10 Fussy Eater Tips & Tricks to Encourage Eating

Have mealtimes become a battle zone at your house? … look familiar?

 It’s one thing to know what your child needs to eat, it’s another thing to get them to eat it! … right? Here’s some strategies that just might help … 

1.     Early meals to avoid plunging of appetite due to tiredness. ie. 11am lunch / 5pm dinner

2.     Kids involved in meal planning/prep. Allow kids to choose 2 meals for the week. Pizza, spag bog, tuna mornay, chicken parma, etc.

3.     Sit down, eat together with screens off, meal at the table

4.     Learn about how foods are grown – educate the kids. Involve in a Community garden or a home veggie garden. Eat straight out of the garden.

5.     Introduce theme nights. eg. ‘Taco Tuesday’, ‘Fishy Friday’. These meals become high rotation through the week. Establish family favourites. This takes the focus off the picky eater.

6.     Generally kids learn healthy eating habits from their parents, so be the ultimate role models regarding food.

7.     Consider the presentation on the plate. Make it fun and tempting with loads of colour, fun faces made with food, surprise pictures at the bottom of the bowl, etc.

8.     Remember that as kids grow they are often not necessarily just looking for more sweetness, but rather more spicy flavours. So pull out your spice rack, and offer cinnamon, allspice, curry, mustard, and don’t forget the herbs, garlic, mint, basil, Italian herb mix, just to name a few. Experiment a little and trial Indian curries, Thai spiced foods and Chinese sweet & sour, etc. From around the age of 12 months, your child can eat the same flavours as you do.

9.     Don’t make it a power struggle regarding food. Elect for a ‘no punishment’ model. Try not to get too emotionally invested in the need to consume… weetbix is a great alternative if dinner is rejected.

10.  An interesting fact is that primary school aged kids may need to try a food up to 15 times before developing a taste for it, so be persistent and offer foods that have previously been declined every now and then.

Put the food on table first time, put it on plate next time, allow to smell, allow to pick up, lick it.

So, you get the picture… keep it simple, offer rejected foods over and over, eat together as a family whenever you can, remove distractions (don’t get into the habit of distracting with the TV of iPad …. it’s a slippery slope of reliance and expectation!), keep flavoursome and/or spicy foods on the menu, and most of all avoid offering a ‘buffet of choice’. If the family meal is declined, just offer a plain and boring alternative, such as weetbix.

Good luck … it’s a jungle out there!