Transforming Mealtimes: Understanding and Overcoming Picky Eating in Children

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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.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone.
We're going to do a littlepodcast today.
I hope your weekend is goingwell, mine is.
We're going to talk about foodand maybe how our picky eaters
are not eating the right kindsof food, and why are they not
eating the right kinds of foods?
So and I know that some of youare out there that have kids
that eat anything I mean theymay not like everything, but you

(00:23):
know they do, will eat avariety of different kinds of
food, which is good.
But there's a lot of them outthere that are very picky eaters
.
One of the reasons could be thetexture of the food, the smell
or color or just the taste ofthe food Texture.
They may not like the slimy,mushy kind of foods.

(00:44):
They may want the crunchy oreven spicy kind of foods, and
that's okay.
But the problem is, is that alot of times when they want that
, we just tend to look at chipsand and that's not always the
healthiest choice.
It's okay for sometimes, butnot not as a daily, daily kind
of type of thing.
So we need to first find out.

(01:07):
Why is it?
Now?
If it is texture, one reasonyou may know that it is is is
that do you have trouble gettingthem to brush their teeth.
Is it like hot, tied to themdown and brush your teeth kind
of kind of activity?
So if they have, then you knowthat there could be texture,
that they're very sensory, sothat might be very sensitive in

(01:28):
that area.
So we need to find out what itis and then we need to work with
it.
So you want to talk to yourdoctor, you want to talk to your
behavior specialist, you wantto talk to any professional that
is working with your child,even your speech teacher, all
them to maybe try to help withthis situation.

(01:49):
Now there are people that dospecialize in that, that work
with children that are pickyeaters and they need to help to
kind of break that barrier down.
And you have to start out veryslowly and gradually and you
have to have patience.
It does take time but it can bedone.
I've seen it done Because in myexperiences, like I said, I

(02:13):
have kids that eat anything andthen I had one extreme where she
ate nothing.
Nothing.
They had their ownmultivitamins and sure and stuff
, but she just would not eat.
And it was not because of herautism necessarily, but she had
GERD when she was a baby, so shehad a diversity to food.

(02:36):
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, thatthey have to eat the whole thing
.
Maybe they just, you start outwith one bite and then, you know
, talk to your behaviorspecialist.
How are we going to get them todo one or two bites of the food

(02:59):
and maybe like a reward or justcome on, you can do this kind
of a praise type thing.
Also, like I said, collaboratewith the specialists on this.
Okay, you want consistency,mealtime, you want the visual
support and you want a clearcommunication.

(03:20):
Now I'm going to talk aboutsome ideas.
So, number one recognize thesensory processing and recognize
what it is.
Is it the color, is it thesmell of food, is it the texture
?
Find out what area is it thatyour picky eater is having an
issue with and then do smallincrements, little by little.

(03:44):
It doesn't have to be all atonce, it doesn't even have to be
every day, you know, if you doit, you know, or even once a day
could be done like that.
Be consistent about yourmealtime.
This is time we're going to eatbreakfast and lunch and dinner.
Now I know with the busy summer, you know it changes a lot of
our routines and schedule andeverything like that.

(04:04):
But try to establish some typeof routine.
And then, with the visualsupport, remember I said we
could do a visual you could uselike a calendar or chart.
I like the chart idea becausethen you could say, okay, you
ate this much of carrots and orwhatever the food that you pick

(04:28):
that you're going to have themeat.
And remember you don't want todo 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 aparticular food and read that
story or share it together atthe table.

(04:48):
And also, when you're doingthat, don't just have the foods
that you're trying to get themto eat.
Also have food that they dolike to eat too.
Their environment check ontheir environment.
Make sure that you know it's aquiet time, the lighting is good
, you know maybe everybody's atthe table talking yeah.
So just check their environment.

(05:09):
You know better than I do aboutwhat is good for their
environment, what's not good fortheir environment, and offer
choices.
So I'm just going to use yogurtfor the example.
So let's say you want strawberryor blueberry or something like
that, and always be positive,don't be negative, don't put
negative words about the eating.

(05:30):
Don't say if you don't do thisyou're not going to do that.
Don't do that.
Just say you do this, you getto do that, you know.
Be positive, involve the childin the meal prep, you know, have
them help you get their.
Whatever they're going to eatMaybe wash the carrots or get
the yogurt up, let them pick theyogurt out or something like

(05:51):
that.
But just try to involve themthe best that you can and stay
patient and flexible.
Celebrate the success once theyreach that and they and and
they've got it on, like ifthere's a little chart, they
rate the whole thing or theyhave the thing or a quarter
whatever.
Have them celebrate it, letthem know that they did
something really good.

(06:12):
And it can be whatever.
You know it depends on thechild, but you could be stickers
, it could just be praise andalways seek professional help on
this.
So, especially if you've gotextremely picky, picky eaters,
then you need to have somebodythat's professional to handle
that and then, like I alwayssaid, just be positive, relax.

(06:35):
You know it just takes a lot oftime to break those barriers.
Before I go off today, I let mesee if I can find it.
I saw a video.
It's only like one minute, alittle over a minute, and I
wrote it down somewhere.
I've been cleaning today so Ifound it.

(06:55):
Okay, it says can you make itto the end?
And it's an autistic boy andhis mother and they're going
into the mall and it shows youget to see through his eyes what
it's like when he has themeltdown and what brought it on
and stuff.
It was kind of interesting tome.

(07:16):
You know, even though I knowthat that's what happens, that
they don't have the filter andthey hear every little sound,
but it was kind of interesting.
Anyway, it was on YouTube andagain it's called Can you Make
it To the End?
All right, that's all for today.
I hope you guys are having ablessed weekend and a good week

(07:36):
coming up.
I do have fan mail.
I don't know how it works oranything, but with Buzzsprout
that I have on there, they havea place now I guess that you can
put fan mail.
So if you want to ever drop mea line and say, hey, could you
do this or that, I will be happyto do the research and look it
up, because that's what I dobefore I get on.
I do a little bit of researchand then I add my own stuff into

(07:59):
it, my own experience, and thenI do a podcast.
Anyway, have a blessed day andI will talk to you soon.
Bye-bye.