Please Eat! How can you be sure your child is healthy when they won’t eat?
Some kids think eating a variety of foods means alternating between french fries, pizza and macaroni and cheese. What do you do if your kid is one of them?
First off, don’t worry too much, according to Holly Schere, a registered dietitian with M-Healthy with the University of Michigan. Getting into a power struggle over food will just set you up for failure. Instead, try to gently broaden their horizons.
“Try offering a variety of foods at your meals,” Schere said. “Include at least one thing you know they will eat. Offer three foods. One they will eat, one they might eat and another new food. You don’t want everything to be new.”
If all the foods are new and unfamiliar it will create too much of a struggle. 
“Parents may need to offer a child a new food eight to 10 times before they try it,” she said. “Children tend to be opposed to new foods simply because they are new. Exposing children to new foods may lead to them liking it.”
Serving sizes are important, too, said Jennifer Lavelle, a registered dietitian and health education supervisor for the Livingston County Health Department.
“To start out with, one serving size is one tablespoon of food per year of life,” Lavelle explained. “They can certainly have more than that, but their stomachs are about the size of their fist. So, if you start with an appropriate serving size maybe the child is isn’t as picky as you might think.”
As a mother of 2-year-old twins, Schere can understand the trials parents may go through with introducing new foods.
“My twins entered the picky eating stage after they turned 2,” she said. “It is very typical for children. They are not eating quite the variety of foods they used to.”
With young children, parents should not fret if a child does not eat as much at one meal, Schere said.
“They are not going to eat enough at one meal to last them until the next meal, they need to have regular snacks,” she explained. “If you are providing a variety of choices for snacks you are bound to get some nutritious foods in there.”
While children should be offered five to six small meals a day, parents should pay attention to when their child is hungriest, Lavelle said.
“Most children eat one good meal each day and they just graze at the other four or five offerings,” Lavelle said. “If you have a big breakfast eater, offer a protein, a fruit or vegetable and a whole grain. It is important that they get those offered to them.”
Parents should definitely avoid becoming “a short-order cook,” Schere said.
“It is very difficult if you feel your child is not eating as much as you would like,” she said. “It is so easy to get into that routing. Once you start doing that they are not going to try the other foods. If you have made something and considered their preferences, then that’s their dinner. They will eat at some point.”
For breakfast, Schere might offer her daughters a choice between a low -sugar cereal or yogurt. Snack time fare might be fresh or canned fruit, or toast with peanut butter. A half of a sandwich is also a good snack time choice, she said.
Schere said she likes to refer to a book by Ellyn Satter called “Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense.”
“It is a really good guide,” Schere said. “Satter says it is the parent’s role to provide children what to eat. It is the child’s role to decide how much or if they eat the food at all. Avoid fighting over food, don’t pressure them.“
One thing parents need to remember is to be good role models for children. Don’t serve them broccoli if they know you won’t touch it.
“You can’t expect your child to eat vegetables if you are not eating them,” Schere said. “You need to be setting a good example.”
A few tips from Schere:
- Offer dips or sauces for vegetables. “Some vegetables may be bitter tasting to children. Offer them the fun factor of getting to dip their foods. It gives it a little more flavor and can make it more desirable,” she said.
- Don’t try to “hide” vegetables in food. Most children will pick out the vegetables or just avoid the dish altogether.
- Enlist your child’s help in shopping for a new fruit or vegetable to try. “A kiwi is a good example. It is a very sweet and yummy fruit when it is ripe. That may be something they want to try and they are very nutritious,” Schere said.
- Keep fresh fruit out on the counter and offer it for snacks.