How to Fix a Fussy Eater

Fruit and vegetables are inexpensive, healthy and delicious, and large numbers of kids – and adults - simply don’t eat enough of them for good health.

Many of us have to contend with picky eaters. It is easy to presume that we are just talking about children, but while children are the consummate picky eaters, there are plenty of picky parents, grandparents, partners, flatmates and home- stay students. (Too spicy, too foreign, too bland, too many vegetables, too many complaints!)
Conforming to the picky eaters personal “Official Approved Foods List" may provide short-term relief, but in the longer term it just exacerbates the problem.

The picky eater becomes brand specific, often only eating name brand products, packet foods and snacks. This kind of pedantry is all very well if money is no object, but when you have to watch what you spend it’s not just self indulgent it’s expensive.

Special “Children’s food" is an added burden on the grocery budget.

Much of the attraction of these foods is the packaging; those expensive little individual servings are just so appealing. The advent of children’s food seems to be a relatively new thing. Traditionally kids ate pretty much what the adults were eating. There was dinner for dinner, you ate it or you went without. It is increasingly common these days for the kids to eat an entirely separate meal from the adults, who then eat later in the evening.
Preparing several different meals is hard work, so increasingly the kids have quick, easy to cook foods such as nuggets, noodles and burgers because even the pickiest eaters will eat them without a fuss.
We rationalise feeding kids processed food because “at least it won’t go to waste. If I make something proper they won’t eat it" or “the kids can get away with it more than adults, after all most of them are slim, they’ll burn it off". Sadly that’s no longer true. According to Findings of the 2002 National Children's Nutrition Survey:

- Only about two out of five children met the recommended number of serves of fruit (at least two per day).
- About three out of five children met the recommended number of serves of vegetables (three or more per day).
- And 31% of children were either overweight or obese.

A more up to date National Nutrition Survey is long overdue and experts have been calling out for this to happen but regardless of the age of the survey, its unlikely that things have actually improved since there has been no significant change to the way food is marketed to children or "children's food" is marketed to parents. Picky eaters not only suffer nutritionally, as they get older they become increasingly socially disadvantaged.

Not being able to eat a variety of foods may be problem when the work Christmas do is a Thai buffet, your top client invites you to lunch at a Japanese Restaurant or your flatmate who cooks every second night is a vegan.

You may not be able to change the habits of your partner or flatmate but you can influence your kids, so start early. Here are some of the techniques I’ve found work well. How not to grow a picky eater

- Start when they are little if you can. With Babies and toddlers pull the high chair up to the table when the family are eating. Even if baby has been fed, she will see what others are eating. As she gets older and can feed herself, let her taste and handle a little off your plate, including her in the meal.

- Avoid giving a drink of milk or juice just before a meal, picky eaters will fill up on the drink then say they aren’t hungry or eat poorly as they have spoilt their appetite and missed an opportunity to eat real food

- Avoid using dessert as a bribe. “If you don’t eat your dinner you won’t get any dessert", implies to the picky eater that eating dinner warrants a reward. Cannily they will negotiate exactly how many mouthfuls constitute “eating dinner" in order to get dessert. The resulting series of compromises highlights dessert and diminishes the importance of dinner altogether – just don’t go there.

- Never say to the kids “you won’t like this" they’ll most likely believe you.

Significant research was conducted by Otago University in relation to children's response to new foods. They discovered that children experience what they call "Neophobia" or simply put it's a genetic predisposition to reject or fear new foods. The response is normal and protects the child should it be offered a food which could be toxic. They determined that it may require as many as 10 tastes or offerings of the new food before it is accepted.

So when they tell you they don’t like it, remember they may simply be afraid of it. You need to k