Children can ‘go off’ a whole array of foods and it’s a battle to keep their diet balanced. Coram Family looks at ways to entice young children back to the table.

You may not be in the thick of a faddy eating phase at the moment but you’re bound to know a parent who is or has been. Faddy eating phases are synonymous with toddlers or young children. Having been hearty eaters as babies, they can suddenly turn against green vegetables, salad of any description, milk, meat, fruit – anything, or sometimes everything, they used to devour with relish gets rejected. Fusspots like this can turn mealtime into a battle of wills. You try to get them to eat another spoonful while they turn up their nose, point blank. Other parents will be able to reassure you with their own stories of woe; toddlers who have touched nothing for months but toast with peanut butter and survived to tell the tale. But you still have to persevere and help your child to overcome their reluctance with food.

When children’s diet gets unbalanced

Young children’s diet can tip out of balance for a number of reasons, any of which can creep up unawares.

• Some children are able to snack between meals and still clear their plate later. But many children take the edge off their appetite with constant bits and pieces nibbled at odd times. Then you lose track of what your children are actually eating, because some of their potential nutrition goes in the bin at the end of a meal.
• If you’re a working parent, you cannot assume your children are eating enough, or filling the nutrition gap, when they are with their nanny, childminder or in the nursery. You need to talk to the adults who look after them and check what they’re eating.
• You may work on the assumption that, given free choices about food, children will eat a diet that balances out over the days. This is a sound idea but only if parents keep a firm eye and hand on the biscuits and crisps.

It’s unworkable to say that children should never ever snack between meals. But it is sensible to take a careful look at what you let them eat. You don’t want them to fill up on biscuits and crisps. If this is a problem in your family, it’s simpler not to buy them while your children are young. You can then honestly say, ‘We don’t have any biscuits’, rather than negotiate how many they can have.

Make it clear what children can have between meals – probably fresh fruit or raw carrot sticks. Avoid squashes. Offer water, milk (ordinary not skimmed) and small amounts of fruit juice.

If you are out on a local trip, then offer to buy bananas (good street food because you peel them) or bread rolls. Your children will soon learn that non-stop buns or sweets are not an option.

What do children need?

The most important messages about children’s diet are:

• Children need to draw from all four main food groups: carbohydrates, protein, fats and the vitamins and minerals grouping.
• The low-fat, high-fibre diets promoted for adults are definitely not a healthy route to take for your children. Children need to fuel physical growth and intellectual development. They need the fats in their diet and they cannot easily digest lots of fibre.
• As with adults, a healthy diet for children includes as much fresh, home-cooked food as you can manage. Convenience meals and desserts include surprising amounts of salt, sugar and artificial sweeteners. If you make a meal, you know what’s gone into it.
• Children benefit from suitable vitamin supplements. But they are a supplement to a balanced diet, not a substitute. Artificial preparations cannot reproduce the exact effect of vitamins and minerals taken in food.
• In a similar way, buying convenience meals or snacks that are ‘enriched’ with vitamins is not a useful tactic. There is concern now in the United States, where manufacturers add even more to foods than we do in the UK, that adults and children risk overdosing on some vitamins when they are added willy-nilly to foods.
• There are no absolutely ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods. But of course, if you suspect that your child is allergic to foods containing wheat or dairy products, then you will need to consult your GP about how to handle this.

Focus on mealtimes

In the Coram Early Childhood Centre, we find each mealtime can be a good opportunity for adults to encourage children’s interest and enthusiasm for food. In your own family, it helps to focus children’s eating on proper, friendly mealtimes.

• Offer a range of meals over a week. Keep trying with some new foods and variations of previous themes.
• Let children exercise some choice: what she’d like in her sandwiches or which fruit and vegetables he’d like cut up today.
• Your child can help you plan ahead with menus for the week. Children are sometimes more interested to eat a meal they have chosen.
• It’s important to make food part of social mealtimes. Eat together as a family as often as you can and show enjoyment in your own food.
• When it is only the children who are having a meal, still sit with them to keep them company. Children can easily get distracted from eating, if you are busy or out of the room.
• If children need encouragement to eat then start them with a small helping. They can always come back for seconds if they want. Children are sometimes happier if they can dish out their own food in the proportions they want.
• Avoid complex rituals to persuade children to eat, but some compromises are wise. Perhaps you cut the crusts off sandwiches, make an attractive layout of food or let them have custard in a separate bowl.
• After a meal, ask your children if they have finished. If they have eaten very little, simply say, ‘The next meal is teatime (or whatever)’. If they complain later, try for a calm comment like, ‘I’m sorry you weren’t in the mood for lunch, but there’ll be plenty for tea.’

For more information:
See The Coram Family website.