We’ve all been there-from bargaining with your kid to eat one more bite, to full blown tantrums if the wrong foods touch. What if there was a way to avoid that?
Research has shown that practicing intuitive eating can help children learn to explore their preferences, reduce picky eating tendencies, develop healthy habits around food, and take the stress off of mealtime.
Here are 5 tips you can start incorporating at mealtime TODAY to start raising your kids to be intuitive eaters:
1. Clearly Define Your Role At The Dinner Table
Ellyn Satter’s “Division of Responsibility” is a mental framework that labels different roles that each person in the family has during mealtime.
As the parent, it is your job to:
- Determine what food you will be serving
- Decide initial quantities of food being put on their plate
- Schedule the times you serve meals
- Mirror proper eating behaviors (feet on the floor, using utensils)
Your child gets to determine:
- What they want to eat on the plate you provided
- How much they’re going to eat on the plate
2. Keep Preferences In Mind When Planning Meals
A good rule of thumb is to always choose one food you know your child will eat for every meal. This helps make the plate less intimidating, and ensures that your child will at least be eating one item at the table.
For example, if you know your child LOVES broccoli but you want to introduce carrots, you may decide to put both on his plate and see what happens.
If you are serving your meal family style, you can put a bowl of carrots next to a bowl of broccoli, and have him choose which one he wants to put on his plate. Even if he doesn’t even look at the carrots, that is perfectly okay.
Any interaction with the new food is considered a win, and it may just be a matter of switching up the cooking method or altering the appearance of the food (Hello star-shaped cookie cutters!).
Keep in mind that they may never take to the carrots, and that is okay too. Just like adults, children are also entitled to having food preferences.
3. Intervene As Little As Possible
As babies, we never had to be told when and what to eat. We showed signs when we were hungry such as rooting or sucking. Likewise, we showed signs when we were full like detaching from the breast.
As we got older, we started being influenced by external sources, such as adults controlling the time of meals, friends eating food, or television promoting a certain product.
Unfortunately, all of these factors can contribute to a disconnect from our bodies. Instead of listening internally to your hunger and fullness cues, you rely on external cues.
Therefore, the best thing you can do during mealtimes is take a “hands off” approach. Some common phrases parents use include:
“Eat your peas, they’re good for you!”
“No dessert until you have at least five more bites of your food.”
These statements have good intentions, but ultimately lead to even more picky eating tendencies in the future. The hard job of actually making the food is over, so why prolong your misery by having battles at the dinner table?
Children will eat if they’re hungry, and you have to trust that your child will eat enough to nourish their body. Remember: it is NOT your job to dictate how much your child eats.
Instead of the phrases mentioned above, try to keep conversations about food neutral. Avoid labeling food as either “good” or “bad”, because everything can fit in a balanced diet.
Talk about the food in an objective, descriptive manner with your children. Ask them what colors they see, what the food sounds like, how the temperature feels in their mouth.
By keeping the conversation lighthearted, you are signaling to your child that they are in a safe eating environment and they will be more compelled to broaden their food horizons.
4. Make Mealtime Fun
Studies show that the more involvement a child has in the food preparation process, the more inclined they are to eat the food. Depending on their age, you can decide how much responsibility to give them in the kitchen.
Younger children can help cut fruits and vegetables, toss salads, or mix cake batter. Older children may want to season dishes or sauté items on the stove.
If your community has a garden, volunteering may be a wonderful way to introduce different produce and show your children the gardening process. Or, if you have the means to do it, you and your child can even think about starting a garden at home!
5. Be an Intuitive Eater Yourself
Children are sponges, constantly watching you and mirroring your words and actions.
It would be very hypocritical if you want them to be confident in themselves and love their bodies, but you always find yourself talking negatively about your own.
Just as you want your children to trust their bodies, you need to relearn how to trust your body too.
If you are new to intuitive eating and want to learn more, check out my “Intuitive Eating For Beginners” blogpost!
Conclusion:
As parents, we want the best for our children. We want them to grow up trusting their bodies and have a positive relationship with food.
As you and your child navigate through mealtimes, remember that intuitive eating is not a linear journey. Figure out what works well for your family, and don’t be afraid of trial and error!
Picky eating doesn’t happen overnight, and it also won’t be solved overnight.
Now I want to hear from you:
Are there any tips that you love…but didn’t see on the list?
Or maybe you have a question.
Either way, let me know by leaving me a comment down below!
Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33423901/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30658288/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26593103/
https://www.ellynsatterinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/handout-dor-tasks-cap-2016.pdf
