Transforming Mealtimes: Understanding and Overcoming Picky Eating in Children

Ever wondered why your little one consistently shuns certain foods? Get ready for a transformative dining experience as we unravel the mysteries behind picky eating habits in children. In our latest episode, we dive into the sensory world of kids, uncovering why they might refuse foods based on texture, smell, color, or taste. Learn how to identify and address these sensory issues with practical strategies, including gradual exposure to new foods, consistent mealtime routines, and the power of visual supports like charts. Discover how involving your children in meal preparation and creating a positive, supportive eating environment can bring harmony back to your dining table. Plus, patience pays off—celebrate those small victories and know when to seek professional help to ensure your child’s diet is both healthy and varied.

But that's not all! We also open the doors to our listener community, inviting you to share your thoughts and topic suggestions through Buzzsprout. Your insights and experiences are invaluable to us, and we’re committed to incorporating them into future episodes. We’ll walk you through our process of blending in-depth research with personal stories to craft each engaging discussion. As we sign off, we send our heartfelt wishes for a wonderful weekend and week ahead, promising to reconnect soon with more valuable insights. Join us for an episode packed with actionable advice and heartfelt community engagement, designed to make mealtimes more enjoyable for everyone.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Hi everyone. We're going to do a little podcast today. I hope your weekend is going well, mine is. We're going to talk about food and maybe how our picky eaters are not eating the right kinds of food, and why are they not eating the right kinds of foods? So and I know that some of you are out there that have kids that eat anything I mean they may not like everything, but you know they do, will eat a variety of different kinds of food, which is good.

Speaker 1: 0:54

But there's a lot of them out there that are very picky eaters. One of the reasons could be the texture of the food, the smell or color or just the taste of the food Texture. They may not like the slimy, mushy kind of foods. They may want the crunchy or even spicy kind of foods, and that's okay. But the problem is, is that a lot of times when they want that, we just tend to look at chips and and that's not always the healthiest choice. It's okay for sometimes, but not not as a daily, daily kind of type of thing. So we need to first find out. Why is it? Now? If it is texture, one reason you may know that it is is is that do you have trouble getting them to brush their teeth. Is it like hot, tied to them down and brush your teeth kind of kind of activity? So if they have, then you know that there could be texture, that they're very sensory, so that might be very sensitive in that area. So we need to find out what it is and then we need to work with it. So you want to talk to your doctor, you want to talk to your behavior specialist, you want to talk to any professional that is working with your child, even your speech teacher, all them to maybe try to help with this situation.

Speaker 1: 2:15

Now there are people that do specialize in that, that work with children that are picky eaters and they need to help to kind of break that barrier down. And you have to start out very slowly and gradually and you have to have patience. It does take time but it can be done. I've seen it done Because in my experiences, like I said, I have kids that eat anything and then I had one extreme where she ate nothing. Nothing. They had their own multivitamins and sure and stuff, but she just would not eat. And it was not because of her autism necessarily, but she had GERD when she was a baby, so she had a diversity to food. So you want to be positive, like I said, gradually exposed to new foods, and you know, don't think that, okay, if you try yogurt or whatever, that they have to eat the whole thing. Maybe they just, you start out with one bite and then, you know, talk to your behavior specialist. How are we going to get them to do one or two bites of the food and maybe like a reward or just come on, you can do this kind of a praise type thing. Also, like I said, collaborate with the specialists on this.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Okay, you want consistency, mealtime, you want the visual support and you want a clear communication. Now I'm going to talk about some ideas. So, number one recognize the sensory processing and recognize what it is. Is it the color, is it the smell of food, is it the texture? Find out what area is it that your picky eater is having an issue with and then do small increments, little by little. It doesn't have to be all at once, it doesn't even have to be every day, you know, if you do it, you know, or even once a day could be done like that.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Be consistent about your mealtime. This is time we're going to eat breakfast and lunch and dinner. Now I know with the busy summer, you know it changes a lot of our routines and schedule and everything like that. But try to establish some type of routine. And then, with the visual support, remember I said we could do a visual you could use like a calendar or chart. I like the chart idea because then you could say, okay, you ate this much of carrots and or whatever the food that you pick that you're going to have them eat.

Speaker 1: 4:57

And remember you don't want to do three or four different foods all at once. That's overwhelming. Just do one or two. Or also social stories, maybe. Get stories related to a particular food and read that story or share it together at the table. And also, when you're doing that, don't just have the foods that you're trying to get them to eat. Also have food that they do like to eat too. Their environment check on their environment. Make sure that you know it's a quiet time, the lighting is good, you know maybe everybody's at the table talking yeah. So just check their environment. You know better than I do about what is good for their environment, what's not good for their environment, and offer choices. So I'm just going to use yogurt for the example.

Speaker 1: 5:46

So let's say you want strawberry or blueberry or something like that, and always be positive, don't be negative, don't put negative words about the eating. Don't say if you don't do this you're not going to do that. Don't do that. Just say you do this, you get to do that, you know. Be positive, involve the child in the meal prep, you know, have them help you get their. Whatever they're going to eat Maybe wash the carrots or get the yogurt up, let them pick the yogurt out or something like that. But just try to involve them the best that you can and stay patient and flexible. Celebrate the success once they reach that and they and and they've got it on, like if there's a little chart, they rate the whole thing or they have the thing or a quarter whatever. Have them celebrate it, let them know that they did something really good. And it can be whatever. You know it depends on the child, but you could be stickers, it could just be praise and always seek professional help on this. So, especially if you've got extremely picky, picky eaters, then you need to have somebody that's professional to handle that and then, like I always said, just be positive, relax. You know it just takes a lot of time to break those barriers.

Speaker 1: 7:06

Before I go off today, I let me see if I can find it. I saw a video. It's only like one minute, a little over a minute, and I wrote it down somewhere. I've been cleaning today so I found it. Okay, it says can you make it to the end? And it's an autistic boy and his mother and they're going into the mall and it shows you get to see through his eyes what it's like when he has the meltdown and what brought it on and stuff. It was kind of interesting to me. You know, even though I know that that's what happens, that they don't have the filter and they hear every little sound, but it was kind of interesting. Anyway, it was on YouTube and again it's called Can you Make it To the End? All right, that's all for today.

Speaker 1: 7:58

I hope you guys are having a blessed weekend and a good week coming up. I do have fan mail. I don't know how it works or anything, but with Buzzsprout that I have on there, they have a place now I guess that you can put fan mail. So if you want to ever drop me a line and say, hey, could you do this or that, I will be happy to do the research and look it up, because that's what I do before I get on. I do a little bit of research and then I add my own stuff into it, my own experience, and then I do a podcast. Anyway, have a blessed day and I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.