5 tips for fussy eaters

5 tips

to help with fussy eaters

Fussy eating is a common stress and concern for parents, luckily there are numerous evidence-based strategies that can help.

1. Relaxed family meal environment

Create a happy and social eating time with family and provide structured mealtimes (set eating times), a time limit (20-30 minutes) for meal consumption, quiet activities before meals, and remove distractions (TV, games).

2. Parent provide, kids decide

Provide your child with several different food options (2-3 at a time) and let them decide what and how much they eat. Providing your child with choice helps them feel more independent and reduces resistance at mealtime. Start with small pieces of new food and include with familiar or liked foods.

3. Repeated exposure,variety, and frequency

Your child might refuse and dislike a food but persistence is key, it can take up to 8 to 15 times before your child decides to eat a new food. Offer a variety of new foods on a regular basis and make sure the foods provided are the same as the family meal.

4. Modelling

Your child learns from watching you and your own likes and dislikes can influence your child’s food preferences, so it is important that you are eating the foods that you want your child to eat.

5. Make it fun!

Let your child help prepare meals, shop for food items, serve the meal, and set the table and make eating fun by using different colours, shapes, and sizes. Reward your child with non-food-related rewards like sticker charts, games, and trips to the park. > Include foods from each of the five food groups in the Australian Guide to Healthy

Eating > Empathise as learning to eat new foods can be complex and challenging for a child > Give the child praise and positive encouragement when new foods are tried > Avoid using sweet foods such as desserts as a reward > Avoid forcing, bribing, and punishing your child when introducing new foods > Try to avoid giving attention to the fussing eating behaviour

How to prevent or reduce

fussy eating

Variety during pregnancy and breastfeeding

Mothers who consume a large variety of foods and flavours during pregnancy and breastfeeding increase a child’s acceptance of these foods when introducing solids.

Start with vegetables

When introducing solids, starting with vegetables first (non-sweet), vegetables frequently and vegetable variety before introducing sweet flavours can increase your child’s preference for these foods.

Avoid mixing vegetables

Introduce a variety of single vegetables that are not mashed together, this helps your child to learn to like each individual flavour and reduces flavour confusion.