February 25, 2016

09: Helping Picky Eaters Try New and Healthy Foods

19 minutes

Parenting in the Rain, Episode 9

Helping Picky Eaters Try New, Healthy Foods with Jill Castle

In This Episode:

Jill Castle is America’s Childhood Nutrition Expert. She is a registered dietitian/nutritionist and a childhood nutrition expert. With over 25 years of experience with babies, toddlers, children and teens, in a variety of settings from private practice and consulting to author and writer.

Jill has 4 children, so she knows what it is like to feed healthy meals to kiddos on a busy schedule.

In this episode, Jill gives us some practical tips that we can use to successfully take on the issue of picky eating in our families.

Always make sure that when you feed your child, you include a “safe” food in the selection. This increases the child’s comfort zone and likeliness to try new foods.

Tasting a new food could be smelling, kissing, licking, etc... Every, little step along the way is progress.

Being patient with your child is SO important. The more pressure that you put on your child, the more resistance you will probably will get.

Resist the urge to “cater” to your child eating only specific foods. Let them know what is being offered and that there aren’t other alternatives. After meals, tell the child that the kitchen is “closed”. Setting boundaries is so important.

It is vital to include an item from every food group in your child’s meal.

If you are serving something your child doesn’t like, just include something that they do like such as a favorite fruit or vegetable.

MYTH - “If you just put the food on the table, your child will eventually eat it.”

Jill tells us about the “Learning Plate”, which is a separate plate that is put on the table with a tiny little portion of the foods for the child to “try”. The food on the “learning plate” can be touched, smooshed, licked, etc. It encourages the child to be more adventurous and to try new foods.

“It takes 18 years to raise a healthy child!!”

Recognize that everyone in the family likes to have a voice. Let everyone contribute ideas to the meal choices. Some families let each person choose what is for meals throughout the week. In the end, the parent is still needs to make sure that each meal is well balanced and healthy.

Sometimes it is a struggle to pack lunches for kids. Incorporating an item from each food group is a great idea with lunches as well. Also, letting your child provide input on their preferences and helping pack their lunches is a way to get “buy in”.

Kids can start packing their lunches pretty early on. Jill mentions that children as young as 6 years old can start packing lunch independently. This will help them learn how to put healthy and balanced meals together themselves. It does require some thought and input from the parent though, even when the children are packing their own lunch.

Feeding kids is not an easy thing, so having a system can really make a difference.

Jill has a free training coming up: 5 Honest Mistakes That Sabotage Your Child’s Healthy Eating. This training is schedule for February 24th and February 25th. https://jillcastle.leadpages.co/5-honest-mistakes-webinare/ If you miss this training, be sure to visit Jill’s blog to sign up for her newsletter so that you know about any future training that she has scheduled.

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By Jackie Flynn, EMDRIA Approved Consultant

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