HOUSTON – Picky eating is a common disorder during childhood often causing considerable parental anxiety. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 13% and 22% of kids are picky eaters and almost half of them have had a very limited diet for more than two years.
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Picky eating is kind of defined as when someone limits the variety of foods or requires a very specific food prep.
The good news is, the NIH hasn’t found evidence that it significantly impacts children’s growth. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less stressful when trying to change the behavior.
“Now, having three you know, each one gives me another dose of humility,” laughs pediatric dietitian Ashley Smith with Veggies and Virtue, “It also gives me a really good opportunity to not just say what the book says and tell people a really generic answer.”
Smith said some of her common rules for picky eating include:
Make it fun
“When we look at the development happening around like 6 to 7-years-old, I usually kind of look to see what’s a child into,” Smith said. “So before 6, they tend to be really magical thinkers. So the more that we as parents can take off our logical brain and just be playful with our kids, we all know our kids love to play and it can be hard for us to put that hat on.”
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Continue to expose them to foods even if they say they won’t eat them
“If we just put broccoli on their plate and force them to eat it 52 times, it’s not going to make an impact,” Smith said. “It’s going to peak that anxiety, shut down that appetite, and create more problems. But if we find 52 different ways to engage and play with broccoli and help our kids find it as fun and interesting on the continuum of learning to like it and eat it, that can be a lot more effective exposure.”
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“So, you know, under 6, thinking about how can you make this playful: ‘How can you make this fun?’ ‘How can you help them engage with it?’” she continued. “How can you get them to use all their senses to explore what this food is without just seeing it as this binary: ‘I offer it, you eat it.’ That’s not the way kids work, especially in those younger years. As kids get older, we can start to kind of leverage some of their curiosity and question-seeking. Where they like to cook, they like to bake, they like to experiment. They like to ask questions.”
