Research has shown that when children are told that vegetables are healthy for them, they are LESS likely to eat them: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/pressReleases/2014/July/140730_JCR_maimaran.html.
(Sorry if this has already been mentioned. I haven’t read the whole thread).
My toddler has learned the word “treat” from her older sister, and halfway through dinner will start saying, “Treat? Treat! Treat!” We can sometimes distract her by saying, “Ooh, would you like a treat pepper slice?” and she’ll say, “YEAH!” and be happy.
I admitted in my post it was a terrible thing to do. I’m trying to undo some bad eating habits set up by others the first three years of my kids life. I was unable to monitor his eating habits as much as I wanted and I’m seeing the results of that.
Explaining to a 4-5 year old why too much candy & sugar is bad and why eating healthy is important isn’t easy.
I don’t point and laugh at short or disabled people. It was a one time thing. I’m just trying to get on a 4-5 year old’s level that eating healthy helps you grow and keeps you strong.
What has worked for us - two ten year boys - just keep offering small bites, reminding that tastes change as you grow. I praise them for trying and eating a little, even if it’s not their favorite dish. One son who has never liked onions just last week said that the onions were his favorite part of some recent veggie fried rice. Even he said he was surprised. Remember fruit is full of fiber and nutrition, so a varied fruit diet can help supplement the vegetables.
Cut/grate veggies up small and incorporate them into pastas, casseroles, rice dishes, meatloaf etc. Those go down easily. I don’t try to hide the veggies by adding purees, but I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. It’s a way to introduce the flavors.
My boys will tell you they don’t like vegetables, but they both love soup and will pick out recipes for soup when I ask them to look through magazines or Pinterest for new recipes to try. They choose soups that are obviously full of vegetables and eat them up. I think the soft texture and mingled flavors of a good soup are appealing to them. I try to make a good veggie laden soup once a week.
My kids were huge fans of “pumpkin” soup (which was really butternut squash soup, shh! Pumpkins are MUCH cooler) when they were little.
There is no need to resort to lying to your kid to improve his eating habits. He may be trusting enough to believe you at the moment, but any day now, he is going to realize that no, he actually did not grow any taller because he ate an apple and that short people are not short from eating candy. What will you tell him when he asks why you lied to him?
Explaining to a child his age why it is not good to overdo candy and sugar is actually not complicated at all. I wouldn’t expect any explanation to convince them to avoid candy and sugar, since candy is delicious, but there is no need to obscure the facts about why we should minimize sugars in our diets and why it is important to eat a variety of healthy foods.
You can tell him about building muscles, strong bones, not getting cavities, having a lot of energy, and feeling good. You can talk about how his body needs protein, vitamins, and minerals and that when he eats candy instead of real food he doesn’t feel hungry and doesn’t get the nutrients his body needs to stay healthy because he ate the candy instead of real food.
Don’t try. Give them toddler vitamins, and ignore what they eat or don’t eat.
I didn’t do the “clean plate” thing or the “try a bite” thing or anything else. Both my kids survived childhood, and both are well-nourished, well-developed adults with catholic and wide-ranging tastes, including sushi and broccoli and spinach and practically anything else. Plus, mealtimes are much more pleasant when you aren’t arguing.
We didn’t have dessert very much, which meant WYSIWYG at dinner time.
My $.02 worth, and cheap at half the price.
Regards,
Shodan
Vitamin supplements are not a substitute for eating healthy foods. They are not absorbed by the body the same way. They can lead to overdosing on some vitamins. As a “dietary supplement,” they are not subjected to much oversight and may not contain what they claim to.
The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend dosing healthy children with multivitamins.
People feel better about their kids eating unhealthy food and see the supplement as somehow making up for their dietary deficiencies, but giving your kid medicine so you will feel better is not a good idea. It’s a supplement, not a substitute. Maybe one day we will have a pill we can take that will perfectly satisfy our nutritional requirements, but that pill does not yet exist.
The key to getting your kid to eat a healthy diet is simply to serve them a healthy diet. No need to argue, bribe, cajole, threaten, lie, sneak, guilt, cheer, strategize or contort yourself. Cooking healthy meals all the time is kind of a hassle, but use the energy you’ve saved from avoiding learning all the songs and dances.
Sven: FWIW, my two-year-old will eat veggies but no meat. Maddening, but I figure there is plenty of time for this tendency to turn around by itself.
We have been advised to acclimate him by making a game of new foods at a time he’s not hungry, to get him to pick up the food, kiss it, put it in his mouth. We have not really found that this actually expands his willingness to eat , though.
Have you tried avocado? It’s been one of our child’s surprising favorites. Half a banana can be a hit if she has fun peeling it herself. If she’ll eat yogurt, she might accept berries hidden therein. Also, my son was a huge fan of Gerber’s little veggie trays when he first started with solids; something about the texture and the presentation really worked for him.
My toddler dislikes meat also. Her exceptions are bacon, ham, chicken nuggets, and the tenderer parts of roast chicken. You know what I think it is? Baby teeth can’t handle most meat. I remember loving the flavor of steak when I was little, but when I would take a bite I would chew-chew-chew-chew-chew and get nowhere. I had to swallow it with gulps of milk.
So I’m not pushing the meat thing on her right now. She gets plenty of eggs and dairy and peanut butter.
Exposure, Exposure, Exposure.
Plus, a bright green smoothie made with cooked spinach (cook quickly just enough to wilt, then rinse in cold water), bananas, milk (or ricemilk or yogurt) and a crapload of honey goes down real easy. I haven’t met the kid yet who doesn’t like my super green smoothies.
Thank you for all of the good advice. So far, telling her not to eat X, Y, Z has worked brilliantly. We are also going for slow and consistent exposure, and I am looking in to getting her more interesting tableware.
Well, what do you tell your kids when they ask why you lied to them?
If I lied to my child, it would have to be for a good reason, so that reason would be my explanation.
I don’t tell my child nonsensical lies about Santa, tooth fairies, made-up consequences of behavior I don’t like, what happens when pets or people die, my opinions of things, etc. Why would I? I wanted my child to learn about the actual world, not some bizarro pseudo-sanitized version I concocted. I want to deserve my child’s trust and to set an example.
I’m not saying that lying should be avoided at all costs. Sometimes it is the best of poor alternatives. But why lie to your own child about something for seemingly no reason at all? Candy is not a healthy choice of food. There is no reason to make up fake consequences of candy-eating when the entire reason you don’t want him to overindulge in candy is because it is unhealthy for him. Why does this need a cover story? Why tell him a harmful lie when the truth will do?
Telling your kid lies is not communicating with him “on his level.” Telling your kid he might end up short - oh no! - as a result of eating candy is horrible. Telling him other people are short or disabled as a result of eating candy is even worse. So what if you only did it once? If you told him and he believed you, how many times would it take to be a real problem do you suppose?
There’s a Berenstain book on healthy food, called " too much junk food". Explains rather well the concept of healthy food vs junk food. My kid loves that book, the whole series, in fact.
Also, I heard that it takes six tries for a kid to start to get used to something. So I tell my kid he has to try a little bite at six mealtimes.
I love this. What are you planning to do when you make a nice virtuous healthy meal with all the food groups, and the kid only eats two of the food groups? The same two, every time?
It’s fairly easy to make sure that a (small) kid doesn’t eat unhealthy food. Making sure the kid eats a balanced diet is a whole different thing.
Spinach smoothie was a hit!
You don’t worry about it. They won’t get malnourished in the time a toddler takes to reject and then pick up foods.
Think of the kids that eat nothing but Mac n Cheese - they don’t come down with scurvy. Plenty of parents don’t bother to even set healthy options in front of their kids, yet for the most part those kids function. If you are aware and providing healthy options, you are up on a hell of a lot of parents and kids - your kids aren’t going to get morbidly obese or develop type ii diabetes.
My daughter has a friend who is fourteen now. Her diet is limited, but healthy. She drinks milk, eats a selection of vegetables - but not many. Apples but no other fruit. Some meats (chicken nuggets), some pasta (mac and cheese, but not spaghetti), and nothing mixed together. And she’s healthy. She probably isn’t going to ever be an adventurous eater - it isn’t in her nature. But then, her father is far from an adventurous eater, so she hasn’t really had that modeled either.
But be careful of turning it into a power play. Another friend’s nephew had eating issues as a kid - but it was about him controlling his environment. It was handled poorly - including letting the kid eat very little but Doritos and Hostess products because “he needs the calories and won’t eat anything else.” That did not work out well long term because he learned that if he is stubborn enough, he gets his own way. Toddlers won’t choose to starve to death if their choice is some grapes, some noodles, some chicken nuggets and a glass of milk - that day - and for a week, they might not eat anything but the noodles. However, you don’t do them favors by letting them fix their hunger with a Twinkie because “that’s all he’ll eat.” (Kid is fairly healthy. Overweight and a little monster, but all his bones grew)
Toddlerhood is about teaching someone who controlled every aspect of pregnancy that that period in your child’s development is now OVER and they are IN CHARGE - at least over the things they can be in charge of - like potty training and what they eat. Not as much as having a surly fifteen year old in the house, but its good practice.
I agree with Dangerosa. You’re the parent, and a toddler can only eat what you provide her. She also isn’t going to starve to death.
It’s a little kid - they don’t need much of anything really. You’ve got to look at what they eat over a week rather than trying to balance every meal.
If you make mac and cheese then MAKE it - Chuck the package of yellow stuff away and put butter and grated cheese on the pasta with a side of greens and/or grate shredded vegetables into it.