5 strategies to encourage fussy eaters at dinner time
5 Strategies to Encourage Picky Eaters at Dinner Time
Don’t let your picky eater turn the dinner table into a battleground. Try these expert strategies to bring the fun back to family meal time.
The Magic of the Family Table
The magic of the family table comes from the conversation and connection between parents and children. It’s also important to serve nourishing food, model healthy eating habits, and avoid food battles.
Childhood health experts say the best advice for improving a child’s diet is simply putting healthy food on the table and sitting down together to eat it.
Strategies for Serving Delicious, Healthy Food
Here are some strategies for serving delicious, healthy food that everyone will enjoy:
1. Build Your Own
Everyone at the table, including parents, has likes and dislikes. Instead of creating different dishes for everyone, make it easier with buffet-style, build-your-own meals.
Start with a basic ingredient and let everyone create their own favorite version of the dish. Foods that work well for build-your-own nights include tacos, sandwiches, soups, salads, pizzas, and pastas. “If someone doesn’t like tomatoes, they don’t have to go on the tacos,” says Lynn Barendsen of the Family Dinner Project. “You’re cooking one meal, but people can pick and choose.”
2. Vegetable Appetizers
While preparing the meal, set out a big plate of vegetable starters for everyone to nibble on. Carrots and ranch dressing, roasted bites of cauliflower, broccoli and hummus, or vegetables and guacamole will be gobbled down by your hungry crew.
This pre-dinner snack will relieve the stress of the person preparing the meal, buy extra time if someone is running late, and solve the “eat your vegetables” battle before it even starts.
The most likely time a child will eat carrots or cucumbers is when a parent is still cooking and the kids are really hungry, adds Lynn. “When you sit down, you don’t have to worry about whether they eat the veggies because they already had them.”
3. Don’t Comment
Once the food is served, limit any food talk to how good it tastes. Don’t make comments about how much or how little someone has put on their plate. Even something as simple as “Just eat a little more of that” could prompt a child to become stubborn and resist the food. “No cajoling. No bribing,” says Anne Fishel. “It makes for tension at the table and it’s counterproductive.”
Anne recommends not talking at all about who’s eating what at the table. “A parent’s job is to choose healthy food and pick when and where it’s going to be eaten,” she said. “A child’s job is to decide whether and how much to eat.” Beyond that, the conversation around food should be limited.
4. Avoid Food Rewards
Studies show that children may react negatively when parents pressure them to eat foods, even if the pressure offers a reward. In one study at Pennsylvania State University, researchers asked children to eat vegetables and drink milk, offering them stickers and TV time if they did. Later in the study, the children expressed dislike for the foods they had been rewarded for eating. If you are serving dessert, don’t place any conditions on it.
5. Use Smaller Plates
Studies show that people eat larger portions when the serving dish is large. Big plates, huge popcorn buckets, tall glasses, and deep, round bowls make portions look smaller and prompt us to eat more. Consider using smaller dinner plates, which were common 50 years ago.
