Got a Picky Eater?

Eating tends to be way less enjoyable when someone says you "should" eat or uses rewards and pressure. Imagine someone tells you they will pay you $100 if you eat a food that you dislike. You'd probably agree to eat it, but would you enjoy it?

Sometimes we need to start by recognizing our own fears and anxieties that could be inadvertently causing us to add pressure to mealtimes. Dr. Katja Rowell refers to this as the worry cycle. It starts by parents worrying if their child will eat enough, which causes them to add more stress and pressure to mealtimes, which makes the child less likely to want to eat, which makes the parents more worried and causes them to add more pressure, which keeps the child even farther away from wanting to eat more foods.... You get the picture.

Rasing healthy happy eaters starts with removing anxieties and completly removing any pressure (including positive pressures) from food exploring.

Studies show that children consumed significantly more food when they were not pressured to eat and they made overwhelmingly fewer negative comments. Children who were pressured to eat at home had lower body mass index percentile scores.

Galloway, A. T., Fiorito, L. M., Francis, L. A., & Birch, L. L. (2006). ‘Finish your soup’: counterproductive effects of pressuring children to eat on intake and affect. Appetite, 46(3), 318-323.

Name a food that you would never eat, even if someone offered you $100!😜