Tips For Ending Food Battles With Your Kids

This week momstown Oakville moms had an informative moms night out as we got together to speak with Jennifer Buccino, owner of Oakville's Beansprout Nutrition.  Not surprisingly, we had a ton of interest from moms for this event as pretty much every parent will have questions about food and nutrition at some point. Jennifer's approach is very realistic (probably because she has two young kids herself!) and she is easy to talk to, our time with her flew by!

We took questions from our Facebook page and also had many, many questions from the moms who attended the evening and there were certainly some common themes that we all had questions about.  Based on our chat, here are some top tips for ending food battles with your kids and for making meal time more pleasant for everyone.

1.  Remember the final goal of heathly eating. Healthy eating is about teaching your kids about balance and what nourishes their bodies.  Jennifer referenced The Feeding Relationship by Ellyn Satter – adults provide healthy nutritious foods and opportunities for kids to eat that food and kids decide what to eat. Its a really good reminder about not forcing them to eat and respecting their cues more.

2. Not eating dinner.  This problem came up quite a bit.  Jennifer's suggestion was to ask kids to do the 'lick test'!  They don't even have to take a bit, but lick the food so they can at least get the taste in their mouth. And you can certainly pull out dinner again if they didn’t want to eat it at dinner time but are asking for a bedtime snack. It can take up to 18 times before a person may decide they like a food so stick with it!

3.  Healthy eating is not about food at all.  It’s the relationship if you have with the food you have.  Its about the values that meal times represent - family time, sitting at the table together and having conversation, being together, creating rituals, etc.  Jennifer's suggestion was to not talk about food at all at the dinner table!  Asking kids repeatedly to 'eat your dinner', 'take one more bite', 'eat your carrots', makes them less likely to do so.  Would you want to eat if someone was saying those things to you?  Present the food on the table and if they don't want to eat, they still have to sit and participate in meal time but no one should be forced to eat.

4.  Remember to think of the bigger picture.  And that means not just over the course of the day, but over the course of a week.  Kids appetites can fluctuate a lot (no surprise there I don't think!) so look at their food intake in a larger chunk and you can determine if they are eating well or not.  Bigger picture thinking can also apply to things like the holidays.  Treats are in abundance (advent calendars bring on chocolate once a day!) but remember to think of that over the course of the year.  A few weeks of indulgence is not going to ruin good eating habits or have a negative effect on growth.  Its a short period of time when you think about it so try not to stress too much over holiday treats.

5.  Give kids the chance to learn to trust themselves.  They need to be able to decide 'I am full, I only want a bite or two'.  Listen to their cues and trust when they want to eat and when they don't.  In the end, those are cues you want them to have as older children, teens and adults.

Beansprout Nutrition offers a variety of services to suits your needs. Jennifer performs both individual nutrition assessments and nutrition plan, as well as family assessments. Workshops and small group seminars are also offered. Consultations happen in the comfort of your own home, or by email, Skype, telephone if those are more convenient. Contact Jennifer directly at jennifer@beansproutnutrition.ca to book one of her services or visit www.beansproutnutrition.ca for more information.