How to avoid dinner table dramas

Did your delicious dinner get the "Yuck!" treatment? Katy Gosset talks to families about fussy eating and a clinical psychologist serves up some tips.

'Why can't my child just eat a vegetable?' is the refrain of many parents. Katy Gosset examines the fraught issue of fussy eating in the third episode of Are We There Yet.

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When did you last dish up a disgusting meal?

If you've got children, chances are it's happened in the last week.

We might imagine ourselves to be good cooks but our kids say otherwise, banning broccoli and brussels sprouts from their plates, spurning sauces and spices and issuing insults like there's no tomorrow.

"My younger child, he would just refuse to try any foods and he would just say 'It's yucky' - mother of two.

"They probably ate vegetables up until about 18 months and then it was like their taste buds came in and it was 'Nah!' - mother of two.

"I don't know what it is. They just don't like anything now. It's like you've basically got to cook up a My Kitchen Rules dinner for them or something and they might eat it" - mother of four.

Little wonder then that parents resort to creative solutions.

"I'd mix things in with other things so they wouldn't notice what they were, like cauliflower ... maybe slice it really thin and put it in with mashed potato" - mother of four.

"They both love to bake so I put things like pumpkin in scones or grated zucchini in cakes as ways of getting vegetables into them" - mother of two.

Is something wrong with our cooking? Why do our children reject the meal in the first place?

Catherine Gallagher

Clinical psychologist Catherine Gallagher has spent years working with parents on feeding issues and says there can be many reasons for fussy eating.

But it usually begins with biology.

"It starts with sensory sensitivities. It can start with reflux. It can start with allergies... and then some kids just don't love food."

Others may reject a certain food because it resembles or reminds them of another disliked item.

Children are reacting to both their biology and the anxiety it generates, Ms Gallagher says.

"So if I've eaten food or had stuff go into my tummy and then I've felt sick, then I'm going to develop ways to go "'Bleurrgh... keep that out of my face'."

The child's reaction then provokes anxiety in his or her parents, she says.

She experienced this first hand when taking her own child to Plunket to be weighed…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details