Food or feud…? When toddlers won’t eat

Jenny McKerchar talks about a new video produced by the Dietician’s Association of Tasmania, Family Feud Food, which looks at the perennial problem of fussy eaters. The video explains common reasons and provides practical strategies to help deal with fussy eating and food refusal.

Sharing your life with a toddler can be the most captivating and rewarding experience of your life…. but when it comes to food and eating, ‘frustration’ is a word that often springs to mind!  Learning to eat a wide range of nutritious foods is obviously crucial in helping kids be healthy – sometimes easier said than done.

Managing Food Refusal

When your toddler refuses to eat or drink, remember this is a common experience for many parents and a normal part of growing up. Parents often have unrealistic ideas about the kinds and amounts of food young children need. Between the age of 1 and 3 years, a child’s growth rate slows down and so does their appetite.

Don’t worry if food intake varies from one meal to the next, it usually evens out. No healthy child will starve. If your toddler is growing well, full of energy and happy, you have no need to worry about them not getting enough to eat. However, if you are worried about their growth or general level of health, it’s always a good idea to consult a child health nurse at your local health centre.

Sharing Food Tasks = Division of Responsibility with Feeding

The key message of this video is ‘sharing food tasks’. New research* suggests a ‘division of responsibility’ which simply means knowing your responsibility as a parent and the responsibility of your child in terms of eating. Put simply:

• It’s a parent’s responsibility decide what to feed and when to feed.
•  A child’s responsibility is to decide if to eat and how much to eat.

So, it isn’t the parent’s responsibility to tell their child how much to eat. The more parents try to control the amount of food their child eats, the more likely that feeding will become difficult.

Understanding children’s natural appetites

Children know when they are hungry and full. They have a natural ability to know when and how much to eat. Forcing a child ‘to eat everything on their plate’ may interfere with their ability to recognise hunger and fullness.

Avoiding Negative Food Messages

Sometimes parents can unintentionally send out negative messages about food, which may affect children’s acceptance of food. If a parent is worried about the limited range of foods their child is eating, they may employ persuasive techniques to get their child to eat.

For example, the old favourite ‘if you don’t eat your vegetables, you won’t get dessert’. The message here is that dessert is better than the main meal, when in fact it is just part of the meal. If you have planned for your family to have dessert, then allow your child to choose how much to eat from the main and the dessert.

Encouraging New Foods

Children learn to accept new foods by having them offered often. A child may need to be served a food up to 10 times before they will eat it. As parents, we may think when a child rejects food, it means they dislike the food, when really young children are naturally reluctant to try new foods. So remember, keep offering the foods that have been refused.

Reference: *Satter E, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family. Kelcy Press, Madison 1999.

If you are interested in obtaining a copy, please contact the Community Nutrition Unit (03) 6222 7222 or email: community.nutrition@dhhs.tas.gov.au  

RECIPES

Here are two meal or snack ideas that children will just love:

Spinach Slice

1 bunch of spinach, finely chopped
200g zucchini, coarsely grated
3 rashers bacon, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup grated cheese
1/2 cup milk
5 large eggs
Pepper
 
Method

• Place flour and eggs into food processor and blend, gradually add the milk.
• Pan fry onion, bacon and garlic until onion is transparent.
• Add all ingredients into egg mixture and stir through.
• Place into greased baking dish and cook in a moderate oven for 30 - 40 minutes.
• When cool cut into strips.
• Freezes well.

Meat Balls with Tomato Sauce

500g minced beef
1 onion, finely chopped
2 eggs  (beaten)
1/4 cup plain flour
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Pepper
Extra bread crumbs

Method

• Place mince, onion, eggs, flour, bread crumbs and pepper into bowl and mix well.
• Roll into small balls and coat with extra bread crumbs.
• Lightly sauté in frying pan until outside sealed and golden brown*.
• Place in shallow oven dish in single layer and cover with tomato sauce mixture, cover and bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes.
• Serve with extra sauce if needed.

Alternatively, you can save time and finish cooking meatballs in the fry pan and use commercial tomato sauce.

Tomato Sauce

1 tin tomatoes
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp. mixed herbs
1 tsp. sugar
1 TB tomato paste
Pepper
Fresh basil

Method

• Cook onions in little oil over moderate heat until transparent.
• Add tomatoes, garlic, sugar, mixed herbs and pepper.
• Simmer gently, over low heat for 1 hour.
• Stir through tomato paste and simmer further 5 minutes.
• Add fresh basil and serve.
• Refrigerates well, up to one week.

Jenny McKerchar is a Dietician with the Community Nutrition Unit, Department Health and Human Services in Tasmania.

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, October 2000. Updated July 2009.