As parents we undoubtedly want the best for our children and for them to thrive. One of the most fundamental aspects that supports this is their nutrition and with it comes great responsibility. A responsibility which can weigh heavily on our shoulders, our minds and in our hearts.
Supporting our children to eat well and develop a healthy relationship with food can be a difficult process. In this blog post, we’ll explore why it takes time for children to learn to like food and eat well and look at how one of the best ways to support them on this journey is by being patient.
Developing tastes
Children are born with a limited range of taste preferences. They tend to have a natural preference for sweetness and are often cautious or even resistant to new tastes, especially bitter ones (hence the difficulty with leafy green vegetables in particular).
Over time, however, as children are exposed to a variety of foods, their taste preferences can evolve and expand. It is a gradual process which requires persistent offerings of a wide range of foods. It is said that a child needs to try a food around 15 times for them to accept it, in my experience this is many, many more and does not account for the multiple times a child needs to be exposed to a food before they’re happy to try it.
Food neophobia
A natural part of childhood development is a period of fussy eating or food refusal. This is a time when children can become afraid to try new foods. It is an instinctual fear of the unknown or an aversion to foods that look or smell unfamiliar, as well as those that cannot be easily identified when ingredients are mixed up or presented in a sauce.
This fear once served as a survival instinct, helping our ancestors avoid potentially harmful substances and to get the calories they needed quickly and easily, though one which is now no longer helpful to a child. Overcoming this fear and developing a willingness to try new foods can take time and a child will need exposure to foods both at and away from the table to learn that they are safe to eat.
Texture sensitivity
Some children may be sensitive to certain textures, finding them uncomfortable or unpleasant. For example, they might dislike foods that are too slimy, crunchy, or mushy.
Learning to tolerate and appreciate different textures is another aspect which takes time, and we can support our children to enjoy the foods they find tricky by serving them in different ways which transform their texture, such as grating instead of chopping, opting for frozen fruits or cooking until soft rather than offering it raw.
Distraction
Young children generally have short attention spans, unable to stick to a task or activity for very long. There’s a lot to explore and many more exciting things to be doing than sitting at the table to eat. Sometimes eating and their nutrition needs just aren’t as high on their priority list as they are on ours.
It takes time for children to be able to sit at the table long enough to eat a meal, to learn why we need food as well as to develop the difficult and tiring skills involved in self-feeding.
Role modelling
Children are influenced by their peers and the adults who care for them. If they see their friends, siblings and carers enjoying food, eating well and demonstrating a positive relationship with food, they can become more open to trying that food themselves and also develop a positive relationship with it. Likewise, if they perceive a food as undesirable, have never seen someone eat it, or have learned that food groups are to be avoided, they may resist and reject foods.
This is why it is important to eat with our children whenever possible, allowing them to see us both eating and enjoying a wide variety of foods so that, in time, they will start to explore and eventually eat them.
Visibility
Consistently exposing children to a wide variety of foods increases the likelihood that they will develop a taste for a diverse range of foods. If they don’t know those foods exist because they didn’t eat them the first few times we offered them and then didn’t serve them again, they can’t learn to like them. We need to be patient if they reject certain foods and continue to offer them with no pressure for them to eat them.
Pressure
Pressuring children to eat and using food as reward or punishment can create a negative association with eating. This pressure leads to increased stress and a resistance to eat, meaning a child eats less and less the more pressure we apply. Reward and punishment may work in the short term as the child wants to please us or quickly avoid the difficult situation but is unlikely to result in a child learning to love food.
If we can, instead, approach mealtimes with patience and in a calm way, we can avoid these power struggles over food. If we’re relaxed at the table, so are our children more likely to be and this means they are in the best position and frame of mind for exploring food.
A positive mealtime environment
If we can worry less about what our children are or aren’t eating and if we can focus on having fun at mealtimes as well as bringing joy to sharing food, the nutrition will, in time and with some patience and perseverance, naturally follow.
Creating a pleasant atmosphere where the dining table is a place our children want to be, where conversation and connection take precedence over the food that is eaten as well as avoiding negative comments about ingredients or body image, will have a lasting positive impact on a child’s self-esteem and relationship with food.
Control
Almost every aspect of our children’s lives is controlled by someone other than them. If we can give our children the gift of our time and our patience by allowing them some control within the safe boundaries we set, they are more like to learn to eat well and develop a love of food.
One of the ways we can do this is to follow the Division of Responsibility model which states that as carers, we are responsible for when and where our children eat and the food on offer whilst our children are responsible for when they explore the foods we offer as well as what and how much of that food they eat.
Helping children to learn to like food and eat well is a journey that requires time, patience, perseverance and understanding. It’s important to recognise that each child is unique and will progress at their own pace. By creating a positive food environment, modelling the joy that food can bring and avoiding pressure, we can support our children in developing a lifelong love of food.