the same food for breakfast and lunch every day. It’s boring, and you ultimately eat less. Runner’s World profiled an elite runner who eats the same thing for lunch every day: PB&J and fruit. I don’t think you need to worry about packing the same thing each day. It will keep your grocery bill down, he will be happy, and when he’s tired of it he’ll let you know. Of course you want him to have variety, but it won’t really be a problem if there isn’t much. What is more important is that his PB&J is on high-fiber bread. If he won’t eat wheat, use potato bread: some brands have 3 grams of fiber per slice, but not all do, so read the label carefully. Also important: don’t pack junky sides. Insist on a main course and a fruit and a veggie. You may have only one type of fruit and veggie that he’ll eat to start, but you can add more over time. Include a treat: it can vary and doesn’t have to be really bad for you, just something to make lunchtime feel special. Of course, if he wants to buy lunch, let him buy when he likes what’s on the menu, assuming it’s healthy (as far as school lunches go).
Plan out your dinners. Talk with the entire family about what you want to eat each week. We have printable calendars on this site that you can use. Have fun with themes (color, letters, etc) as he is starting Kindergarten. You may enjoy doing an “A” themed dinner, or planning a meal that is all one color, just for fun. We’re not suggesting this happen all the time, but just often enough to involve him in menu planning. So, a yellow meal might have macaroni and cheese as the main course, with corn and sliced mango as sides. For dessert you could do lemon sorbet. Maybe mango is the only new food that he needs to have a thank you bite of.
Presenting … dinner! We have great success with this. Have your child select the meal they will prepare with your help. We choose a meal based on ease of preparation and the hope that they will like it. Sometimes they totally don’t like what they prepare, but usually they’ll take a taste just out of curiosity. For example, my daughter (before we knew of her seafood aversion) chose scallops, mostly because she could cut them on her own with a plastic knife. Turns out she hated them, but she was eager to taste it because she prepared it. Regardless of what they make, it builds an appreciation for cooking and helps them learn.
Ditch the short-order cook. Even though well-intentioned, it will get so exhausting and help breed the habits you are trying to undo. It will save you time and make you all focus harder to making a single meal that has something for everyone.
Get away from chicken nuggets and pizza. Have you seen the Jamie Oliver show where he makes chicken nuggets? If you haven’t, maybe try showing him the clip or just watch it yourself. Try vegetarian nuggets and see if you can get that by him as you transition, or make homemade tenders with real chicken. For the spaghetti, talk to his daycare provider and see if you can come up with something that tastes similar to daycare (providing they are serving something that’s okay) Do you buy pizza or cook frozen pizza? Try switching to homemade. We make whole grain pizza dough in our bread machine, but you can also buy pre-made crust or dough as a shortcut. The act of assembling it together at home (less cheese, more sauce!) and adding veggies will help.
Get local. Do you live in an area where there is a CSA (community-supported agriculture) or farmer’s market? Use them! We joined a CSA 3 years ago, and it is the single best thing we’ve done for our family health. We all eat so many more veggies and fruit, and try more things as a result. The first year was hard for all of us … we got a lot of weird things in our pick-up each week but now we LOVE it – kids and adults alike.
We hope that some of these ideas will give you a starting point. Good luck!
More about Amy and Scott Dawson, creators of Lunchtaker.com: One of our core focuses is on nutrition and fitness. Our children both attended a parent cooperative pre-school where the morning snack was as healthy as possible, and our family liked the opportunities for new foods that arose in pre-school. As our children go through grade school, we are focusing on continuing the trend of ensuring we feed ourselves a variety of foods, all good for our bodies... read more...
Posted Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 6:25 am and filed under Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
