How Getting Your Picky Eater to Eat Vegetables Can Backfire
Parents want their children to grow up healthy. Somehow, that translates to eating the greens on their plates. Parents are overjoyed when their kids happily chomp on the broccoli or salad. We tend to worry when the child is selective about which vegetable he or she will eat. When kids are picky with their vegetables, our parental instincts kick in and we resort to these tactics:
Remind them to eat their vegetables repeatedly
Only serve vegetables that your child will eat at meals
Ask them to finish the vegetables before offering a second helping of other foods
Enforcing the 3-bite rule
Withholding dessert if they do not eat their vegetables
(I am very guilty of #1). Mostly because I feel like a bad parent if I don’t ‘teach’’ my child to eat vegetables. The end result, however, is almost always the opposite of our original intention.
Consider this…
How likely are YOU to enjoy eating vegetables with someone repeatedly reminding you to eat them throughout.the.entire.meal? The same can be said for your kids. Making children “earn” dessert by eating vegetables only makes dessert that much more special in their eyes, creating more desire for dessert and less intrinsic inclination towards vegetables. Compliant children may go along with the 3-bite rule to please the parent while strong-willed children may put up a fight. Even when they do take three bites, they do so at the prompt of external pressure and are less likely to eat them out of curiosity or genuine liking. In the long term, we want children to be curious about foods and eat them because they want to, not because WE (i.e. the parents) want them to.
Many children who are very picky with vegetables tend to have no difficulty eating fruits. Fruits are quite similar to vegetables from a nutrition standpoint. Yes, fruits have more sugar and children need that sugar for energy and growth. If your child eats fruits but little to no vegetable, rest assured that he or she is getting the vitamins and minerals found in vegetables through fruits.
So what can parents do instead to help their children “like” vegetables?
We stick with the Division of Responsibility in feeding. Continue including a variety of vegetables on the menu. Don’t just serve zucchini daily because that is your child’s favourite vegetable, while the rest of the family is quite tired of it (true story). Role model behaviours you want your child to learn. Eat them yourself or learn how to make them in a way that is enjoyable to you. Avoid pressure, either negative or positive pressure (e.g. upselling how tasty the salad is). And don’t expect your child to like them after a few times of offering them. It takes MANY exposures and this could translate to months or years before your child learns to love them. Be patient and trust that you are doing your job by creating an environment that allows your child to explore and eat foods that they enjoy on their own terms.