Your picky eater: Evidence-based tips for the science-minded parent

© 2009-2013 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

Got a picky eater?

Something happens to babies–even babies who are "good eaters"–afterwards the age of 2. Kids who were once happy to eat all sorts of things of a sudden decline their old favorites. They also turn down to endeavour new foods (Nicklaus 2009).

Interestingly, this is roughly the same time that kids in traditional cultures stop breastfeeding. Although societies vary widely in the precise timing of weaning, well-nigh postpone information technology until afterwards 24 months (Sellen 2001).

Does the "picky eater phase" serve a protective function, one that deters newly-contained kids from sampling dangerous foods?

Maybe. Simply in a world of supermarkets, most kids aren't probable to toxicant themselves past eating toxic leaves or berries.

The bigger trouble they face is getting a well-balanced nutrition.

Here are some enquiry-based tips for dealing with a picky eater.

1. Don't try to feed a picky eater when he'due south non hungry…but don't starve him, either

This might seem obvious. But it isn't always easy to become the timing right. A child'south appetite can vary from week to calendar week depending on the timing of her growth spurts. And while y'all want to avoid feeding your child when she'due south not hungry, yous don't want to make her wait likewise long between meals, either. When your kid's claret sugar levels dip, he might start feeling ill or nauseated—and less interested in food.

More than generally, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that compulsion works, and in fact virtually studies addressing the subject area propose that heavy-handed approaches backlash (see tips #5 and #7).

2. Sympathize the biology of gustation preferences and food neophobia

Equally you try to go your picky eater to try new foods, keep in mind that his taste perceptions may differ from your own. For details, see this article nearly the biology of the picky eater.

3. Pair new foods with old favorites

If your picky eater is neophobic, or resistant to trying new foods, you tin can try tricking his palate by pairing new foods with the flavors he loves.

Researchers tested this idea past presenting kids with a pick of two kinds of chips–one familiar, ane new. In addition, some kids were offered a familiar scrap dip. Others were offered an unfamiliar flake dip. The kids who had access to the familiar dip were more likely to attempt tasting the new fries (Pliner and Stallberg-White 2000).

Along similar lines, studies evidence that kids are more likely to take a new food—even a bitter or sour food–if their offset exposure to it is paired with sweetness.

In 1 experiment, young children lost their disfavor to bitter grapefruit juice if it was initially mixed with extra sugar (Capaldi and Privitera 2008).

In another experiment, researchers gave kids sweetened vegetables on a number of occasions, and and so asked kids to taste and rate the vegetables in their natural, unsweetened land. The kids reported an increased liking for the unsweetened versions of the vegetables (Havermans and Jansen 2007).

This suggests a way to go your picky eater to consume more greens: Serve steamed vegetables with your child'south favorite condiment.

4. Betrayal your kid to positive function models

Throughout the animal kingdom, social cues matter: Juveniles are more likely to swallow foods if they run into another private eating them.

Nonhuman animals are no exception to the rule.

In ane experimental study, parents who increased their intake of fruits and vegetables were more probable to succeed at increasing their children'southward intake (Haire-Joshu et al 2008).

Another study showed that kids were more than probable to accept a new food if they saw an adult eating it (Addessi et al 2005). And in contempo experiments on American preschoolers, kids were more likely to prefer foods they saw other children eat. Adult role models were less influential (Frazier et al 2012). The magic of peer influence has also been documented for older school kids (Bevelander et al 2012).

So it seems that you can assistance your picky eater by providing him with positive part models. And rational, administrative, explanations work, too:

In an observational study, caregivers who explained the virtues of healthful food and the consequences of an unhealthful diet were more likely to get preschoolers to eat their vegetables (Hughes et al 2007).

5. Don't pressure your child to consume

In the long run, force per unit area tactics seem to backfire.

For instance, i observational study has reported that kids who were more than pressured to swallow actually consumed fewer fruits and vegetables and more unhealthful snacks (Brownish et al 2008).

Some other retrospective study establish that college students who remembered existence pressured as kids continued to dislike the foods that their parents had forced them to swallow. Given the pick, they would avert these foods today (Batsell et al 2002).

Moreover, fifty-fifty when pressuring seems to piece of work, it's likely that other factors are involved. For case, one report found a positive correlation between parental pressure tactics and increased fruit and vegetable consumption in kids. But the "loftier pressure level" parents in this study also happened to be meliorate role models, eating more fruits and vegetables themselves. In add-on, their kids were more than neophobic almost food. When the researchers controlled for parental intake and children'southward neophobia, the link between parental pressure and children'due south intake disappeared (Wardle et al 2005).

And if you're feeling skeptical about the rest of these correlations, consider this controlled experiment by Amy Galloway and her colleagues.

Galloway's team gave kids soup and pressured some of them to terminate.

The researchers found that the kids who weren't pressured ate significantly more soup and fabricated fewer negative comments.

And, get this: The more frequently kids were pressured at home, the more likely they were to resist eating the soup (Galloway et al 2006).

six. Proceed exposing your picky eater to a variety of foods

One study has found a correlation betwixt the number of unlike fruits and vegetables that parents bring home and their preschoolers' willingness to swallow fruits and vegetables (Busick et al 2008).

Other studies have reported that kids increase their liking for and consumption of vegetables afterwards they are asked to gustatory modality them every day for 2 weeks (Wardle et al 2003a; Wardle et al 2003b).

Repeated exposure works on babies, too. One experiment constitute that infants who were exposed to a unlike vegetable for eight days in a row were more likely to eat nonetheless some other veggie—greenish beans—when they were tested (Mennella et al 2008).

But in that location are three caveats regarding this result.

Starting time, success is more probable if kids actually taste the foods. While one report reports that merely looking at pictures of new foods had a positive outcome on toddlers (Heath et al 2011), other research suggests kids need to sense of taste nutrient to change their behavior patterns (Birch et al 1987).

Second, yous don't want to force kids to taste foods (see point #v above). Rather, y'all are trying to encourage them by describing the foods positively and eating them yourself.

Third, yous might want to avoid presenting your picky eater with more one new food at a time–at least until she's older.

Ane study presented kids with iv palatable new foods in a row. While this feel made x- to 12-yr-olds more interested in trying other new foods, it fabricated younger kids (aged 7-9 years) less interested (Loewen and Pliner 1999). Researchers Loewen and Pliner speculate that the younger kids wanted to take a suspension from the dubiety of testing new foods.

7. Serve fresh fruit instead of juice, cookies, processed, and other sweets…simply avert stringent anti-junk food rules

Too many sugary, starchy "junk" foods tin spoil the appetite for more healthful foods and put kids at risk for obesity. And so information technology makes sense to salve the sugary drinks and snacks for the occasional treat.

But it'southward probably meliorate to take a positive approach—offering fresh fruit substitutes–rather than act like a nutrient cop.

Switching your kid's attention to fruit volition help her become more fiber and vitamins in her diet.

Information technology might also prevent your picky eater from developing an obsessive interest in "forbidden" foods.

That's considering research suggests that heavy-handed, restrictive approaches to junk food can backlash.

In experiments past Jennifer Fisher and Leann Birch, kids (aged 3 to 6 years) were introduced to two similar, palatable foods—apple and peach fruit bar cookies. Tests indicated that the kids liked both types, although they weren't highly preferred foods.

Adjacent, the researchers restricted access to one of the two cookie types. Kids were randomly assigned to receive either apple cookies just or peach cookies only for 5 weeks.

You might recall that kids would have developed a preference for the familiar cookie, but the opposite seems to have occurred. When given the gamble, kids were much more likely to ask for and attempt to eat the restricted cookie type (Fisher and Birch 1999).

8. Picket out for special issues and avert new foods when your child isn't feeling well

Humans are wired with a very ancient, very archaic, and very rapid form of learning. Feed a person a new food, make him experience ill shortly thereafter, and he'll develop an disfavor for the smell and flavour of that food (Rozin 1976).

It doesn't matter if the nutrient was the crusade of the illness or not. The primitive wiring makes the supposition that any new food ingested immediately earlier the onset of disease is bad news.

If your picky eater says he hates a nutrient, it'due south non a bad idea to screen him for symptoms of illness. Food allergies aren't uncommon, but there are other possibilities. Some kids have issues with acrid reflux or heartburn. Other kids might have migraines, which tin exist triggered by foods.

It also makes sense to avoid serving new foods when yous're child is likely to feel sick or nauseated—e.g., before a motorcar trip or plane ride, or when your child is fighting off a virus.

9. Become kids involved in the growing and preparation of food

Getting your picky eater to participate "behind the scenes" might help her become more familiar—and less wary—of the food you make. So bring your kids into the kitchen and ask them to help out. And effort gardening, too. Studies advise that kids eat more fruits and vegetables when the produce is abode-grown (Nanney et al 2007).

ten. Offering purists a simple alternative to fancy meals

Some kids aren't picky eaters so much every bit they are purists: They'll swallow all sorts of food equally long as information technology's evidently and simply prepared. They just don't trust all those rich sauces, gravies, and mystery casseroles.

I'll confess I was similar this myself, happy to eat manifestly tuna fish and toast. Just if y'all mixed the tuna with mayonnaise, I was turned off. Same thing with fruits and vegetables: Raw or plainly cooked, they were expert. Add together complications–similar cheese on my potatoes or marshmallows in my fruit cup–and the foods became unpleasant. Basically, I was opposed to any liquids or mixtures, particularly dairy- or meat-based ones, that made information technology difficult to identify the components of my food.

Interestingly, Ishi, the terminal survivor of the Native American Yahi tribe, had similar preferences. When he was compelled to live with 19th-century Anglo-Americans, he refused to eat foods that were drenched in opaque sauces (Heizer and Kroeber 1981). Broths were okay. Bisques were out.

I don't know how many kids are like this, just if you accept an anthropological view, the preference for "transparent" nutrient isn't all that foreign. After all, many cultures lack heavy sauces and elaborately processed foods. A kid with "purist" tastes wouldn't attract any notice in Japan. In France, he might accept more than trouble!

11. Endeavor giving foods new, fun names

In contempo experimental studies, Brian Wansink and his colleagues (2012) tested the effect of re-labeling familiar foods. The researchers establish that American elementary school students ate more carrots, broccoli, and light-green beans when cafeteria menus called these vegetables X-Ray vision carrots," "Power Punch Broccoli," and "Light-headed Dilly Green Beans."

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References: How to cope with a picky eater

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Batsell WR, Brown AS, Ansfield AE, and Paschall GY. 2002. "You lot Will Eat All of That!": A retrospective analysis of forced consumption episodes. Appetite 38(three): 211-219.

Bevelander KE, Anschütz DJ, and Engels RC. 2012. The effect of a fictitious peer on young children's choice of familiar v. unfamiliar low- and loftier-energy-dumbo foods. Br J Nutr. 108(6):1126-33.

Birch LL, McPhee 50, Shoba BC, Pirok East, Steinberg 50. 1987. What kind of exposure reduces children's nutrient neophobia? Looking vs. tasting. Ambition. 9(iii):171-eight.

Bourcier Due east, Bowen DJ, Meischke H, Moinpour C. 2003. Evaluation of strategies used by family food preparers to influence salubrious eating. Ambition 41(three): 265-272.

Brown KA, Ogden J, Vögele C, and Gibson EL. 2008. The role of parental control practices in explaining children'southward diet and BMI. Appetite. 50(two-3):252-9.

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Capaldi ED and Privitera GJ. 2008. Decreasing dislike for sour and biting in children and adults. Appetite. 50(i):139-45.

Fisher JO, Birch LL. 1999. Restricting admission to palatable foods affects children's behavioral response, food option, and intake. Am J Clin Nutr. 69(vi):1264-72.

Frazier BN, Gelman SA, Kaciroti N, Russell JW, and Lumeng JC. 2012. I'll take what she's having: the impact of model characteristics on children'due south nutrient choices. Dev Sci.(1):87-98.

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Mennella, J.A., Nicklaus, S., Jagolino, A.Fifty., and Yourshaw, Fifty.M. 2008. Diverseness is the spice of life: Strategies for promoting fruit and vegetable acceptance in infants. Physiology and Behavior 94: 29-38.

Nanney MS, Johnson S, Elliott 1000, and Haire-Joshu D. 2007. Frequency of eating homegrown produce is associated with higher intake among parents and their preschool-anile children in rural Missouri. J Am Diet Assoc. 107(4):577-84.

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Content of "Your picky eater" last modified 3/13

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