When is a child considered to be a poor eater

The definition of whether a child eats well or poorly is really a subjective thing perceived by the parents. The healthy child, by definition, has the capacity to regulate his hunger-satiety cycles and with them to end a meal when he does not want any more. Sometimes, it is the parents themselves who consider that if they do not finish the portion on their plate (which we, the adults, have decided to put on it), what they eat is insufficient.

So, how do we know what eating well is? It is simple, if a child gains weight and grows adequately following his percentile as the pediatrician tells us, and he is also active and happy, it means that he is eating enough. In fact, just like adults, there will be seasons when he will be hungrier or less hungry, and even during the course of a week he will compensate some days with others. This occurs physiologically and is completely normal.

However, there are often children who are more selective or repetitive eating only certain types of food, or who take a long time to do so, and this could be included in the category of “bad eater” and can be worked on.

Basic tips for parents with children who eat poorly

The first and basic thing will be the habits and norms at mealtime. Just as we are clear that a child cannot cross the street while cars are passing because it is dangerous, there will be rules in relation to food that are important:

1. Do not force to eat. The parent chooses the quality and the child chooses the quantity. If we have broccoli for dinner we will put broccoli, but if he chooses to eat only a sapling, nothing will happen, the important thing is that he has tried it.
2. Eating as a family. It is recommended that the child joins the family table as soon as possible, eating the same foods as the others, which will also attract his attention. At the beginning, this can be done by bringing the high chair with a tray closer to the child and later directly at the table. For this it is also important that we gradually adapt the family meal without many sauces, spices or spicy foods that can make him reject it. Much better the simple preparations without many fats, salt or sugars to educate the infantile palate in the natural flavors.
   In addition, if during the meal we have our attention distracted in precisely eating and talking relaxed, we will be less aware of whether the child eats more or less quantity and, being more relaxed, he will eat more. It is the classic saying “not to eat separately”, all together is better.
3. Encourage autonomy. If the child sits at the family table and we give him cutlery, he will try to imitate the grown-ups and will start to handle them to eat by himself, a skill that he will have to learn over time.
4. Let them experiment with food. For them it is initially part of a game and they have to learn how are the textures of food, the temperature, and go tasting the taste and for this they have to stain themselves and stain the floor, nothing happens.
5. Avoid screens. We must try to make the meal a relaxed, fun and social time, so that the child perceives it as something we all do together. If before the child was born we were used to having dinner around the TV, maybe now is a good time to change habits. By definition, children who eat a lot with a screen overeat because they don’t realize it, and bad eaters undereat because they gawk.
6. Limit mealtimes. It is normal for a child to take longer than an adult to eat, especially if he/she is starting to eat alone, but it is neither necessary nor advisable to take two hours to eat. We understand that 30-40 minutes at the most will be enough, more time will probably be spent playing with the food and demanding more attention from the adult than necessary. Once the time is over, the plate will be removed without anger.
7. Children function with positive reinforcement. Anger and punishments are not useful in food as well as in other spheres of life, and even less so, the classic: “if you don’t eat it for lunch, you will have it for snack and if not for dinner”. This only perpetuates their abhorrence of food. So, if we get them to try a food we will reinforce the behavior and say how well they are doing, but it is important that meals are not rewarded with other foods on a regular basis or repeat over and over again in front of the child how bad they eat with them or other people.
8. Do not get up from the table while we are eating. When they sit in a highchair there is usually no problem, but when we start to give them autonomy and they sit in a chair they tend to get up to go play because they are not interested in wasting time at the table, and it is important that they understand that this is something that cannot be done. If it is time to eat and the child does not want to eat, he has to wait for the others to finish sitting in his seat even if he does not want to eat what is due that day.

How do you introduce new foods to the menu of a child who finds it difficult to eat?

If even with the above rules from the beginning of feeding we have a child who finds it hard to eat, takes a long time and is not very interested in food, the first thing to do is to keep calm.

It is normal that between the ages of 2 and 6 years they go through a period of greater food restriction, even children who previously wanted to try absolutely everything, suddenly begin to stick to less and less food, and it is normal because they already walk and have discovered a fascinating world around them and really what happens is that for many the time to sit down to eat is to lose that precious time they have to play.

I usually recommend several basic tips and above all to be insistent, we have to be heavier than them, because the day they win a single battle is likely that, for a much longer time than we would like, they will have won the war.

• Do not change plates. If the child gets used to the fact that, if there are green beans to eat, but I don’t eat them, eventually dad, mom or grandma will bring out macaroni for me. Therefore, he will wait patiently, tantrum or no tantrum, for the time to pass to get it.
• Between meals only water. If between meals we get used to offer cookies, juice, milkshakes or sweets (often because he has eaten regularly in the previous meal, and it is the fish that bites its own tail), it is normal that at mealtime he is not hungry. So it is preferable that, if we see the child with a lot of hunger and insistence for unhealthy snacks, we bring forward the mealtime rather than offering a snack that takes away his hunger.
• It is normal that there are foods that they like more and others less, but we, adults, know that they cannot eat only macaroni and chicken, so we will have to insist on healthier foods. Sometimes it is necessary to offer a food up to 15 times for a child to accept it and this can always be done by changing the preparations of the same food or combining it in the same meal with foods that the child likes.
• Fruit and vegetables are usually the poor siblings, it is precisely where we need to insist the most, preferably on an empty stomach. If we have spinach and chicken and the child eats the chicken first, once satiated the chances that he will try the spinach are much less than the spinach first, so first we will offer him the foods he likes the least. Although it may seem like a chef’s technique, it is easier than it seems and the trick of cooking the vegetables at their cooking point makes them more appetizing than the mushy textures to which we are generally accustomed to cooked vegetables (best steamed, baked, en papillote and as little time as possible).
  It will be the same with fruit at snack time, if before I give him a yogurt or some cookies, fruit will have no place, so it is preferable to invest 15 minutes in eating a slice of tangerine or a piece of pear and then complete with something else. The child who gets used to the fact that fruit and vegetables are always present, ends up eating them eventually.
• Work from an early age on not using too many sauces, salt or sugar, so that children have an appetite for natural flavors, because otherwise we will have to continue working on masking them in the future.
• Use combined dishes, for example, rice with sautéed vegetables and small pieces of chicken, better than rice as a first course and a steak with vegetable garnish as a second course, because a child who is a bad eater will get tired halfway through the first course and we will never get to the second.
• Do not overcrowd the plates. If someone who normally is not very hungry, sees a full plate, it is normal that he gets overwhelmed and eats less than if we put only the amount that we know he is likely to eat. For example: if we know that he usually eats a croquette and a half, we will put two croquettes and when he is finishing we will urge him to ask if he wants to repeat. For them it is much more gratifying to think that they have managed to finish the dish than to put four croquettes as a starter and leave two.

Is it true that it is better not to force children to eat?

Absolutely yes. We should never, never, never force them to eat because we run the risk of perpetuating the behaviors we mentioned before, such as depending every day on the drawings to make them open their mouths, having to run after the child all over the house to make him eat the banana or, even worse, that he learns to vomit when he feels full and doesn’t want any more.

It is preferable that we work on healthy habits and norms, with tranquility and patience, because in the end we will reap the rewards, and do not forget that we are investing in their nutritional future, which is for life.

For more information on infant feeding, consult a pediatrician.