Fussy about Food - 8 Tips to Tackle the Problem

Most children go through a phase of fussing about food, whether it’s picking at their food before pushing their plate away, eating only a few favourite foods, or flatly refusing to eat anything during meal times. Know that you are not alone! Around ninety percent of children go through at least one lengthy stage of fussy eating. While mealtimes are a great opportunity to spend uninterrupted quality time with your little ones, feeding time doesn’t always turn out as planned. 

While it can be frustrating when a child rejects the food we give them, it’s actually the way that we deal with the situation that impacts their eating habits.

Here are a few tried and tested tips and tricks that most mothers swear by:

Make it a game: You could try playing a game and blindfold your child before introducing a new food and ask him/her to guess what it is. Make him/her experience the smell, texture, taste etc of the food to enjoy it further.

Walk the talk: Veggies can be a tricky one. Some children will spot a hidden mushroom a mile off, so sometimes the best thing is to be upfront about fruit and vegetables, tell them where they come from and why they are so good for them. Tell them stories of their favourite cartoons and how they got the power or the muscle to be what they are.  Inspire! Imitate! Entice!

Rewards(not bribes!) can be motivational: Reward schemes like a sticker chart in the kitchen can work well with older children and chocolates for younger children. Make the chart yourself along, perhaps decorating it with pictures of their favourite characters. Give your kid a sticker for eating new foods. When they have collected a few stickers, reward them with a prize. The first one should be an easy get for your child.

Make food fun and appetizing: Visually engaging foods tend to attract our taste buds too. When we serve healthy meals to our family, the primary impression is that the food would be tasteless. Try making it visually more appealing so that the food is welcomed on the table.

Combinations might work: You can try combining the tasty and healthy items together to make a new combined dish having all the benefits plus something for the taste buds too. This will be more of a hit and trial technique. Not every combination you make will work but you’ll surely figure out a few that do the trick for your little brat!

Use different tools to make it interesting: Sometimes the food just isn’t enough! One has to play around with toothpicks, fruit forks, chopsticks, cartoon spoons, and labelled plates and glasses to get the process going. 

The idea primarily being- to keep it interesting! To keep it attractive! To keep it relevant!

You can always think of more ways suitable to your kid that may solve your problem. 

Stay Tuned! Stay Relevant!

Image Source: Google