August 24, 2022 • 48 mins
To foodie parents with a picky eater at home, it can feel like they're living with an anti-foodie.
Luckily, Jennifer Anderson of Kids Eat in Color has some tips and mitigation strategies to help parents get through making dinner and packing that back to school lunch to provide their child with balanced nutrition.
Jennifer Anderson/Kids Eat in Color
- Kids Eat in Color Website: https://kidseatincolor.com/
- Picky Eating Guide: https://kidseatincolor.com/picky-eating-guide/
- Kids Eat in Color Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kids.eat.in.color/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jess (00:12):
Hi, it's Jess, and you're listening to another episode of
The flaky foodie podcast. Theonly show where the discussion
is delicious and there's chatterto chew on. If you're listening,
I'm assuming that you're afoodie or someone who's into
food the same way that I'm intofood. And if you have any little
ones running around your house,you know that they can feel very
(00:35):
much like an anti foodie, orsomeone who doesn't want to
indulge in every foodimaginable. They just want to
stick with something plain ormaybe stick with something that
you don't know what it is. So tokeep maybe you and definitely me
to from pulling our hair outwhile we prepare our evening
dinner or while we fix thoseinfamous back to school lunches,
(00:58):
I will talk with picky eatingexpert Jennifer Anderson of kids
eat in color. It's going to be aphenomenal interview with great
tips. So please tune in andright before that, I'll tell you
where I've been for the past twoor three months.
(01:21):
So before we get to ourinterview with Jennifer, I just
want to say welcome to everyoneto Season Two of the podcast.
And thank you so much toeveryone who listened to
supported and shared the veryfirst season. This season, it
has great things in store. Butfirst of all, I want to
apologize because I meant tohave a very big send off of the
(01:43):
first season. Make someannouncements on the air on the
podcast, but burnout kind ofreared its ugly head a few
things did not fall into placethe way I planned and had to be
shelved until this season. AndI'm excited to finally bring all
of that to you. Because I mean,this season is multifaceted
(02:06):
there's so many different peoplehave so many different
backgrounds that I get to talkwith. I talk with a food truck
owner, I talk with a cookbookauthor, I talk with a historian
who knows so much about thehistory of food and I can't wait
to bring all of that to youreardrums. But before we get into
that, another thing I have toemphasize is that my youtube
(02:31):
channel will be jumping. On thisseason. Almost every audio
episode will have a YouTubecounterpart including this one.
The interview will be availableon YouTube as well I am
TheFlakyFoodie on YouTube. Gothere, subscribe and be in the
(02:53):
know so that you'll be therewhen a new interview drops. But
let's get back to the show. Andafter a brief message I will
talk with Jennifer from kids eatin color
It's is back to school time. Somake sure your little one has
everything they need for an Aplus lunch. Start your free
(03:15):
Instacart plus trial to getunlimited free delivery on
orders $35 and up. To sign uptoday for free just visit my
page atwww.theflakyfoodie.com/offers to
take advantage of this veryspecial opportunity. Today we
(03:38):
have with us Jennifer Anderson.
She's a registered dietitian,master's in public health. And
she's the mind behind kids eatin color, which is a phenomenal
resource for the parents ofpicky eaters. So welcome to the
show. Jennifer, I'm so excitedto have you here today.
Jennifer A. (03:55):
Thank you so much for having me.
Jess (03:57):
Yes. So tell me about how kids eat in color got started.
You're a mom, and you kind ofhave struggles with picky eating
in your kids lives. So how didthat kind of translate into kids
getting color?
Jennifer A. (04:11):
Yeah, so I was standing in the pediatricians
office when my son was ninemonths old. And the pediatrician
looked me in the eye and saidhe's not gaining weight. I was
shocked. I'm a dietitian. Itturns out kids don't care what
you do for your work. But I wasshocked. And I immediately began
(04:32):
specializing my child feedingknowledge just to help him and
then my second son was a pickyeater. And I think through all
this, yes, I was helping my sonand I was gaining all the tools
that I needed. But I felt thatdeep angst that parents feel
when their kids aren't eatingwell. And I really wanted to
(04:55):
help connect other people tocommunity where they felt like
they weren't alone. And theyknew that feeding kids is
tricky. And if you have a hardtime feeding your child, it's
not your fault. You're not a badparent. But I also wanted to
help parents know what'stypical, what's not? How do you
help your child? What shouldyour child be eating? What can
(05:16):
you do? What are the toolsavailable to you. And that's how
kids eat in color ended up beinga resource center for parents
how to how to feed their kids,how to know what's typical, you
know, providing them withscreeners and things like that.
Jess (05:30):
So let's talk a little bit about child development. Most of
the time, when we talk aboutpicky eaters, my son is four
most of the time we talk aboutbeating, picky eating is between
the age of like one and four.
Developmentally what's kind ofgoing on during that time that
can lead to picky eating or leadto your child being picky.
Jennifer A. (05:50):
Sure, so around the age of one, kids often start
developing something called nearphobia or the fear of new foods.
That's not the only cause ofpicky eating. That's one of
about 200 causes. 200 is not anofficial number. But you know,
it's helpful in some ways, wedon't want kids wandering around
(06:11):
and eating mushrooms in theyard. But we do want them to eat
the foods that maybe theyhaven't seen since last growing
season. And so those are new aswell. And I think the challenge
is kind of how we respond tothat typical pig eating, I
generally think of that kind ofemergence of picky eating for
(06:31):
some kids as a typical phasethat many kids go through how we
respond to that. And whetheryour kid is showing signs of
more atypical picky eating, orsomething that's maybe more
serious, can kind of change thechange the trajectory of where
your child is gonna go, is itgoing to become more serious? Or
(06:51):
is it just going to kind of staythe same?
Jess (06:53):
So you mentioned, there's many, many causes of picky
eating, when you're kind oftrying to treat picky eating,
how do you kind of determinewhat the cause is?
Jennifer A. (07:04):
Great question. Of course, this is like more in
depth. So like in our in ourpicky eating course, like we
have a whole section dedicatedto this, because it can be
really complicated. But I willsay this, we have a quick
screener on our website that atleast can tell you is your
child, what we would consider itto be kind of typically picky.
(07:26):
Or is it something more serious?
If you just need kind of a oneminute, hey, where am I at on
the spectrum? But there'sgenetic factors. There's
factors, just from parenting,what are you? What are you
doing, I always like to remindparents, they're not the only
reason their child might bepicky. So even if you're doing
something that's unhelpful, it'sprobably something that I've
(07:49):
also done and all parents havedone. So it's not like you're
you're ruining your child forbeing a human. There's also
sensory issues, your child mayhave a more intense or less
intense experience with food.
And your child may also, there'sa recent paper that just came
out, and I don't like to citesingle studies, because that's
(08:11):
not how research works. But Iwill make an exception today
because it was so interesting.
They were comparing executivefunction skills in child's brain
with picky eating. Just theconcept of this study was mind
blowing to me who even thoughtto look at this. And what this
particular study explored wasdifferent executive functions.
(08:32):
So for example, one of those isflexibility of thinking, can
they be flexible? Can they not?
Kids who were not flexible intheir executive functioning,
were more likely to be picky,which is like mind blowing. Now
we can't we can't take thisaway. We can't go home and say,
(08:52):
Oh, my gosh, inflexible peoplewho are picky eaters, we can't
that's not what we can take fromthe study. But what we can take
is, it's interesting, there maybe relationship with how our
brains work in executivefunctioning, and whether we can
be flexible enough to eat foodsthat are not what we're
expecting. So there's so manyfactors that we're still
discovering, and stillunderstanding that helps us
(09:14):
understand are people willing toeat a lot of foods or not?
Jess (09:17):
So let's talk a little bit about the kind of feelings that
kind of happened when your childis a picky eater. What did you
yourself experience when yourchild was undergoing this kind
of picky eating phase? And whathave you seen other parents?
What kind of feelings do theyhave when their child was a
picky or is a picky eater?
Jennifer A. (09:37):
Sure. So when I was standing in that pediatricians
office, I felt like an absolutefailure. As a mother, I've been
a mom for, you know, all of ninemonths, right? And she's telling
me that my child is falling offthe growth chart. And what I
find is parents who have pickyeaters or a child who has maybe
an iron deficiency or anythingrelated to eating, we
immediately internalize that asour own failure. Our her own, we
(10:00):
feel defeated, we feelfrustrated, we feel angry, we
feel anxious, all these feelingsjust come rushing in. And of
course, I think especially asmoms who have kind of we've made
their child inside our body,right, and then, you know, if
you're, you're breastfeeding,you're also feeding the child
with your body. And so just andeven if you're bottle feeding,
(10:21):
it just doesn't even matter,right, as, as moms, we have
this, like really visceralconnection to feeding our kids.
And I think we just take itreally personally, yes, you
know, we feel it in our soulsthat we have failed our child in
some way, you know, I don't knowthat there's a way around those
feelings.
Jess (10:40):
There may be no way around those feelings, is there a way
to kind of mitigate that and tomake dinnertime a better
experience for parent and child?
Jennifer A. (10:50):
Absolutely. I think we always have to acknowledge,
hey, the feelings are going tobe there. And we can accept
those feelings kind of for whatthey are, or at least practice
accepting that when it comes tothe actual mealtime, and you're
sitting across the table fromyour child who, who may show
signs picky eating from the ageof even six months, and they may
(11:11):
not grow out of theirchallenges, you know, my Picky
Eater is seven, and he stillstruggles. I mean, he has an
amazing variety of foods that hewill eat, because of all the
work that we've done, but I canstill see it. As someone who
specialized in this, I can seeit, I could see how hard it is
for him and how he has to workat that. The big thing, I think
(11:33):
if you take one tool away, whereyou're thinking, Okay, how do we
reduce some stress, it's reallyto stop pressuring your child to
eat. When you get in there. Andyou I, even last night, you
know, my sons, we're not eatingtheir chicken. And my husband
and I have a lot of knowledgeabout child feeding. Like, this
(11:56):
is my job. My son, my husband issitting across the table going,
this is your protein. And, youknow, he's not the only one. I
don't say this to bash on myhusband, because obviously I
have it probably did it a weekago, we just moved. And so
things are you know, everybody'son edge. But we really want our
(12:17):
kids to eat, did that work? Didit work him like putting his
hands on the table and say thisis your protein?
Jess (12:26):
The kid is like so?!
Jennifer A. (12:29):
I mean, done. And now they know enough. And my my
seven year old he is like,Mommy, milk has eight grams of
protein. So he's thinking, hey,I already ate a protein for
breakfast? Like, why do I needto eat my chicken. But I think I
think we get emotionallyinvolved at dinner time. And
(12:49):
when we do that kids aren'tgoing to eat for us. Like, the
more we push, the more they arelike. So what
Jess (12:59):
it's like, as a kid, you don't have much control over
your life, you know, people pickyou up, take you where you need
to go and tell you what to needto do. And food can kind of be
that way to get independence,you know.
Jennifer A. (13:12):
I mean, it's really one of the few things that you
really have, like, you're incontrol of going to the
bathroom, and you're in controlof eating, and we let our kids
pick their clothes. So they'rein control of that. But I mean,
beyond that, you know, we setthe schedule, we do that, you
know so much.
Jess (13:29):
So if we can't sit them down at the table and be like,
Hey, you eat your food, and youdo it now, how do we? How do we
as parents get kids to eat awide variety of different foods?
Jennifer A. (13:41):
Sure. So I do think there are so just as we were
talking about, you know, there'ssome things they have to do,
they do have to come to thetable, that's to come to the
table, they have to sit down.
Depending on your child, youhave to kind of figure out what
their attention span is. Somekids do you have to say, you can
just say, Hey, you got to sithere until everybody's done.
That doesn't work for my childwho's extremely high energy,
(14:03):
right? So with him, we're kindof flexible on that. And we say,
okay, give us 10 minutes, 12minutes, we try to be engaging
at dinnertime, but they gottacome to the table. They have to
sit for an age appropriateamount of time, whatever you
determine that is, and they'renot in charge of the menu,
(14:24):
right? Because if they were,there'll be a lot of mac and
cheese right, which isunderstandable. But really, we
can provide that variety. We canshow it to them over and over
and over. Maybe for example, Iserved stir fry the other night.
We haven't had a stir fry inages. And it's a tricky food for
(14:46):
my kids because it's mixedespecially my kid he struggles
with kind of trying those newfoods. So mixed foods are really
stressful for him. So and youknow stir fry everything Mix mix
together. So I made thevegetables together. And then I
made the meat separate. And thenI serve white rice, which is
something that my son feels verycomfortable with. He loves rice,
(15:10):
put some butter on it, whatever.
So it's like, okay, there'sgonna be something that he
likes. They're usually likes.
You never know what kids, right?
But he usually likes that. Andso I'm going to serve everything
separately, and I'm just gonnalet him choose. Well, he
definitely he started eating therice. And then we, you know,
different people are eatingvegetables and chicken on their
(15:32):
plates. And I say, Would youlike some of these vegetables?
And he kind of looks at it. It'slike, what is that? It's like,
well, it's this, this cabbage,and it's got some, whatever else
was in there. He's like, Oh,take a taste. But he wanted it
on a separate plate. mean, don'tcontaminate his plate, right. So
(15:55):
here's a little tasty play. Hetakes a bite. And he says, Okay,
I'll have more. The kids endedup fighting over it. They liked
it so much.
Jess (16:04):
Over vegetables, right?
That's a huge win.
Unknown (16:07):
Right. Right. But I think it's because it was
separate and no pressure. Yeah.
And then at the end, he waslike, why don't you give me any
chicken was like, Oh, I mean,you can have some if you want
some. So we ended up eating it.
But in a way that felt okay, andsafe and comfortable for him.
And because it was low pressure,they were able to kind of say,
(16:27):
Okay, we'll try it. And theyended up liking it, which, you
know, doesn't always happen. ButI guess if you put enough soy
sauce on it. It tastes good. So
Jess (16:38):
So I was reading that, as opposed to kind of fixing your
child's plate and kind ofsitting in front of them with
things on Is is family style,where you kind of pass a dish
around and ask them what dishesfrom the family meal that they
would like, Is that helpful?
Does it even matter or is itmore of your approach, like
saying you don't you don't haveto eat that if you don't want
to.
Jennifer A. (16:58):
Yeah, so you know, every family is going to be
different. And you kind of hadwhen the kids were little, I put
the food on their plate. Whenyou are putting food on their
plate, I highly recommend smallportions, like think about what
you want them to eat, cut thatin half, and then cut that in
half again, I like to call thesewishful portions. Like as
(17:21):
parents, we wish our child atethis amount of food. But when we
make it really small, it's notoverwhelming to them, they feel
more comfortable. And then theylearn to ask for more. So it's a
couple of things like they feelless overwhelmed, which can help
picky eaters, they can alsolisten to their body, am I
hungry? Am I Am I full? Do Iwant more do I not. And then it
also reduces food waste, right?
So if you're going to pre plate,that's a great idea. If you want
(17:44):
to serve family style that cangive kids who want more
independence, like a feelingthat they have a little bit more
control over what they'reeating. So for kids who kind of
want that control andindependence, family style can
be great. It's also more messy,in my opinion. And then
sometimes the kids don't evenput the food on their plate. At
(18:05):
this point, my kids are mostlyoffended. If I put all the food
on their plate. That's not yourjob. That's my job to get on my
plate. So you know, I think wehave to kind of balance like,
what are your kids? Like? Whatare you like, what's your family
situation like the other day?
(18:25):
Like I said, we just moved andthere's dishes and stuff all
over the kitchen. And I puttogether their lunches, and they
didn't complain, you know, it'slike, but at dinnertime? No way.
No way.
Jess (18:39):
So we may have listeners from our older generation where
you know, you just eat what'sput in front of you. of why is
that not necessarily feasible inthis modern time?
Jennifer A. (18:50):
Yeah. So I always like to start by saying in
different times different thingsmake sense. So if you have grown
up in a time when food wasn'talways accessible, or you're
currently living in a time whenfood isn't always accessible, it
makes 100% sense that you sitdown and you are forced to eat
(19:12):
everything on your plate. Sothere's no I don't, I don't
think there's a moral issue. Andif somebody is not doing this,
you're probably doing it for areason. Right. So I always like
to start by just acknowledgingthat reality. If you are in a
place where you have plenty offood, and it's plentiful, and
(19:33):
you know, your kids are going tobirthday parties and you're
exposed to all sorts ofdifferent things. You're maybe
going to restaurants, there's aton of food available. And if
you've been taught to Alwaysclean your plate, you're going
to end up eating way more thanyou may want to. Now sometimes
we want to eat a lot, right?
Cool, that's fine. You know,Thanksgiving, I am going to eat,
(19:56):
pass what feels comfortable. I'mjust I'm going to do that and
I'm gonna enjoy that experience.
Right. But I, I want to be ableto choose when I do that when I
don't, right? I have gone tomore birthday parties, where
I've eaten cake that I don'teven like, I don't even really
like cake. So going to theseparties, I'm eating these huge
(20:18):
pieces of cake that I don't evenlike, because I feel like I have
to. And I have to finish it. Iwould much rather be able to go
to a birthday party and say, Oh,no, I, I actually don't want the
cake. Because truly, I don'tlike cake. I just want the ice
cream. Or, or give me the potatochips, like something I actually
(20:39):
enjoy. I want to I want to havethat choice. And I want my kids
to have that choice as well. Idon't want that because of how I
train them to always finishtheir plate and never listen to
kind of what their internal bodyis telling them. I want them to
be able to be able to chooselike, do I want to eat a lot? Do
I want to eat a little Do I likethis food do I not. And it also
(21:00):
kind of teaches kids to reallykind of tune in to what their
inside body is saying. And whenwe teach kids that it's a skill
that can go way beyond eveneating?
Jess (21:11):
Yes. So in this day and age two, you mentioned before
that if a family is in a toughsituation, parents may tell them
to kind of finish their plate,you have to eat what's put in
front of you. But if the childis a picky eater, that situation
can become very stressful. So ifespecially with rising food
costs and kind of gasolineprices rising, putting families
(21:33):
in difficult situations, howwould somebody in a difficult
kind of financial situation kindof deal with a picky eater in
their home?
Jennifer A. (21:41):
Yeah, it's so challenging. I think that's
really tricky. And that justreminds me we have a low cost
meal plan that we give to afamily. If you're If a family is
like in need, you can get it forfree. So if you need to kind of
find a meal plan that will helpyou really stretch your food
dollars that's available forfree on our website. But I think
(22:06):
that the challenge, as you saidwith a picky eater is you don't
have a lot of wiggle room forfood waste and things like that.
And that's one of the reasonswhy we really suggest the micro
portions, right? Make it small,think about what you want them
to eat, cut it in half, cut itin half again, give them that if
there's a food that you wantthem to learn how to like to
eat, you don't have to give thema lot that they're going to be
(22:29):
wasting, for example, maybe youwant them to learn to eat like
peas, you could buy frozen peas,or canned peas. And you can take
especially frozen, you can takeout two peas, put them on their
plate, that's an exposure andyou still have a bag safe in the
freezer. Right? So you can kindof think creatively, like, I
(22:49):
want my kids to learn to like avariety of foods, but I don't
want to be wasting food, how canI do that? How can I cook food
that can be separated out sothat they can eat the thing that
they like, and the rest of thefamily can eat the rest of the
meal. So I like to think ofthese kind of deconstructed
things my, my son could havejust eaten the rice. And the
other family could have eatenthe chicken and the vegetables.
(23:11):
And there could have beenanother meal where he would eat,
you know, chicken and whateverelse right? Over the course of
the day, he's likely to geteverything he needs, as long as
they're kind of servedthroughout the day. So I think,
kind of change your mindset ofinstead of making a casserole,
which sometimes can feel liketogether, everything's together.
(23:33):
It's easy, and it's quick, andit's inexpensive, right? But if
you're picky eater doesn't likeit, then you're in, then they
can't eat anything. And it canreally build up a lot of stress
for everybody in the family. Soinstead of cooking that
casserole, can you cook thosefoods separated out, so that
(23:53):
maybe your child can eithercheck in or candy the broccoli
but doesn't have to eat? Theother things?
Jess (23:58):
Let's talk briefly about sugar. I know sugar is kind of a
thing and families we don't wantkids to have too much sugar. We
don't want to overfeed themsugar how can we make sure that
kids kind of have a healthybalance with sweets? Well, they
they don't overindulge or kindof when they get older, restrict
themselves from eating sugars orfoods that are bad for you.
Jennifer A. (24:21):
Yeah, so tricky. As a parent, you have so much
influence over your child. Theway that you talk about sugar
and foods in your home. It'sgoing to have a really big
impact on your child movingforward. If you're constantly
saying this food is bad, andthis food is good. Your child is
(24:41):
going to kind of internalizethis black and white view of
food. This food is bad this foodis good. Sugar is bad, but it
tastes really good. Does thatmean bad things taste good. Does
that mean I'm bad if I eat thebad thing, right and so we begin
to attach morality to foodswhich is good complicated. And
(25:02):
it doesn't really help our kidsmoving forward, it kind of
starts to confuse therelationship. Put on top of
that, maybe we're saying, Hey,you can get dessert if you eat
your broccoli. Or if you're goodat the bank, I'll give you a
lollipop, or you know, thingslike this. And we begin to use
desserts as a bribe, to get kidsto do things, rewards, rewards.
(25:23):
And that makes it even morecomplicated, right? So now
they're like, oh, lollipops mustbe really good. And broccoli
must be really bad if my parenthas to give me a reward to eat
it. Right? And so we begin to doall these things with sweets
that complicate therelationship. And then on top of
it, then we start restrictingit, saying, Oh, we can never
(25:45):
have that. Except when you go toa birthday party, and then
you're going to binge eat itbecause you never ever have it
at home until it becomescomplicated. I don't think
there's any easy answers here.
Some, you know, I don't have acandy bowl out in my house. It's
just not something I'mcomfortable with. Other families
are like, Yeah, we got a candybowl sitting in the living room,
kids can eat candy whenever theywant. And their kids are like,
(26:06):
yeah, no big deal. I think somuch depends, is your child
neurodivergent? Do they have?
Are they more attracted to candythan other kids? Does your child
really not like sweets? Do theyhave that gene that kind of
makes sweets better than not?
There's all these things thatcomplicate it. And I think the
more we kind of change ourlanguage first, and we stop
(26:27):
using it as a reward. We have itbut we have it in within reason
for what that means for ourfamily, we begin to kind of tone
it down a little bit. Just belike this is part of life. You
know, our kids have sweet thingsoften all serve like a sweet,
like maybe ice cream alongsideof their dinner, and just like
not make a big deal out of it.
(26:50):
It's like, hey, it's here, youcan eat it if you want. Of
course, they always do want toeat it. But I've seen them eat
like the entire plate of foodbefore they eat their ice cream,
because it's just like, oh,that's their meal. Not to say my
kids wouldn't eat like a wholebox of cookies, if they were
hungry and the cookies werethere. But you know, we can
(27:10):
begin to use these tools toexperiment with different things
with their hands.
Jess (27:13):
So let's talk a little bit about you know, as a parent, it
can be stressful trying to feeda picky eater. I know
personally, I've been kind ofguilty of kind of giving in to
the picky eater, okay, this isyour safe meal or the meal that
you feel comfortable eating. Youcan have it every night for as
long as you want. How do youkind of reintroduce variety, if
(27:36):
you've kind of fallen off thewayside with being vigilant
about exposure and things likethat, or maybe just listening to
this now realizing, hey, I needto expose my kids to more fruits
and vegetables. Right? First
Jennifer A. (27:47):
of all, you're totally normal, great parent, if
you're doing that I've done theexact same thing. Instead of
serving their favorite meal,seven nights in a row, you can
say, hey, six of the nights,we're going to serve your
favorite meal. And on one night,we're going to serve something
now you can also serve theirfavorite meal and an add
something else on. For example,let's say the meal is macaroni
(28:11):
and cheese. This is what they'reeating for lunch every single
day, months on end. Instead ofjust having the macaroni and
cheese you can also serve peason the side, or broccoli or
carrots, you know, whatever youthink they might or apple
slices, what you're beginning todo, even when you take that very
small step is just put that ideain their mind that there's more,
(28:34):
there's more out there, theydon't necessarily have to eat
it. But they could eat it ifthey wanted to. And the more
they see it, the more they maybecome curious. Now some kids,
they're never going to tryanother food, these children who
never, ever try another food,and only kind of drop foods off
their list and eat the same mealfor months on end. Those
(28:58):
children usually need more help.
That's usually exposure is notgoing to be enough now for a lot
of kids exposure, repeatedexposure, a low pressure
environment that's going toenable them to really succeed
and thrive and grow. But forkids who are like, wow, this is
really stressful for me, mychild is never ever responding
in the way that I would hopenever. In that situation,
(29:21):
there's usually more and theyneed more help. And that's the
situation that we find a lot ofpeople in our picky eating
course is. I just I can't Ican't break through that. And
usually that child has a lotmore hurdles to jump over. I
find those parents often feelthe most stressed out and
(29:42):
they're saying Oh, I likesomehow I feel my child. But
usually what it means is yourchild has more internal hurdles
to get over to try new foodsthan then you can see on the
outside.
Jess (29:56):
So what is the response that the parents should take?
You know the way they're tryingis not working, they've kind of
tried everything in the book,nothing is quite working, there
may be something deeper there,what are some next steps to
take.
Jennifer A. (30:08):
So if your child is losing weight, developing major
nutrition deficiencies orsomething I highly recommend,
get yourself to thepediatrician, your child checked
out. It's always worth doingyour due diligence in that way.
But if you're like, Okay, I needsome more tools, I need some
advanced techniques here that Ican try at home, I need a
framework to help my child toreally stop enabling that picky
(30:32):
eating, and kind of break downwhatever foundation is there,
that's not working, rebuild anew foundation, figure out
what's the cause of my child'spicky eating, move forward and
help them expand. That issomething that a picky eating
course, like our better bites,picky eating course does, is it
really kind of meets parentswhere they're at. And not only
that, I think finding acommunity of parents is so
(30:55):
important, because you don'twant to feel alone in that
situation. I know because I feltalone in that situation. And
it's, it feels crappy. We, weneed to hear that other people
are also struggling. And it'snot just us. And we also need
to, you know, see the otherperson, it's like, oh, my gosh,
they have problems that arecompletely different than mine,
(31:16):
just as stressful. And when wehave that empathy for others,
and when we also experiencedthat ourselves, it can be so
transformational for us. So youknow, that's why I feel like
that's why the kids in color,social media communities have
grown so much as people don'twant to feel alone. And that's
why we also have the group areain our picky eating courses.
(31:38):
Because, yeah, you go through apicky eating course. And, you
know, what would you really needis you need to go through the
course and you need to be ableto ask questions of your fellow
fellow parents. Like, hey, I hada really bad day. And, and
they're probably going to belike, Oh, hey, I really had a
bit that day, too. And someonealso jumped in and say, Oh, I
had one last week. But guesswhat, today was good for me. And
(31:59):
when we have those sorts ofinteractions in the context of a
learning environment, it can beso powerful for people, you
know, and that could be yourfriend next door, as well, you
know, but I think finding thosepeople can be really powerful.
Jess (32:14):
So let's talk about back to school. I know when my child
started preschool, it was verystressful time because I was
like, How do I pack himsomething that I know he will
eat? For sure, so that he getsthe nutrition he needs
throughout the day. If there's aparent who is sending their
child to the school, they'repicky eater for school. So for
the very first time, what aresome kind of steps that you can
(32:37):
do to prepare and to kind ofmake that as seamless a
transition as possible?
Jennifer A. (32:42):
Yeah, first of all, give yourself some grace,
because it's a transition foreveryone. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
My son when he startedkindergarten, did not eat his
lunch for like, a year. I waslike, how is he making it
through the day, it didn'tmatter what I sent, I said,
anything and everything. And henever ate it. Maybe he'd take
(33:06):
like two nibbles. I still don'tunderstand how he managed that.
But I think if you do have apicky eater, and the lunch
experience is stressful forthem, and they're not eating,
try what you can try to find alunch, little eat, and then also
really pack in their breakfastwhenever they come home, as long
(33:27):
as it's before dinner, right?
Because you would want them toeat dinner. But if they come
home, you know, sometime in theafternoon, give them a really
big meal at that time, becausethey will have missed their
lunch. Now ideally, you willfind something that your child
will eat at school, if you havea picky eater. Only send foods
that you think they like justdon't, don't try to be a
(33:48):
Pinterest parent. Don't try tolike do anything. Now if you
have a child who maybe likes toexplore foods at school, because
there are those as well. Sure,send some exposure foods and
some things that they won't eatat home, but they will eat at
school. That's cool. But if theydon't just send foods that are
(34:09):
that are easy. Now, one of thereasons that kids have a hard
time eating is they often don'thave enough time at school to
eat their lunch. The more youcan do at home to make it easy
for them to eat, the more likelythey are to eat it. So for
example, maybe you make asandwich, you get assigned a
whole sandwich with your childor a half or whatever they but
(34:32):
they have to take a bite andthen chew it and then do other
things. If you take that samesandwich and you cut it into
bite sized pieces ahead of time,you've just taken every cut
you've made has been one lessbite for your child. Right? So
instead, they can just pop thosein their mouth. That's going to
save them a little bit of time.
(34:54):
It's going to be a little biteasier, a little more friendly,
sticking a toothpick with it andand suddenly they're like, Oh,
that was fun. I tell you to pickmagic is real, I won't eat
something, give them atoothpick, and tag me on social
media because for sure to fix.
There's something about themthat really do amazing things,
(35:16):
but but just try to meet yourpicky eater where they're at.
Don't send foods that require aton of chewing, like celery.
Unless your child really lovescelery, and it's really a peanut
butter, it takes a lot ofchewing. So pick something that
doesn't require quite as muchchewing and that can help them
Jess (35:36):
issue that I had that was kind of unique is that all of
the foods that my child likewere like hot foods, the main,
the main bulk of the calorieswere hot foods, and you know, at
school, they're not necessarilygoing to have the opportunity to
kind of reheat that lunch. Sowhat are some kind of
workarounds you can do when thatis necessarily the issue? Sure.
Jennifer A. (35:57):
So that's great. I learned how to heat up a
thermos. I feel like how did Iremember thinking I want to send
some warm soup to school with mychild. I didn't know how to heat
up a thermos. I had to like goGoogle it. And you know, like
four years ago, right? So Iheated thermos can be really
(36:20):
helpful for your child. So thereis I don't usually like to get
behind brands, but there is a Ithink it's an igloo thermoses or
the fuego thermoses, orsomething by igloo. Now, I can't
even remember the names, right,but it needs a Foucault.
Although I'm not sure on thepronunciation of that. They have
(36:40):
this really kind of child sizedthermos. I don't know if the
three year olds could work it inpreschool, but probably four and
five year olds can and you canpractice with them at home ahead
of time. I have put all sorts ofhot foods in those. And if you
just dumped in the boiling waterahead of time, reheat it, and
(37:01):
then put in steaming hot food.
At lunch, it's often still warm,and they can eat. They can have
some soup, like I've sent chiliI've sent soup like hot lentil
soup I've sent out also like hotpasta, things like that. So
probably like a rice and chickensort of thing, or rice and beef
(37:23):
or maybe even stir fry. I don'tknow, I haven't tried it. But I
think you there are ways to sendhot dishes in these thermoses.
There's also the Omi box that isa lunch box that has a thermos
compartment in it. And you cansend hot or cold foods in that
it doesn't work quite as well interms of temperature as some of
(37:47):
the others. But you can also addin some, some like other foods
on the side of it. So like youcould send chili and crackers
with a couple of apple slicesand it could all be in this one
box. So there are some optionsout there if you do want to send
hot foods, and that can reallyhelp if you do have a child who
(38:08):
prefers to only eat hot foods.
Jess (38:12):
I'm in a picky eating group on Facebook. And one of
the big things that has kind ofchanged school lunches is the
rise of nut allergies. And therewas a child who only ate peanut
butter and jelly sandwich waslike their safe lunch food and
they couldn't bring it intoschool. So how do you kind of
mitigate when your child onlylikes something that's an
(38:34):
allergen and they can't bring itto school anymore?
Jennifer A. (38:37):
That is so hard I know that is I actually had my
child ate more foods but peanutswere like the one energy dense
food that was helping them stayon the growth chart and and a
kid in his class developedallergies and we couldn't send
those anymore. super stressfulas a parent are like oh my gosh,
(38:58):
I'm depending on this foodmountain Am I the candidate
practicing at home helping yourchild understand the situation
and helping them find anothersafe food is gonna be really
key. They're probably not goingto easily transition into almond
butter or sunflower seed butteror swing up butter. But you can
begin to expose them to thosefoods really safely. You can
(39:21):
just start putting it out. Youcan taste it in front of them.
You can do a taste test. Oh,this is peanut butter. This is
almond butter. This is tahini.
This is whatever it is. Youdon't have to make them do it.
But just put that out there asan activity and see if they will
be willing to explore if yourchild really only has one safe
(39:41):
lunch food. My guess is they'reprobably not going to eat that
meal. You can kind of say Okay,would you eat the lunch the
bread with just the jelly? Isthat something that would be
okay for you? What if I sent itlike toast like a toast and I
put the jelly and I would youeat that, seeing if you can find
anything at all they'll eat thatthey kind of agree to like,
(40:04):
Okay, I can't have my sandwich,but I will eat the chips on the
side. I mean, at the point thatyou have a child who's only
eating one meal, you really haveto just say, Okay, I'm gonna
put, put whatever balancedoptions I have in my mind. on
hold, I'm going to try to helpmy child feel safe at lunchtime,
so they have something to eat,come to a compromise with your
(40:27):
child, the only thing Irecommend against, it's like,
don't just send in like a stackof say Oreos or something, your
child's gonna have a really hardtime learning if that's all they
see, if you can find somethingthat's that's got a little more
unfinished. Maybe you make yourown cookies, or something that
has some, some nut butter orsomething like that in there.
(40:48):
But when we kind of say, okay,my child isn't going to eat a
standard lunch, but I can makethese sunflower seed chocolate
cookies that they will eat, I'mjust going to send cookies for
lunch. I think it's okay to findways to meet your child where
they're at.
Jess (41:08):
So how do you deal with judgment? You know, some
Sometimes schools have verystrict rules on sending like
complete imbalanced lunches toschool. If your child is a picky
eater, sometimes your lunch thatyou send may not look ballots,
because you know, it's part of abattle that they don't know
about, you know, to try to getthem to eat. So how do you miss?
(41:29):
How do you cope with that typeof situation? What do you
necessarily tell like theadministrators or anybody who
may have an issue with whatyou're sending?
Jennifer A. (41:37):
Yeah, I think being really frank with them and
saying, Look, this is oursituation, our child will need
five foods. And this is one ofthem. So this is what we're
sending and why. If they pushback, you can even go to your
pediatrician. And you can say,hey, I'm in the situation,
they're forcing my child to dothis thing. Hopefully, you have
(41:58):
a pediatrician who's kind ofhelpful, you could even write a
letter ahead of time, that says,you know, this is the situation.
And this is what I, you'reessentially asking for an
accommodation for your childbased on their thing and see if
your pediatrician will sign it.
This sort of thing, I think it'sone of those things where we
(42:19):
have to stick up for a kidsometimes. And I had a situation
with my son recently, where, youknow, there was something that
everybody else at the camp wasdoing, that made him really
uncomfortable. And I thought,oh, my gosh, nobody is even
going to understand why this isa problem for him. And I even
(42:39):
said to him, I was like, You dounderstand, like, most people
are gonna look at this, andthey're gonna be like, that's
not a big deal. And he looked atme, and he said, it's a big deal
to me. And I was like, Okay, I'mgonna go to bat for you.
Sometimes we have to go to batfor our kids. And we have to
say, All right, I'm gonna lookdumb here, people are gonna
(43:00):
think I'm a soft parent, or I'ma, you know, whatever, I don't
even know, they're gonna thinkall sorts of things about me.
But I'm the only one who trulyunderstands my child. And I'm
going to push and help to dothat. And that, so I sent a
text. I was like, here's thesituation, I want him to be able
to do XYZ. And if you need asignature from the provider, I
(43:24):
will get that. And the personwas like, Okay, we'll give him a
pass. Right? And so I thinksometimes it's same look, if you
need a signature from thepediatrician and from whoever it
is, I will get that for you. Butthis is a real thing.
Jess (43:42):
Yes. Well, it has been wonderful having you on the
show. Um, besides just dealingwith picky eaters, I helping
parents with picky eaters. Whatare some other kind of values or
issues that kids eat in colorstands behind,
Jennifer A. (43:56):
we are really big on helping all families get
food. Like I said, we have thislow cost meal plan. Of course,
people can purchase it, but weprovide it for you. We've
provided it free to hundreds of1000s of WIC participants and
any families that come to uslooking for something to help
them stretch their food dollars.
And also just really big on notyucking on somebody else's yum.
Jess (44:22):
Yes. I'm a firm believer of it. Yes,
Unknown (44:25):
not somebody else's. We know that attacking other
people's foods for quote,health, people are so obsessed
in diet culture with what'shealthy and what's not. We don't
even realize how far down thatgoes. How far down that goes
into racism, like Oh, rice hasarsenic in it. Well, in Japan,
(44:47):
they've they've reviewed theexact same research and they've
determined it is perfectly safeto eat rice. It's perfectly
safe. It's okay to feed it yourkids in the United States are
like oh my gosh, it's It's rice,it has arsenic. Nevermind that
classics over here like milk andapple juice and sweet potatoes
and things were on the groundalso of arsenic. We're going to
(45:09):
pick on rice. Because honestly,rice is not the dominant culture
food, right? So it's easy to belike, Oh, well, that's bad. Or
fried chicken, right? Like, oh,fried chicken is so bad for
people. It's not healthy. Well,where did that idea come from?
I'm telling you fried chicken isjust fine. It's, it's not fried
(45:32):
chicken. But, but like, this wasa strong cultural food to the
black community. And thedominant culture just kind of
picked on it say, oh, that'sbad. When we pick on a food, we
are often using the food as aproxy for picking on a different
(45:52):
group of people. And it's got tostop, it's got to stop. Like, we
cannot shame people for theircultural foods, we cannot shame
people for their, quote, junkfoods for their whatever foods
are available in theircommunity. It's, it's just all
gotta stop. Gotta stop. Andwe're really big on giving every
(46:12):
family the space and the dignityto serve their families, the
foods that are right for theirfamily, even if they've, you
know, been kind of dumped on bythe, by the broader culture,
some sort of like, I don't know,like Instagram, feeding often is
like this, oh, you can feed yourchild this perfect diet is a
(46:34):
diet than, you know, .001% ofthe world could attain, right.
And yet that's held up as somesort of standard. And I think
it's really disenfranchising toall families.
Jess (46:46):
So if a parent wants to or caregiver or just anybody who's
interested in kids eat in colorwants to find out more about it,
maybe join a picky eatingcourse. Or to find you on social
media. Where would they do that?
Unknown (46:59):
Kids eat in color, you can type that into the search
bar. Our website is a resourcecenter for babies, toddlers and
kids, just an amazing freeresource for parents. And of
course, social media is it'sfun. It's interesting, daily
tips. And, and it's a communitycommunity parents who are who
are working on the same thing.
Jess (47:20):
Yes. And finally, if you have two sentences that you give
to a parent or caregiver orpicky eater who's struggling
right now, what would it be
Unknown (47:30):
Your success as a parent does not depend on what
your child eats. What you'redoing right now is good, and
it's what's best for yourfamily.
Jess (47:41):
That is a wonderful way to close. Thank you so much,
Jennifer, for being on the showtoday. I really appreciate it.
You all check her out. If youhave a family member, anybody
who's dealing with picky eating,I've been just and you've been
listening to the flaky freepodcast treat this episode, like
gossip or the gospel and tellsomeone about it. Eat something
(48:03):
delicious this week and you canalways share it with me. I'm the
flaky foodie on all social mediaplatforms, Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, and a tiny little biton TikTok. Thanks, everybody.
Hi, it's Jess, and you're listening to another episode of
The flaky foodie podcast. Theonly show where the discussion
is delicious and there's chatterto chew on. If you're listening,
I'm assuming that you're afoodie or someone who's into
food the same way that I'm intofood. And if you have any little
ones running around your house,you know that they can feel very
(00:35):
much like an anti foodie, orsomeone who doesn't want to
indulge in every foodimaginable. They just want to
stick with something plain ormaybe stick with something that
you don't know what it is. So tokeep maybe you and definitely me
to from pulling our hair outwhile we prepare our evening
dinner or while we fix thoseinfamous back to school lunches,
(00:58):
I will talk with picky eatingexpert Jennifer Anderson of kids
eat in color. It's going to be aphenomenal interview with great
tips. So please tune in andright before that, I'll tell you
where I've been for the past twoor three months.
(01:21):
So before we get to ourinterview with Jennifer, I just
want to say welcome to everyoneto Season Two of the podcast.
And thank you so much toeveryone who listened to
supported and shared the veryfirst season. This season, it
has great things in store. Butfirst of all, I want to
apologize because I meant tohave a very big send off of the
(01:43):
first season. Make someannouncements on the air on the
podcast, but burnout kind ofreared its ugly head a few
things did not fall into placethe way I planned and had to be
shelved until this season. AndI'm excited to finally bring all
of that to you. Because I mean,this season is multifaceted
(02:06):
there's so many different peoplehave so many different
backgrounds that I get to talkwith. I talk with a food truck
owner, I talk with a cookbookauthor, I talk with a historian
who knows so much about thehistory of food and I can't wait
to bring all of that to youreardrums. But before we get into
that, another thing I have toemphasize is that my youtube
(02:31):
channel will be jumping. On thisseason. Almost every audio
episode will have a YouTubecounterpart including this one.
The interview will be availableon YouTube as well I am
TheFlakyFoodie on YouTube. Gothere, subscribe and be in the
(02:53):
know so that you'll be therewhen a new interview drops. But
let's get back to the show. Andafter a brief message I will
talk with Jennifer from kids eatin color
It's is back to school time. Somake sure your little one has
everything they need for an Aplus lunch. Start your free
(03:15):
Instacart plus trial to getunlimited free delivery on
orders $35 and up. To sign uptoday for free just visit my
page atwww.theflakyfoodie.com/offers to
take advantage of this veryspecial opportunity. Today we
(03:38):
have with us Jennifer Anderson.
She's a registered dietitian,master's in public health. And
she's the mind behind kids eatin color, which is a phenomenal
resource for the parents ofpicky eaters. So welcome to the
show. Jennifer, I'm so excitedto have you here today.
Jennifer A. (03:55):
Thank you so much for having me.
Jess (03:57):
Yes. So tell me about how kids eat in color got started.
You're a mom, and you kind ofhave struggles with picky eating
in your kids lives. So how didthat kind of translate into kids
getting color?
Jennifer A. (04:11):
Yeah, so I was standing in the pediatricians
office when my son was ninemonths old. And the pediatrician
looked me in the eye and saidhe's not gaining weight. I was
shocked. I'm a dietitian. Itturns out kids don't care what
you do for your work. But I wasshocked. And I immediately began
(04:32):
specializing my child feedingknowledge just to help him and
then my second son was a pickyeater. And I think through all
this, yes, I was helping my sonand I was gaining all the tools
that I needed. But I felt thatdeep angst that parents feel
when their kids aren't eatingwell. And I really wanted to
(04:55):
help connect other people tocommunity where they felt like
they weren't alone. And theyknew that feeding kids is
tricky. And if you have a hardtime feeding your child, it's
not your fault. You're not a badparent. But I also wanted to
help parents know what'stypical, what's not? How do you
help your child? What shouldyour child be eating? What can
(05:16):
you do? What are the toolsavailable to you. And that's how
kids eat in color ended up beinga resource center for parents
how to how to feed their kids,how to know what's typical, you
know, providing them withscreeners and things like that.
Jess (05:30):
So let's talk a little bit about child development. Most of
the time, when we talk aboutpicky eaters, my son is four
most of the time we talk aboutbeating, picky eating is between
the age of like one and four.
Developmentally what's kind ofgoing on during that time that
can lead to picky eating or leadto your child being picky.
Jennifer A. (05:50):
Sure, so around the age of one, kids often start
developing something called nearphobia or the fear of new foods.
That's not the only cause ofpicky eating. That's one of
about 200 causes. 200 is not anofficial number. But you know,
it's helpful in some ways, wedon't want kids wandering around
(06:11):
and eating mushrooms in theyard. But we do want them to eat
the foods that maybe theyhaven't seen since last growing
season. And so those are new aswell. And I think the challenge
is kind of how we respond tothat typical pig eating, I
generally think of that kind ofemergence of picky eating for
(06:31):
some kids as a typical phasethat many kids go through how we
respond to that. And whetheryour kid is showing signs of
more atypical picky eating, orsomething that's maybe more
serious, can kind of change thechange the trajectory of where
your child is gonna go, is itgoing to become more serious? Or
(06:51):
is it just going to kind of staythe same?
Jess (06:53):
So you mentioned, there's many, many causes of picky
eating, when you're kind oftrying to treat picky eating,
how do you kind of determinewhat the cause is?
Jennifer A. (07:04):
Great question. Of course, this is like more in
depth. So like in our in ourpicky eating course, like we
have a whole section dedicatedto this, because it can be
really complicated. But I willsay this, we have a quick
screener on our website that atleast can tell you is your
child, what we would consider itto be kind of typically picky.
(07:26):
Or is it something more serious?
If you just need kind of a oneminute, hey, where am I at on
the spectrum? But there'sgenetic factors. There's
factors, just from parenting,what are you? What are you
doing, I always like to remindparents, they're not the only
reason their child might bepicky. So even if you're doing
something that's unhelpful, it'sprobably something that I've
(07:49):
also done and all parents havedone. So it's not like you're
you're ruining your child forbeing a human. There's also
sensory issues, your child mayhave a more intense or less
intense experience with food.
And your child may also, there'sa recent paper that just came
out, and I don't like to citesingle studies, because that's
(08:11):
not how research works. But Iwill make an exception today
because it was so interesting.
They were comparing executivefunction skills in child's brain
with picky eating. Just theconcept of this study was mind
blowing to me who even thoughtto look at this. And what this
particular study explored wasdifferent executive functions.
(08:32):
So for example, one of those isflexibility of thinking, can
they be flexible? Can they not?
Kids who were not flexible intheir executive functioning,
were more likely to be picky,which is like mind blowing. Now
we can't we can't take thisaway. We can't go home and say,
(08:52):
Oh, my gosh, inflexible peoplewho are picky eaters, we can't
that's not what we can take fromthe study. But what we can take
is, it's interesting, there maybe relationship with how our
brains work in executivefunctioning, and whether we can
be flexible enough to eat foodsthat are not what we're
expecting. So there's so manyfactors that we're still
discovering, and stillunderstanding that helps us
(09:14):
understand are people willing toeat a lot of foods or not?
Jess (09:17):
So let's talk a little bit about the kind of feelings that
kind of happened when your childis a picky eater. What did you
yourself experience when yourchild was undergoing this kind
of picky eating phase? And whathave you seen other parents?
What kind of feelings do theyhave when their child was a
picky or is a picky eater?
Jennifer A. (09:37):
Sure. So when I was standing in that pediatricians
office, I felt like an absolutefailure. As a mother, I've been
a mom for, you know, all of ninemonths, right? And she's telling
me that my child is falling offthe growth chart. And what I
find is parents who have pickyeaters or a child who has maybe
an iron deficiency or anythingrelated to eating, we
immediately internalize that asour own failure. Our her own, we
(10:00):
feel defeated, we feelfrustrated, we feel angry, we
feel anxious, all these feelingsjust come rushing in. And of
course, I think especially asmoms who have kind of we've made
their child inside our body,right, and then, you know, if
you're, you're breastfeeding,you're also feeding the child
with your body. And so just andeven if you're bottle feeding,
(10:21):
it just doesn't even matter,right, as, as moms, we have
this, like really visceralconnection to feeding our kids.
And I think we just take itreally personally, yes, you
know, we feel it in our soulsthat we have failed our child in
some way, you know, I don't knowthat there's a way around those
feelings.
Jess (10:40):
There may be no way around those feelings, is there a way
to kind of mitigate that and tomake dinnertime a better
experience for parent and child?
Jennifer A. (10:50):
Absolutely. I think we always have to acknowledge,
hey, the feelings are going tobe there. And we can accept
those feelings kind of for whatthey are, or at least practice
accepting that when it comes tothe actual mealtime, and you're
sitting across the table fromyour child who, who may show
signs picky eating from the ageof even six months, and they may
(11:11):
not grow out of theirchallenges, you know, my Picky
Eater is seven, and he stillstruggles. I mean, he has an
amazing variety of foods that hewill eat, because of all the
work that we've done, but I canstill see it. As someone who
specialized in this, I can seeit, I could see how hard it is
for him and how he has to workat that. The big thing, I think
(11:33):
if you take one tool away, whereyou're thinking, Okay, how do we
reduce some stress, it's reallyto stop pressuring your child to
eat. When you get in there. Andyou I, even last night, you
know, my sons, we're not eatingtheir chicken. And my husband
and I have a lot of knowledgeabout child feeding. Like, this
(11:56):
is my job. My son, my husband issitting across the table going,
this is your protein. And, youknow, he's not the only one. I
don't say this to bash on myhusband, because obviously I
have it probably did it a weekago, we just moved. And so
things are you know, everybody'son edge. But we really want our
(12:17):
kids to eat, did that work? Didit work him like putting his
hands on the table and say thisis your protein?
Jess (12:26):
The kid is like so?!
Jennifer A. (12:29):
I mean, done. And now they know enough. And my my
seven year old he is like,Mommy, milk has eight grams of
protein. So he's thinking, hey,I already ate a protein for
breakfast? Like, why do I needto eat my chicken. But I think I
think we get emotionallyinvolved at dinner time. And
(12:49):
when we do that kids aren'tgoing to eat for us. Like, the
more we push, the more they arelike. So what
Jess (12:59):
it's like, as a kid, you don't have much control over
your life, you know, people pickyou up, take you where you need
to go and tell you what to needto do. And food can kind of be
that way to get independence,you know.
Jennifer A. (13:12):
I mean, it's really one of the few things that you
really have, like, you're incontrol of going to the
bathroom, and you're in controlof eating, and we let our kids
pick their clothes. So they'rein control of that. But I mean,
beyond that, you know, we setthe schedule, we do that, you
know so much.
Jess (13:29):
So if we can't sit them down at the table and be like,
Hey, you eat your food, and youdo it now, how do we? How do we
as parents get kids to eat awide variety of different foods?
Jennifer A. (13:41):
Sure. So I do think there are so just as we were
talking about, you know, there'ssome things they have to do,
they do have to come to thetable, that's to come to the
table, they have to sit down.
Depending on your child, youhave to kind of figure out what
their attention span is. Somekids do you have to say, you can
just say, Hey, you got to sithere until everybody's done.
That doesn't work for my childwho's extremely high energy,
(14:03):
right? So with him, we're kindof flexible on that. And we say,
okay, give us 10 minutes, 12minutes, we try to be engaging
at dinnertime, but they gottacome to the table. They have to
sit for an age appropriateamount of time, whatever you
determine that is, and they'renot in charge of the menu,
(14:24):
right? Because if they were,there'll be a lot of mac and
cheese right, which isunderstandable. But really, we
can provide that variety. We canshow it to them over and over
and over. Maybe for example, Iserved stir fry the other night.
We haven't had a stir fry inages. And it's a tricky food for
(14:46):
my kids because it's mixedespecially my kid he struggles
with kind of trying those newfoods. So mixed foods are really
stressful for him. So and youknow stir fry everything Mix mix
together. So I made thevegetables together. And then I
made the meat separate. And thenI serve white rice, which is
something that my son feels verycomfortable with. He loves rice,
(15:10):
put some butter on it, whatever.
So it's like, okay, there'sgonna be something that he
likes. They're usually likes.
You never know what kids, right?
But he usually likes that. Andso I'm going to serve everything
separately, and I'm just gonnalet him choose. Well, he
definitely he started eating therice. And then we, you know,
different people are eatingvegetables and chicken on their
(15:32):
plates. And I say, Would youlike some of these vegetables?
And he kind of looks at it. It'slike, what is that? It's like,
well, it's this, this cabbage,and it's got some, whatever else
was in there. He's like, Oh,take a taste. But he wanted it
on a separate plate. mean, don'tcontaminate his plate, right. So
(15:55):
here's a little tasty play. Hetakes a bite. And he says, Okay,
I'll have more. The kids endedup fighting over it. They liked
it so much.
Jess (16:04):
Over vegetables, right?
That's a huge win.
Unknown (16:07):
Right. Right. But I think it's because it was
separate and no pressure. Yeah.
And then at the end, he waslike, why don't you give me any
chicken was like, Oh, I mean,you can have some if you want
some. So we ended up eating it.
But in a way that felt okay, andsafe and comfortable for him.
And because it was low pressure,they were able to kind of say,
(16:27):
Okay, we'll try it. And theyended up liking it, which, you
know, doesn't always happen. ButI guess if you put enough soy
sauce on it. It tastes good. So
Jess (16:38):
So I was reading that, as opposed to kind of fixing your
child's plate and kind ofsitting in front of them with
things on Is is family style,where you kind of pass a dish
around and ask them what dishesfrom the family meal that they
would like, Is that helpful?
Does it even matter or is itmore of your approach, like
saying you don't you don't haveto eat that if you don't want
to.
Jennifer A. (16:58):
Yeah, so you know, every family is going to be
different. And you kind of hadwhen the kids were little, I put
the food on their plate. Whenyou are putting food on their
plate, I highly recommend smallportions, like think about what
you want them to eat, cut thatin half, and then cut that in
half again, I like to call thesewishful portions. Like as
(17:21):
parents, we wish our child atethis amount of food. But when we
make it really small, it's notoverwhelming to them, they feel
more comfortable. And then theylearn to ask for more. So it's a
couple of things like they feelless overwhelmed, which can help
picky eaters, they can alsolisten to their body, am I
hungry? Am I Am I full? Do Iwant more do I not. And then it
also reduces food waste, right?
So if you're going to pre plate,that's a great idea. If you want
(17:44):
to serve family style that cangive kids who want more
independence, like a feelingthat they have a little bit more
control over what they'reeating. So for kids who kind of
want that control andindependence, family style can
be great. It's also more messy,in my opinion. And then
sometimes the kids don't evenput the food on their plate. At
(18:05):
this point, my kids are mostlyoffended. If I put all the food
on their plate. That's not yourjob. That's my job to get on my
plate. So you know, I think wehave to kind of balance like,
what are your kids? Like? Whatare you like, what's your family
situation like the other day?
(18:25):
Like I said, we just moved andthere's dishes and stuff all
over the kitchen. And I puttogether their lunches, and they
didn't complain, you know, it'slike, but at dinnertime? No way.
No way.
Jess (18:39):
So we may have listeners from our older generation where
you know, you just eat what'sput in front of you. of why is
that not necessarily feasible inthis modern time?
Jennifer A. (18:50):
Yeah. So I always like to start by saying in
different times different thingsmake sense. So if you have grown
up in a time when food wasn'talways accessible, or you're
currently living in a time whenfood isn't always accessible, it
makes 100% sense that you sitdown and you are forced to eat
(19:12):
everything on your plate. Sothere's no I don't, I don't
think there's a moral issue. Andif somebody is not doing this,
you're probably doing it for areason. Right. So I always like
to start by just acknowledgingthat reality. If you are in a
place where you have plenty offood, and it's plentiful, and
(19:33):
you know, your kids are going tobirthday parties and you're
exposed to all sorts ofdifferent things. You're maybe
going to restaurants, there's aton of food available. And if
you've been taught to Alwaysclean your plate, you're going
to end up eating way more thanyou may want to. Now sometimes
we want to eat a lot, right?
Cool, that's fine. You know,Thanksgiving, I am going to eat,
(19:56):
pass what feels comfortable. I'mjust I'm going to do that and
I'm gonna enjoy that experience.
Right. But I, I want to be ableto choose when I do that when I
don't, right? I have gone tomore birthday parties, where
I've eaten cake that I don'teven like, I don't even really
like cake. So going to theseparties, I'm eating these huge
(20:18):
pieces of cake that I don't evenlike, because I feel like I have
to. And I have to finish it. Iwould much rather be able to go
to a birthday party and say, Oh,no, I, I actually don't want the
cake. Because truly, I don'tlike cake. I just want the ice
cream. Or, or give me the potatochips, like something I actually
(20:39):
enjoy. I want to I want to havethat choice. And I want my kids
to have that choice as well. Idon't want that because of how I
train them to always finishtheir plate and never listen to
kind of what their internal bodyis telling them. I want them to
be able to be able to chooselike, do I want to eat a lot? Do
I want to eat a little Do I likethis food do I not. And it also
(21:00):
kind of teaches kids to reallykind of tune in to what their
inside body is saying. And whenwe teach kids that it's a skill
that can go way beyond eveneating?
Jess (21:11):
Yes. So in this day and age two, you mentioned before
that if a family is in a toughsituation, parents may tell them
to kind of finish their plate,you have to eat what's put in
front of you. But if the childis a picky eater, that situation
can become very stressful. So ifespecially with rising food
costs and kind of gasolineprices rising, putting families
(21:33):
in difficult situations, howwould somebody in a difficult
kind of financial situation kindof deal with a picky eater in
their home?
Jennifer A. (21:41):
Yeah, it's so challenging. I think that's
really tricky. And that justreminds me we have a low cost
meal plan that we give to afamily. If you're If a family is
like in need, you can get it forfree. So if you need to kind of
find a meal plan that will helpyou really stretch your food
dollars that's available forfree on our website. But I think
(22:06):
that the challenge, as you saidwith a picky eater is you don't
have a lot of wiggle room forfood waste and things like that.
And that's one of the reasonswhy we really suggest the micro
portions, right? Make it small,think about what you want them
to eat, cut it in half, cut itin half again, give them that if
there's a food that you wantthem to learn how to like to
eat, you don't have to give thema lot that they're going to be
(22:29):
wasting, for example, maybe youwant them to learn to eat like
peas, you could buy frozen peas,or canned peas. And you can take
especially frozen, you can takeout two peas, put them on their
plate, that's an exposure andyou still have a bag safe in the
freezer. Right? So you can kindof think creatively, like, I
(22:49):
want my kids to learn to like avariety of foods, but I don't
want to be wasting food, how canI do that? How can I cook food
that can be separated out sothat they can eat the thing that
they like, and the rest of thefamily can eat the rest of the
meal. So I like to think ofthese kind of deconstructed
things my, my son could havejust eaten the rice. And the
other family could have eatenthe chicken and the vegetables.
(23:11):
And there could have beenanother meal where he would eat,
you know, chicken and whateverelse right? Over the course of
the day, he's likely to geteverything he needs, as long as
they're kind of servedthroughout the day. So I think,
kind of change your mindset ofinstead of making a casserole,
which sometimes can feel liketogether, everything's together.
(23:33):
It's easy, and it's quick, andit's inexpensive, right? But if
you're picky eater doesn't likeit, then you're in, then they
can't eat anything. And it canreally build up a lot of stress
for everybody in the family. Soinstead of cooking that
casserole, can you cook thosefoods separated out, so that
(23:53):
maybe your child can eithercheck in or candy the broccoli
but doesn't have to eat? Theother things?
Jess (23:58):
Let's talk briefly about sugar. I know sugar is kind of a
thing and families we don't wantkids to have too much sugar. We
don't want to overfeed themsugar how can we make sure that
kids kind of have a healthybalance with sweets? Well, they
they don't overindulge or kindof when they get older, restrict
themselves from eating sugars orfoods that are bad for you.
Jennifer A. (24:21):
Yeah, so tricky. As a parent, you have so much
influence over your child. Theway that you talk about sugar
and foods in your home. It'sgoing to have a really big
impact on your child movingforward. If you're constantly
saying this food is bad, andthis food is good. Your child is
(24:41):
going to kind of internalizethis black and white view of
food. This food is bad this foodis good. Sugar is bad, but it
tastes really good. Does thatmean bad things taste good. Does
that mean I'm bad if I eat thebad thing, right and so we begin
to attach morality to foodswhich is good complicated. And
(25:02):
it doesn't really help our kidsmoving forward, it kind of
starts to confuse therelationship. Put on top of
that, maybe we're saying, Hey,you can get dessert if you eat
your broccoli. Or if you're goodat the bank, I'll give you a
lollipop, or you know, thingslike this. And we begin to use
desserts as a bribe, to get kidsto do things, rewards, rewards.
(25:23):
And that makes it even morecomplicated, right? So now
they're like, oh, lollipops mustbe really good. And broccoli
must be really bad if my parenthas to give me a reward to eat
it. Right? And so we begin to doall these things with sweets
that complicate therelationship. And then on top of
it, then we start restrictingit, saying, Oh, we can never
(25:45):
have that. Except when you go toa birthday party, and then
you're going to binge eat itbecause you never ever have it
at home until it becomescomplicated. I don't think
there's any easy answers here.
Some, you know, I don't have acandy bowl out in my house. It's
just not something I'mcomfortable with. Other families
are like, Yeah, we got a candybowl sitting in the living room,
kids can eat candy whenever theywant. And their kids are like,
(26:06):
yeah, no big deal. I think somuch depends, is your child
neurodivergent? Do they have?
Are they more attracted to candythan other kids? Does your child
really not like sweets? Do theyhave that gene that kind of
makes sweets better than not?
There's all these things thatcomplicate it. And I think the
more we kind of change ourlanguage first, and we stop
(26:27):
using it as a reward. We have itbut we have it in within reason
for what that means for ourfamily, we begin to kind of tone
it down a little bit. Just belike this is part of life. You
know, our kids have sweet thingsoften all serve like a sweet,
like maybe ice cream alongsideof their dinner, and just like
not make a big deal out of it.
(26:50):
It's like, hey, it's here, youcan eat it if you want. Of
course, they always do want toeat it. But I've seen them eat
like the entire plate of foodbefore they eat their ice cream,
because it's just like, oh,that's their meal. Not to say my
kids wouldn't eat like a wholebox of cookies, if they were
hungry and the cookies werethere. But you know, we can
(27:10):
begin to use these tools toexperiment with different things
with their hands.
Jess (27:13):
So let's talk a little bit about you know, as a parent, it
can be stressful trying to feeda picky eater. I know
personally, I've been kind ofguilty of kind of giving in to
the picky eater, okay, this isyour safe meal or the meal that
you feel comfortable eating. Youcan have it every night for as
long as you want. How do youkind of reintroduce variety, if
(27:36):
you've kind of fallen off thewayside with being vigilant
about exposure and things likethat, or maybe just listening to
this now realizing, hey, I needto expose my kids to more fruits
and vegetables. Right? First
Jennifer A. (27:47):
of all, you're totally normal, great parent, if
you're doing that I've done theexact same thing. Instead of
serving their favorite meal,seven nights in a row, you can
say, hey, six of the nights,we're going to serve your
favorite meal. And on one night,we're going to serve something
now you can also serve theirfavorite meal and an add
something else on. For example,let's say the meal is macaroni
(28:11):
and cheese. This is what they'reeating for lunch every single
day, months on end. Instead ofjust having the macaroni and
cheese you can also serve peason the side, or broccoli or
carrots, you know, whatever youthink they might or apple
slices, what you're beginning todo, even when you take that very
small step is just put that ideain their mind that there's more,
(28:34):
there's more out there, theydon't necessarily have to eat
it. But they could eat it ifthey wanted to. And the more
they see it, the more they maybecome curious. Now some kids,
they're never going to tryanother food, these children who
never, ever try another food,and only kind of drop foods off
their list and eat the same mealfor months on end. Those
(28:58):
children usually need more help.
That's usually exposure is notgoing to be enough now for a lot
of kids exposure, repeatedexposure, a low pressure
environment that's going toenable them to really succeed
and thrive and grow. But forkids who are like, wow, this is
really stressful for me, mychild is never ever responding
in the way that I would hopenever. In that situation,
(29:21):
there's usually more and theyneed more help. And that's the
situation that we find a lot ofpeople in our picky eating
course is. I just I can't Ican't break through that. And
usually that child has a lotmore hurdles to jump over. I
find those parents often feelthe most stressed out and
(29:42):
they're saying Oh, I likesomehow I feel my child. But
usually what it means is yourchild has more internal hurdles
to get over to try new foodsthan then you can see on the
outside.
Jess (29:56):
So what is the response that the parents should take?
You know the way they're tryingis not working, they've kind of
tried everything in the book,nothing is quite working, there
may be something deeper there,what are some next steps to
take.
Jennifer A. (30:08):
So if your child is losing weight, developing major
nutrition deficiencies orsomething I highly recommend,
get yourself to thepediatrician, your child checked
out. It's always worth doingyour due diligence in that way.
But if you're like, Okay, I needsome more tools, I need some
advanced techniques here that Ican try at home, I need a
framework to help my child toreally stop enabling that picky
(30:32):
eating, and kind of break downwhatever foundation is there,
that's not working, rebuild anew foundation, figure out
what's the cause of my child'spicky eating, move forward and
help them expand. That issomething that a picky eating
course, like our better bites,picky eating course does, is it
really kind of meets parentswhere they're at. And not only
that, I think finding acommunity of parents is so
(30:55):
important, because you don'twant to feel alone in that
situation. I know because I feltalone in that situation. And
it's, it feels crappy. We, weneed to hear that other people
are also struggling. And it'snot just us. And we also need
to, you know, see the otherperson, it's like, oh, my gosh,
they have problems that arecompletely different than mine,
(31:16):
just as stressful. And when wehave that empathy for others,
and when we also experiencedthat ourselves, it can be so
transformational for us. So youknow, that's why I feel like
that's why the kids in color,social media communities have
grown so much as people don'twant to feel alone. And that's
why we also have the group areain our picky eating courses.
(31:38):
Because, yeah, you go through apicky eating course. And, you
know, what would you really needis you need to go through the
course and you need to be ableto ask questions of your fellow
fellow parents. Like, hey, I hada really bad day. And, and
they're probably going to belike, Oh, hey, I really had a
bit that day, too. And someonealso jumped in and say, Oh, I
had one last week. But guesswhat, today was good for me. And
(31:59):
when we have those sorts ofinteractions in the context of a
learning environment, it can beso powerful for people, you
know, and that could be yourfriend next door, as well, you
know, but I think finding thosepeople can be really powerful.
Jess (32:14):
So let's talk about back to school. I know when my child
started preschool, it was verystressful time because I was
like, How do I pack himsomething that I know he will
eat? For sure, so that he getsthe nutrition he needs
throughout the day. If there's aparent who is sending their
child to the school, they'repicky eater for school. So for
the very first time, what aresome kind of steps that you can
(32:37):
do to prepare and to kind ofmake that as seamless a
transition as possible?
Jennifer A. (32:42):
Yeah, first of all, give yourself some grace,
because it's a transition foreveryone. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
My son when he startedkindergarten, did not eat his
lunch for like, a year. I waslike, how is he making it
through the day, it didn'tmatter what I sent, I said,
anything and everything. And henever ate it. Maybe he'd take
(33:06):
like two nibbles. I still don'tunderstand how he managed that.
But I think if you do have apicky eater, and the lunch
experience is stressful forthem, and they're not eating,
try what you can try to find alunch, little eat, and then also
really pack in their breakfastwhenever they come home, as long
(33:27):
as it's before dinner, right?
Because you would want them toeat dinner. But if they come
home, you know, sometime in theafternoon, give them a really
big meal at that time, becausethey will have missed their
lunch. Now ideally, you willfind something that your child
will eat at school, if you havea picky eater. Only send foods
that you think they like justdon't, don't try to be a
(33:48):
Pinterest parent. Don't try tolike do anything. Now if you
have a child who maybe likes toexplore foods at school, because
there are those as well. Sure,send some exposure foods and
some things that they won't eatat home, but they will eat at
school. That's cool. But if theydon't just send foods that are
(34:09):
that are easy. Now, one of thereasons that kids have a hard
time eating is they often don'thave enough time at school to
eat their lunch. The more youcan do at home to make it easy
for them to eat, the more likelythey are to eat it. So for
example, maybe you make asandwich, you get assigned a
whole sandwich with your childor a half or whatever they but
(34:32):
they have to take a bite andthen chew it and then do other
things. If you take that samesandwich and you cut it into
bite sized pieces ahead of time,you've just taken every cut
you've made has been one lessbite for your child. Right? So
instead, they can just pop thosein their mouth. That's going to
save them a little bit of time.
(34:54):
It's going to be a little biteasier, a little more friendly,
sticking a toothpick with it andand suddenly they're like, Oh,
that was fun. I tell you to pickmagic is real, I won't eat
something, give them atoothpick, and tag me on social
media because for sure to fix.
There's something about themthat really do amazing things,
(35:16):
but but just try to meet yourpicky eater where they're at.
Don't send foods that require aton of chewing, like celery.
Unless your child really lovescelery, and it's really a peanut
butter, it takes a lot ofchewing. So pick something that
doesn't require quite as muchchewing and that can help them
Jess (35:36):
issue that I had that was kind of unique is that all of
the foods that my child likewere like hot foods, the main,
the main bulk of the calorieswere hot foods, and you know, at
school, they're not necessarilygoing to have the opportunity to
kind of reheat that lunch. Sowhat are some kind of
workarounds you can do when thatis necessarily the issue? Sure.
Jennifer A. (35:57):
So that's great. I learned how to heat up a
thermos. I feel like how did Iremember thinking I want to send
some warm soup to school with mychild. I didn't know how to heat
up a thermos. I had to like goGoogle it. And you know, like
four years ago, right? So Iheated thermos can be really
(36:20):
helpful for your child. So thereis I don't usually like to get
behind brands, but there is a Ithink it's an igloo thermoses or
the fuego thermoses, orsomething by igloo. Now, I can't
even remember the names, right,but it needs a Foucault.
Although I'm not sure on thepronunciation of that. They have
(36:40):
this really kind of child sizedthermos. I don't know if the
three year olds could work it inpreschool, but probably four and
five year olds can and you canpractice with them at home ahead
of time. I have put all sorts ofhot foods in those. And if you
just dumped in the boiling waterahead of time, reheat it, and
(37:01):
then put in steaming hot food.
At lunch, it's often still warm,and they can eat. They can have
some soup, like I've sent chiliI've sent soup like hot lentil
soup I've sent out also like hotpasta, things like that. So
probably like a rice and chickensort of thing, or rice and beef
(37:23):
or maybe even stir fry. I don'tknow, I haven't tried it. But I
think you there are ways to sendhot dishes in these thermoses.
There's also the Omi box that isa lunch box that has a thermos
compartment in it. And you cansend hot or cold foods in that
it doesn't work quite as well interms of temperature as some of
(37:47):
the others. But you can also addin some, some like other foods
on the side of it. So like youcould send chili and crackers
with a couple of apple slicesand it could all be in this one
box. So there are some optionsout there if you do want to send
hot foods, and that can reallyhelp if you do have a child who
(38:08):
prefers to only eat hot foods.
Jess (38:12):
I'm in a picky eating group on Facebook. And one of
the big things that has kind ofchanged school lunches is the
rise of nut allergies. And therewas a child who only ate peanut
butter and jelly sandwich waslike their safe lunch food and
they couldn't bring it intoschool. So how do you kind of
mitigate when your child onlylikes something that's an
(38:34):
allergen and they can't bring itto school anymore?
Jennifer A. (38:37):
That is so hard I know that is I actually had my
child ate more foods but peanutswere like the one energy dense
food that was helping them stayon the growth chart and and a
kid in his class developedallergies and we couldn't send
those anymore. super stressfulas a parent are like oh my gosh,
(38:58):
I'm depending on this foodmountain Am I the candidate
practicing at home helping yourchild understand the situation
and helping them find anothersafe food is gonna be really
key. They're probably not goingto easily transition into almond
butter or sunflower seed butteror swing up butter. But you can
begin to expose them to thosefoods really safely. You can
(39:21):
just start putting it out. Youcan taste it in front of them.
You can do a taste test. Oh,this is peanut butter. This is
almond butter. This is tahini.
This is whatever it is. Youdon't have to make them do it.
But just put that out there asan activity and see if they will
be willing to explore if yourchild really only has one safe
(39:41):
lunch food. My guess is they'reprobably not going to eat that
meal. You can kind of say Okay,would you eat the lunch the
bread with just the jelly? Isthat something that would be
okay for you? What if I sent itlike toast like a toast and I
put the jelly and I would youeat that, seeing if you can find
anything at all they'll eat thatthey kind of agree to like,
(40:04):
Okay, I can't have my sandwich,but I will eat the chips on the
side. I mean, at the point thatyou have a child who's only
eating one meal, you really haveto just say, Okay, I'm gonna
put, put whatever balancedoptions I have in my mind. on
hold, I'm going to try to helpmy child feel safe at lunchtime,
so they have something to eat,come to a compromise with your
(40:27):
child, the only thing Irecommend against, it's like,
don't just send in like a stackof say Oreos or something, your
child's gonna have a really hardtime learning if that's all they
see, if you can find somethingthat's that's got a little more
unfinished. Maybe you make yourown cookies, or something that
has some, some nut butter orsomething like that in there.
(40:48):
But when we kind of say, okay,my child isn't going to eat a
standard lunch, but I can makethese sunflower seed chocolate
cookies that they will eat, I'mjust going to send cookies for
lunch. I think it's okay to findways to meet your child where
they're at.
Jess (41:08):
So how do you deal with judgment? You know, some
Sometimes schools have verystrict rules on sending like
complete imbalanced lunches toschool. If your child is a picky
eater, sometimes your lunch thatyou send may not look ballots,
because you know, it's part of abattle that they don't know
about, you know, to try to getthem to eat. So how do you miss?
(41:29):
How do you cope with that typeof situation? What do you
necessarily tell like theadministrators or anybody who
may have an issue with whatyou're sending?
Jennifer A. (41:37):
Yeah, I think being really frank with them and
saying, Look, this is oursituation, our child will need
five foods. And this is one ofthem. So this is what we're
sending and why. If they pushback, you can even go to your
pediatrician. And you can say,hey, I'm in the situation,
they're forcing my child to dothis thing. Hopefully, you have
(41:58):
a pediatrician who's kind ofhelpful, you could even write a
letter ahead of time, that says,you know, this is the situation.
And this is what I, you'reessentially asking for an
accommodation for your childbased on their thing and see if
your pediatrician will sign it.
This sort of thing, I think it'sone of those things where we
(42:19):
have to stick up for a kidsometimes. And I had a situation
with my son recently, where, youknow, there was something that
everybody else at the camp wasdoing, that made him really
uncomfortable. And I thought,oh, my gosh, nobody is even
going to understand why this isa problem for him. And I even
(42:39):
said to him, I was like, You dounderstand, like, most people
are gonna look at this, andthey're gonna be like, that's
not a big deal. And he looked atme, and he said, it's a big deal
to me. And I was like, Okay, I'mgonna go to bat for you.
Sometimes we have to go to batfor our kids. And we have to
say, All right, I'm gonna lookdumb here, people are gonna
(43:00):
think I'm a soft parent, or I'ma, you know, whatever, I don't
even know, they're gonna thinkall sorts of things about me.
But I'm the only one who trulyunderstands my child. And I'm
going to push and help to dothat. And that, so I sent a
text. I was like, here's thesituation, I want him to be able
to do XYZ. And if you need asignature from the provider, I
(43:24):
will get that. And the personwas like, Okay, we'll give him a
pass. Right? And so I thinksometimes it's same look, if you
need a signature from thepediatrician and from whoever it
is, I will get that for you. Butthis is a real thing.
Jess (43:42):
Yes. Well, it has been wonderful having you on the
show. Um, besides just dealingwith picky eaters, I helping
parents with picky eaters. Whatare some other kind of values or
issues that kids eat in colorstands behind,
Jennifer A. (43:56):
we are really big on helping all families get
food. Like I said, we have thislow cost meal plan. Of course,
people can purchase it, but weprovide it for you. We've
provided it free to hundreds of1000s of WIC participants and
any families that come to uslooking for something to help
them stretch their food dollars.
And also just really big on notyucking on somebody else's yum.
Jess (44:22):
Yes. I'm a firm believer of it. Yes,
Unknown (44:25):
not somebody else's. We know that attacking other
people's foods for quote,health, people are so obsessed
in diet culture with what'shealthy and what's not. We don't
even realize how far down thatgoes. How far down that goes
into racism, like Oh, rice hasarsenic in it. Well, in Japan,
(44:47):
they've they've reviewed theexact same research and they've
determined it is perfectly safeto eat rice. It's perfectly
safe. It's okay to feed it yourkids in the United States are
like oh my gosh, it's It's rice,it has arsenic. Nevermind that
classics over here like milk andapple juice and sweet potatoes
and things were on the groundalso of arsenic. We're going to
(45:09):
pick on rice. Because honestly,rice is not the dominant culture
food, right? So it's easy to belike, Oh, well, that's bad. Or
fried chicken, right? Like, oh,fried chicken is so bad for
people. It's not healthy. Well,where did that idea come from?
I'm telling you fried chicken isjust fine. It's, it's not fried
(45:32):
chicken. But, but like, this wasa strong cultural food to the
black community. And thedominant culture just kind of
picked on it say, oh, that'sbad. When we pick on a food, we
are often using the food as aproxy for picking on a different
(45:52):
group of people. And it's got tostop, it's got to stop. Like, we
cannot shame people for theircultural foods, we cannot shame
people for their, quote, junkfoods for their whatever foods
are available in theircommunity. It's, it's just all
gotta stop. Gotta stop. Andwe're really big on giving every
(46:12):
family the space and the dignityto serve their families, the
foods that are right for theirfamily, even if they've, you
know, been kind of dumped on bythe, by the broader culture,
some sort of like, I don't know,like Instagram, feeding often is
like this, oh, you can feed yourchild this perfect diet is a
(46:34):
diet than, you know, .001% ofthe world could attain, right.
And yet that's held up as somesort of standard. And I think
it's really disenfranchising toall families.
Jess (46:46):
So if a parent wants to or caregiver or just anybody who's
interested in kids eat in colorwants to find out more about it,
maybe join a picky eatingcourse. Or to find you on social
media. Where would they do that?
Unknown (46:59):
Kids eat in color, you can type that into the search
bar. Our website is a resourcecenter for babies, toddlers and
kids, just an amazing freeresource for parents. And of
course, social media is it'sfun. It's interesting, daily
tips. And, and it's a communitycommunity parents who are who
are working on the same thing.
Jess (47:20):
Yes. And finally, if you have two sentences that you give
to a parent or caregiver orpicky eater who's struggling
right now, what would it be
Unknown (47:30):
Your success as a parent does not depend on what
your child eats. What you'redoing right now is good, and
it's what's best for yourfamily.
Jess (47:41):
That is a wonderful way to close. Thank you so much,
Jennifer, for being on the showtoday. I really appreciate it.
You all check her out. If youhave a family member, anybody
who's dealing with picky eating,I've been just and you've been
listening to the flaky freepodcast treat this episode, like
gossip or the gospel and tellsomeone about it. Eat something
(48:03):
delicious this week and you canalways share it with me. I'm the
flaky foodie on all social mediaplatforms, Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, and a tiny little biton TikTok. Thanks, everybody.
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