Dietitian Jennifer Anderson, founder of Kids Eat in Color, shares practical, compassionate strategies for transforming mealtime stress into progress.
What inspired you to create Kids Eat In Color?
When my first son was 9 months old, I stood in the pediatrician’s office and she said, “He’s not gaining weight.” I felt like I had failed my son, especially since I was a dietitian! I specialized my knowledge in child feeding at that point. Meanwhile, my second son was picky, showing the beginning signs of being an extreme picky eater.
When my first son was 3, I looked out my kitchen window as I was making him a cute preschool lunch to help him eat, and I thought, “I can’t be the only one having a hard time feeding my kids.” That was when I founded Kids Eat in Color. I started an Instagram account a few months later to find other parents like me and to offer what I could to help make their lives less stressful. I learned I wasn’t the only one, and now I’ve dedicated my career to supporting parents as they feed their children.
How do you define picky eating, and at what point do you think parents should start being concerned about it?
Picky eating is a tricky phrase. Some people think it’s a behavioral problem or character deficit. I think of it as a child choosing to eat fewer foods than most kids. Since there’s no agreed-upon definition of picky eating in the research literature, I look to parents. If they feel like their child isn’t eating many foods and is “picky,” I take them at their word.
Some picky eating is common in children. Other picky eating can be a red flag for restrictive and extreme picky eating, as well as avoidant restrictive feeding intake disorder (ARFID). I rely on the screener I created with occupational therapists specialized in feeding to determine if a child is typically picky or on the more extreme and problematic end. If a child is losing many foods and has a limited list of foods, their parents are finding mealtime very challenging, or their child is eliminating or almost eliminating whole food groups, then it is a red flag that there is more going on. Intervening as soon as the parent has the capacity can be helpful.
Are there warning signs that picky eating could be tied to another underlying health concern?
Sometimes, picky eating is related to allergies, oral-motor development, swallowing, medical conditions, or nutritional deficiencies. I advise avoiding force-feeding so that kids aren’t being forced to eat a food that makes them feel sick or that they are allergic to, even if the parents aren’t aware of it. If a parent suspects their child can’t chew and swallow appropriately, or the child only eats foods that don’t require much chewing, then requesting an evaluation by a pediatric occupational therapist or speech language pathologist can be helpful. Working with a dietitian to rule out nutritional deficiencies is also an option.
What are the biggest myths or misconceptions that you’ve found from parents of picky eaters?
That picky eating is caused by their child’s stubbornness or attempts to be difficult. Picky eaters are often “strong” kids. They are strong because they are protecting their bodies from uncomfortable experiences, which their body perceives as a threat. We can help them learn that food is generally not a threat to them, but that’s a lot harder to do when we think they are in control of their picky eating. Often, when parents learn the many reasons kids can be picky, they relax and begin to give kids the useful tools and structure they need to learn to eat more foods.
What are your top three tips for parents trying to introduce new foods to a picky eater?
1. Eat what you want your child to eat. Modeling is so powerful. When your child sees you eating the foods, they learn what to do, they learn what a balanced plate looks like, and they connect with you, which can create positive feelings and help them relax and eat better.
2. Keep serving the foods. Most kids will take five or 10 times of seeing a food before they will eat it, and picky kids can take tens to hundreds of exposures. If you give up and stop serving it, they won’t have the chance to learn to like it.
3. Don’t force your child to eat a bunch of bites of food. While one-bite rules work for some families, I find they usually cause massive power struggles, unhappiness, and poor mealtime experiences overall. A picky kid forced to eat a food is likely to push back. Instead, you can say, “You can eat it when you’re ready,” and point out the other food they can eat. That takes the wind out of their power struggle sail and promotes a positive mealtime experience, which is what ultimately helps kids try new foods and like them long-term.
What are some positive, pressure-free ways parents can encourage children to try new foods?
- Have kids help with shopping, preparing, cooking, or serving food. It’s a great way to get them interested in food in a low-pressure way.
- Have a plate of veggies out on the table before meals to promote curious tasting.
- Do some voluntary taste tests where you try several varieties of different foods, like green, yellow, orange, and red bell peppers or multi-colored cherry tomatoes (cut in half if you have kids under four years old).
- Learn what foods do in your body. Often, when kids learn that we eat a variety of foods because our bodies need many different nutrients, they want to join in, exploring a rainbow of foods over time.
- Be silly at mealtime! Since my kids were toddlers, we’ve played a game where we pretended a bird was in our broccoli “trees” and made a game of pretending to hear it sing. Now, with our tweens, that game has evolved into 20 questions, where we try to guess what random object someone is imagining in their tree.
If you could give one piece of hope or encouragement to parents feeling defeated by picky eating, what would it be?
Your child’s eating does not define your success as a parent. There are so many doable actions you can take to improve your child’s eating when you’re ready, and also, you are a perfectly wonderful parent just as you are.
