More Peas, Please

By Patricia Berry

Your child is lunching on chicken nuggets and carrot sticks. Correction -- she’s nibbling the coating off the chicken and ignoring the vegetable altogether. You’ve given up on anything as exotic as, say, fish or asparagus. If only your child would stop turning his nose up at the basics.

The first step to raising a healthy eater is taking the negative term “picky eater” out of your vocabulary. The second is making variety an everyday event. “Toddlers are selective eaters. They graze,” says Rebecca Swan, M.D., director of the pediatric residency program at Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “But the fact is, two to four year olds get the nutrition they need. Maybe not in a 24-hour day, but certainly in the course of a week.”

And that’s good enough. The thing to remember is not that your toddler must clean her plate, but that she develops nutritious eating habits. Swan has several more tips for raising healthy eaters.

Pass the protein

Have a little protein such as meat, cheese or beans -- as well as fruits and vegetables -- on your child’s plate at every meal. By the end of the week, they will have consumed a balanced diet.

Don’t ditch their favorites

Keep in mind that toddlers go through food “jags” when all they’ll eat is one thing. That’s fine. Let them have mac and cheese every day, but serve it with fruits and vegetables and vary those with each meal. Beware the extended diet of a particular food, however. A carrots-and-chicken-nuggets eater at three has a way of becoming a carrots-and-chicken-nuggets eater at 12. Having a variety of other foods on the plate can make the difference.

Let your toddler help

Prepare meals with your toddler alongside you. There are ways a small child can pitch in, such as adding seasonings, sprinkling on cheese, or pretending to cook with her own set of utensils. Helping with the food preparation can disarm her selectivity -- she now has a vested interest in the meal.

Eat as a family

That’s difficult to pull off when parents work late, but the influence of older family members eating different foods is great. “Kids are great at mimicking,” says Dr. Swan. “If they see you eating avocado, they may want to try it, too.” If they don’t love it the first time they taste it, don’t assume it’s not for them. Studies show it takes 10 to 12 attempts to develop a taste for a new food. Even if you sit with your toddler while he’s eating, the meal becomes a social event, and the focus isn’t solely on him and what he is or isn’t putting in his mouth.

Get them used to salad

Children tend to think of a bowl of raw green vegetables as adult food simply because it’s not served to them. With a little assistance, a toddler can serve himself a small amount, perhaps in his own special salad bowl, and you can be confident he’s getting a serving of fresh produce.

Set easy-to-achieve goals

Toddlers like achieving something concrete, according to Swan. This method works fine for Dana Sullivan Kilroy of Reno, Nev., who uses her children’s ages as counting measures. “My three year old has to eat three bites of each food on his plate, which is usually plenty. Of course, sometimes my eight and 10 year olds will wave the tine of a fork by the food and call it a bite, but you pick your battles, and this is usually an easy one to win.”

In the end, good nutrition is accomplished by regularly introducing new and interesting foods, and by following healthy eating practices yourself. After all, your toddler is watching.