We Read the 7 Most Popular Books on Kids and Picky Eating so You Don’t Have To

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My kids are picky about their food, and I’ve struggled with that ever since my oldest son, now seven, was about two years old. This is what they will always eat: Bread. Pasta. Snacks such as pretzels, crackers, and yogurt. Several cheeses and meats. And sweets.

Note the apparent lack of fruits and vegetables.

Read about the legibility of food, regardless of whether you rely on pioneering book nutritionist Ellyn Satter “My baby: feeding with love and common sense,” or the book of the former Karen Le Billon “French children eat everything” – is not … especially fun. This is primarily because these books, generally speaking, will challenge you to confront both your own shortcomings and the shortcomings of the wider culture, which are, of course, intertwined.

Speaking only for myself, I can say that reading these books over the past five or so years has made me realize that 1) my own diet is a little limited, and I also prefer sweet, salty and fatty foods, especially unhealthy foods; 2) I do not really like to cook and I think that getting 21 varied and tasty dishes on the table every week is very difficult; and 3) it is really hard to change your family’s eating habits when everyone around you also rely heavily on cereal bars, pretzels, yoghurt cereals, hot dogs, pizza and the like.

First, the books.

Here are seven books I relied on for guidance with my kids:

Summary

Most of these books use my child as a starting point: Ellen Sutter is the acclaimed grandmother of nagging literature, and almost all consider her philosophy of “shared responsibility” to be fundamental. (More on that later.) So, if you want to save a few weeks of reading and know right now what they all have to say? Here it is, in 94 words:

American food culture does not support you, so families need to create their own culture of nutritious food, enjoyment, and dinner. Do not force your children to eat anything, and do not bargain or bargain; dessert is not a reward. Let them get hungry before eating. Serve one meal at a time in family style, but always have something that everyone likes on the table. The child himself chooses whether and how much there is from what is offered to him. Emphasize variety and add treats regularly to keep those foods from becoming forbidden fruit.

That’s all!

Okay, still curious how many writers can spin entire books on food pickiness in 94 words? Well, there are of course some differences, usually related to the author’s area of ​​expertise and specific culture, so if you are interested in adapting a new program or philosophy for your family, keep reading.

(Note: This is intended for standard picky eaters, not for precarious or dangerously underweight children, although several books (How to Help a Very Choosy Baby ; How to Raise a Happy, Healthy Eater ) explicitly address feeding methods, tube feeding etc. Speech pathologist protocols. If this is your situation, consult your pediatrician.)

“Separation of Responsibility”

Ellen Sutter pioneered this philosophy in the 1980s: Parents decide when to eat, what to serve, and where to serve. The child decides whether there is, that there are (of the offered products) and in what quantity. There is always something on the table for the child to eat, such as bread, rice or fruit. Children don’t ask for anything else. Dina Rose offers parents, in addition to a “safe” item, also a “spare”, something soft and always available, such as cottage cheese. We do not make a backup in our home; I consider the “safe” point to be adequate.

No grazing

Food and snacks are served at set times, with enough time between mealtimes to keep the kids hungry. (There is no point in getting mad at a child who had a huge snack at 4 when she’s not hungry 6.) Children always know that there is another food or snack suitable, which reduces anxiety- help a child with extreme Picky Eating covers a child and parents who have food-related health problems and who primarily need food to be enjoyable and stress-free.

Sutter instructs parents to set meal and snack times; Dina Rose suggests there are “zones” that parents can shift a little depending on when they had their first meal, how much they ate, etc. D. Le Billon, author of French Kids Eat Everything , blames children for not being hungry a lot. (and so without being particularly adventurous) on our ongoing culture of pretzel and goldfish snacks.

Family dinner is important

Le Billon, an immigrant mom from France, emphasizes the sociability of food above all: children learn by watching their parents and older children carelessly eat unfamiliar things; they can discreetly try new flavors while others at the table talk. She notes that the pace of a leisurely family meal that emphasizes conversation also prevents absorption and allows children to tune in to their signals of satiety.

Courses are good

Serving meals in courses can stimulate vegetable consumption: Karen Le Billion recommends a vegetable snack like Sutter; Dina Rose says her family has a salad snack every night that kids certainly don’t need to eat! But waiting a few months for the first course when they are hungry can encourage children to eat at least a little. I have not been able to implement this in our home, but I often manage to lay out raw vegetables or cold soup and tell the boys that they can start with this if they are starving. Sometimes it works.

Do not coerce, do not bribe, do not bargain or negotiate

Each book warns against pressure, or worse, forcing children to eat. (Gonzalez has a particularly troubling story about a child who force-fed a banana by his grandmother.) There are no words like “you have to bite off two of this” or “ bite off without gratitude ” or even ask the kids to lick or kiss food. as Rowell and McGlotlin describe. (At any rate, making a child kiss or lick food seems pretty creepy to me.)

Parents should not compare the “good” eater at the table with the “bad eater”; they should not call the child a picky eater (or at least not within her earshot); they should not put pressure on the child to feel guilty about not eating “Mom’s delicious food” or anything else. Food is on the table, that’s all, children can take it or not. The conversation turns to other topics. Gonzales and others note that children who are forced (and this includes pressure as force) to eat certain foods grow up to hate them.

Dessert is not a trump card

It’s tempting to bargain with your child to eat three bites of broccoli to earn dessert. But this creates a dichotomy of good and bad food and does not help children, as Dina Rose teaches, to listen to their appetite cues and ultimately develop good eating habits. Sutter suggests, if you serve dessert, put a small portion on the main course plate and let the kids eat it first if they want to. This works surprisingly well with my kids: they eat dessert and then return to the main course. (In our house, dessert is only on weekends, and I usually serve what they especially like for dinner, so in the evenings they eat more than dessert.) As Fernando and Potoc point out, when you reward children with sweets, you “tune your neural circuits the unhealthy thirst for food and to eat when they are not hungry. “

Manners are important

It’s okay not to take fish. It’s not good to shout fu, or I don’t like it . Teach the children to cook on their own what they like – rice, bread or cottage cheese – without comment. If they don’t want the first course, they can still sit down and chat politely.

Good taste.

Dina Rose suggests focusing (but not forcing) tasting and discussing the foods you are trying – is that sweet? Is it crispy? Is it more sour than a child with a sour spot? It’s difficult for me myself – if you were involved in a power struggle with your children over food, they will see right through you, if you suddenly say: “Yum-yum, try this cucumber, why don’t you try? This? The tasting is good. We appreciate the tasting in our family, try it, damn it . ” The wolf in grandma’s nightgown is more convincing; trust me i tried it. So take your time and consider this the start of a decades-long effort to develop daring tasters.

Le Billon proposes to very gradually help children develop cravings for new tastes – beetroot puree on puff pastry (ah, French) or a tiny spoonful of borscht in front of whole beets. Rowell and McGlotlin offer tips for bridging flavors, such as adding lots of favorite foods to unfamiliar foods (such as cheese in scrambled eggs) and then gradually varying the proportions. I am working to get my kids to eat a stew with bacon, lentils and vegetables, cooking it with lots of bacon until they get used to different tastes.

Stay on course

This is probably the most important takeaway of all the picky books: it takes time to change. Sometimes years. For example, each book notes how many times children need to try certain foods before they can enjoy them. Sutter calls these foods a “challenge” and children must be constantly exposed to them before they decide what they are actually doing , like grapefruit or asparagus. Le Billion notes that the French start with these complex flavors in infancy (mashed), so by the time they eat beets in a vinaigrette at age 5, it’s already an old hat.

If you’re not French and feel like I sometimes feel like I’m already a little defeated, understand that it’s never too late: I am working on a beetroot experiment in which I serve beets in many different ways, starting with mousse. sweet crackers for a snack, in the hopes of bringing the beets back to normal at the dinner table. (It helps that I really love beets.)

Variety is the key to good eating habits

Dina Rose, a sociologist, emphasizes a ‘habit’ mindset rather than a daily diet mindset, and to that end, she advises parents to include as much variety as possible in what they serve, even to the point of setting a rule not to serve one and the same meal two days in a row. This is a challenge for those who strive for efficiency, but already (after a week) has given some good results with my boys: the other day they tried egg salad for lunch after I told them that we will not have PB&J in two days … line.

Take the heat out of dinner

We tend to put a lot of emphasis on lunch as the main vegetable and protein meal of the day. But there are plenty of opportunities to feed the kids early meals and snacks, so maybe we should all just relax before dinner. My kids sometimes don’t eat a bite at dinner. They are allright.

One final caveat

Last but not least, all the fussy eating literature has a dark side to it: if you’re not particularly fond of cooking, and / or are short on time, and / or are limited in yourself, all of these strategies mean a certain amount of labor. Good food culture has longstanding stories of someone (usually a woman) in the kitchen taking on meal planning, gardening, grocery shopping, cleaning the kitchen, and managing leftovers as a top priority.

If you do not already have this information and these skills, it will take you time and effort to learn them, and most importantly, it will take cognitive ability. It is much easier, both in terms of time and in terms of cognitive ability, to open a Chicken Chuckles packet at 6:00 pm. So if this is you, please accept my condolences, because I am in the same boat.

All I can say is that many people grow up to be good or terrible eaters, no matter what their parents do, and your comfort is important as well. If it’s Chicken Chuckles one night and Hot Dogs Supreme the other, so be it. Communication and manners are easy to follow no matter your circumstances, and your kids may one day start cooking for you .

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