Episode 100: 10 Things I've Learnt About Children's Nutrition in 25 Years as a Paediatric Dietitian

Episode 100: 10 Things I've Learnt About Children's Nutrition in 25 Years as a Paediatric Dietitian

Woo-hoo! It's episode 100 of The Easy Feed Podcast, and I'm so excited to celebrate this milestone with you!

Over the past 25 years as a paediatric dietitian, and 13 years as a mum, I've learnt a lot about feeding kids. So today, I'm sharing 10 of the biggest lessons I've learnt to help make children's nutrition simpler, take the stress out of mealtimes, and help you raise healthy eaters without the pressure to get everything right.

If you've got a fussy eater or picky eater at home, I want you to know that it's rarely just about the food. From understanding the underlying causes of fussy eating to supporting gut health, getting enough iron, and building a healthy relationship with food, there's so much more to feeding kids than what's on their dinner plate.

We'll talk about why pressure often makes feeding harder, why nutrition is a long game, and how small, consistent changes can make a real difference over time. I'll also share why a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work for every child, and how the way we talk about food and our bodies can shape our children's relationship with eating.

My goal has always been to keep things simple, practical and doable, because feeding kids isn't always easy. You don't need to overhaul your pantry or have a perfectly healthy eater. You just need to start where you are and take one small step at a time.

Whether you're navigating picky eating, looking for nutrition for fussy eaters, or simply wanting to make nutritious foods part of everyday family life, this episode brings together some of the most important lessons from the first 99 episodes.

Thank you for being here for episode 100. It's been an absolute pleasure sharing this journey with you!

5 Things We Discuss in This Episode

1. Your Child Doesn't Need a Perfect Diet
Why the overall pattern of eating matters more than one meal, and why imperfect eating is completely normal.

2. Fussy Eating Is Rarely Just About the Food
Understanding the underlying causes of picky eating, including sensory sensitivities, anxiety, appetite and the mealtime environment.

3. Why Pressure Makes Feeding Harder
How pressure, bribing and constant encouragement can increase anxiety and make children less willing to explore new foods.

4. Gut Health, Iron and Small Nutritional Changes
Why fibre, iron-rich foods and healthy fats matter, and how small changes can support children's nutrition over time.

5. Building a Healthy Relationship With Food
How parents can model a balanced approach to food, avoid labelling foods as good or bad, and help children develop a positive relationship with eating.

Highlights:

Introduction and Milestone - 00:00.904
Lesson 1: A child does not need to eat perfectly to be healthy - 02:17.666
Zooming out and avoiding online comparison guilt - 04:43.5
Lesson 2: Fussy eating is rarely just about the food - 06:59.274
Understanding underlying causes through the feeding ecosystem framework - 09:16.448
Lesson 3: Pressure usually makes feeding harder, not easier - 11:37.4
The hidden impact of verbal and non-verbal mealtime pressure - 13:57.408
Lesson 4: Nutrition happens over time, not overnight - 16:15.054
Lesson 5: Gut health, fiber, and the microbiome - 18:29.248
Gut health connections to mood, immunity, and overall well-being - 20:42.434
Lesson 6: Protein, iron, and zinc nuances - 23:01.94
Plant-based iron absorption and navigating dairy displacement - 25:21.458
Lesson 7: Start small and build momentum with micro-changes - 27:36.812
Lesson 8: Why feeding kids is harder today than it used to be - 30:01.964
Modern time constraints and convenience food realities - 32:18.764
Changes in food processing, pesticides, and modern grocery environments - 34:45.88
Navigating artificial sweeteners, low-fat trends, and marketing - 37:09.056
Lesson 9: Rejecting the one-size-fits-all approach - 39:28.288
Avoiding extreme measures and tailoring strategies to your child - 41:51.082
Lesson 10: Fostering a healthy relationship with food - 44:11.372
Role-modeling body positivity and keeping food neutral - 46:18.498
Final wrap-up and sign-off - 48:44.608

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes & Resources

Healthy recipes for kids: https://nourishwithkarina.com/healthy-recipes-for-kids

Recipe e-book: https://nourishwithkarina.com/recipebook

Healthy Kids Supermarket Guide: https://nourishwithkarina.com/guide

Meal planning resources: https://nourishwithkarina.com/planner

Three Week Feeding Kids Reset: https://nourishwithkarina.com/threeweeks

Introduction and Milestone - 00:00.904
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 100. Woohoo! Hi there, I'm Karina Savage, and with over 20 years' experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.

I'm really excited to celebrate my 100th podcast episode today. So exciting. When I first started this podcast, I just wanted to share quality information to parents who wanted it, who needed it, who just needed to know that feeding can be easier, that we just need to start small, one foot in front of the other. And yeah, just bit by bit I've tried to share a whole lot of different information with you.

And today I wanted to celebrate these last ninety-nine episodes and really summarize some of what I've said. And I thought that the best way to do that was to give you my 10 things that I've learned over the past 25 years as a pediatric dietitian. And it really does pull from all of these past 99 episodes.

Obviously not in the depth that these episodes have gone into in the past, but I just wanted to give you my top 10 things that I've learned over the past 25 years as a pediatric dietitian and mum, I must say, that's taught me mountains. And I really just want to keep it simple, practical, doable because that's what we need as parents. We need easy.

We need to keep our life as simple as possible and make things easier for ourselves because feeding kids isn't easy most of the time. And if I can help to make it easier, then amazing. So thanks for sticking with me. Or if you're new to me, thanks for being here. it's great to have you and I hope you enjoyed the episode. So I wanted to start by discussing the fact that I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves as parents to

Lesson 1: A child does not need to eat perfectly to be healthy - 02:17.666
Get it all right. And we never get it all right. Well, most of us don't. And I think that it's important to acknowledge that this is the norm. Not getting it right is the norm. And it's completely okay to not have a perfectly healthy eater because that is normal. You know, no child is a perfect eater, really. I mean, I've probably seen a handful in my twenty five years that have an absolute textbook intake when parents send me their food diary, but

Most of the time it's not the case, but that is normal and that is completely fine. Kids do not have to have the perfect diet to be healthy. And it's a really important message that as parents that we understand and as parents, we also convey to our children because I think a lot of the time we find ourselves saying, No, no, no, you can't have this. It's unhealthy, it's high in sugar, it's blah, blah, blah. But it's also really important that the message to our children is that

It's okay to have these things. They're sometimes foods. Okay. So it's okay to eat unhealthy. It doesn't mean that you are unhealthy. And it's important to acknowledge that imperfect is completely perfect. So and that goes for us as parents in terms of what we feed our children, but also how they eat. So don't freak out. I mean, you probably don't anyway, but don't freak out if they do have something that's loaded with additives. Some parents would, some parents.

you know, wouldn't there's a huge variation in the level of comfort, I think, with what we tolerate as parents with our children eating. And some parents worry about some things and some parents worry about other things. So some parents are really worried about food additives, some parents are really worried about sugar, some parents are really worried about fat. So it's depending, I think, on where you come from as a parent, where you come from in terms of your priorities with food and eating.

Some parents are really worried about their child's lack of vegetables. Some parents are really worried about their child's lack of irony intake. So I think as parents, we often will have slightly different priorities and preferences in terms of what we place importance on with our kids' nutrition. But at the end of the day, we all want our kids to eat healthier. We all want our kids to get what they need to thrive. And we all want our kids to grow up to be healthy eaters. And I think that sometimes

Zooming out and avoiding online comparison guilt - 04:43.5
where it's challenging for us as parents. It's like, well, how do I feed my child so that I'm not going to stuff them up? So that I'm going to help them love good food. So that I'm not going to create an eating disorder, not going to create an overweight kid. I'm just going to create a kid who likes to eat healthy food, who doesn't feel like sugar is banned, who just knows how to moderate their intake and choose healthy food and love healthy food.

And that's, I think, a real challenge for a lot of us. It's like, well, where is the middle line here? So I think at the end of the day, the most important thing to remember is that a child does not have to have a perfect diet to be healthy. And there's plenty of things that we can do to make a big difference to their intake. So I'm gonna stop there before I dive into all of the other things that I was gonna talk about today. So that's my number one is a child does not have to eat perfectly.

To be healthy because I think we just see so much online and it just makes us feel really inferior sometimes when you think, my gosh, my child's dinner plate does not look like that, or my gosh, my child's lunchbox is all beige and that child's lunchbox is all color. So online can really make us feel bad about how our child eats sometimes. And I think it's important to remember that.

Every child's different, every child's lunchbox is different, every child's dinner plate is different. We need to try to pull it back to what's important. We need to zoom out sometimes and go, okay, let's look bigger picture here rather than what my child's dinner plate looked like tonight. Because sometimes we can feel rubbish as a parent when we see what our child eats. Like I've had mom say to me, Look, Karina, I knew I needed to work with you when my child ate cake for dinner. And so again,

We need to zoom out, look at the bigger picture. They're probably not eating cake every meal, but you know, we just need to make sure that on the whole, there's some healthy boots in there. But I'm sure for most of you there is. So I care more about the overall pattern and the overall weeks rather than a particular meal. But even in the overall weeks, again, we're not aiming for perfection. Okay. So that's my number one.

Lesson 2: Fussy eating is rarely just about the food - 06:59.274
Number two, I want to talk about fussy eating because it's rarely just about the food. We often call fussy eaters fussy when they're refusing a particular meal or they're just not willing to try new foods. And parents are pulling their hair out saying, How am I ever gonna get my child to try some vegetables or eat a piece of steak or expand their variety because they're just

stuck on pasta and rice and nuggets and cheese. And look, I get it. I've been there. But it's about looking at the bigger picture with fussy eating because we really need to understand why your child is fussy in the first place. And I've talked a lot about this in some previous episodes when I've talked about my feeding ecosystem and looking at fussy eating from a very different lens. It's a framework that I've created. It's called my kids' feeding ecosystem framework.

Because it really explains why a child may or may not be willing to eat a food. And these three essential components of your child's feeding ecosystem will dictate how mealtimes will play out, how your child will develop a love for food. And so it's not about the food, it's about everything around the food that makes or breaks whether a child is willing to try that food.

And so I encourage parents, if you haven't listened to any of my previous episodes and you're starting at number 100, to go back and listen to me explaining the underlying causes and understanding why your child is eating a certain way, because then that gives you information. And information is power, and it helps you understand why your child is eating a certain way. And then you can apply a fix or a strategy that matches your child's.

underlying cause. And there are so many underlying causes. And you know, this is the basis of my fuss eating program, The Feeding Kids Reset, because we look at all of the underlying causes, whether it's sensory sensitivities, whether it's anxiety around unfamiliar foods, whether it's their appetite, whether it's constipation and tummy discomfort, whether it's neurodivergence, so ADHD, ASD, whether it's

Understanding underlying causes through the feeding ecosystem framework - 09:16.448
or a motor difficulty. So difficulties chewing and swallowing, whether it's pressure at mealtimes, that's a huge one. Or the mealtime environment, there's many factors that contribute to a negative mealtime environment or a positive mealtime environment. Maybe it's how the parents are talking about food. And that is a massive one. That's a huge part of my Fuss Eating program as well, the Feeding Kids Reset. I give you a whole lot of parents scripts around how we talk about food because

Our external words can become their internal words. And we need to be really intentional and mindful about how we talk about food. That is so important and so powerful. So we really need to take a step back and look at that 30,000 foot view from the airplane and say, why is my child not eating that particular food? Not, my gosh, they're so fussy. They're just not eating. It's driving me nuts. It's like, well, hang on a minute.

Why are they not eating that food? There is a very good reason for that. And once you understand why, then you can apply a fix that's going to help them move towards eating a greater variety of foods. We can't just label a child as fussy. That's the symptom. It's not the underlying cause. And when we understand the underlying cause, it makes the world of difference to meal times, to your mindset and approach, to your child's ability to expand their intake of foods.

It just makes such a difference. So, my number two is that fussy eating is rarely just about the food. You can't just try a million different recipes. It's not going to work if the underlying cause of their fussy eating is not just that they need a new recipe. And that is rarely the case, okay? Often kids will eat well at childcare and rubbish at home. Same recipe. The parents even get the recipe from the childcare center.

Same recipe, but they won't eat well at home. It's not the recipe. It's everything else to do with the child's eating. Okay, number three is around pressure. And I really wanted to give this its own place in this episode because as parents, it's counterintuitive to not pressure. Okay. It's human nature. When we want someone to do something, typically we rely on pressure to

Lesson 3: Pressure usually makes feeding harder, not easier - 11:37.4
Try to get them to do the behavior that we are wanting them to do. Okay. I mean, you can apply this to your pets, you can apply this to talking to, you know, your partner about asking them to do something for you. You know, you ask nicely the first time. It doesn't necessarily go the way you want it to. So then what do you do? You apply pressure. Not that it's actually helpful, but

Most of the time we do it because it's kind of like, well, let's bring up the reinforcements. Let's try and, you know, make our message a little more heard. But pressure doesn't work. And it's no surprise when you look at it, look at why. Because if you're pressured to do something, there's no way you're gonna want to do it, right? I remember when I was told by one of my parents, No, you will go to university. I was like, No, I'm not. Like, you know, you kind of just wanna say the opposite when you're feeling pressured. And of course I ended up going to university. I was always going to, but

When you're pressured to do something or when you're told to do something, I believe it's human nature to want to push back against that and like, no way, I'm not doing that. I will decide if I'm gonna do that or not. We don't want to pressure them, but when they don't eat the way we want them to, we kind of just resort to pressure. And I think parents resort to pressure without even realizing they're resorting to pressure. So just the subtle just take one bite, just try it.

Give it a go. It's really yummy. Mummy daddy eating it so yummy. Give it a go. You know, all of those types of things we don't realize as pressure. A baby that's eating and the mum hovering over its face, you know, with the spoon ready to shove into its mouth. That's pressure. But it's non-verbal pressure. It's body language. It's pressure. So there's so many ways that as parents we pressure our children without even necessarily saying anything. It's just our body language.

It can really interfere with meal times. And so we just need to be really mindful about pressure. Okay, so pressure usually makes feeding harder, not easier. And as I said, it's counterintuitive. Often as a parent, we resort to pressure, sometimes bribing, just to try to get our children to eat. But it's actually making it harder for your child to be in a place to

The hidden impact of verbal and non-verbal mealtime pressure - 13:57.408
want to eat that food or to want to explore that food, to try that food, it often just heightens their anxiety and actually moves them further away from trying the food. So it's hard as a parent to not apply pressure to not talk about food, but it's the best way forward. And I talk about this a lot with my parents inside my membership. We need to approach mealtimes very differently so that we take the pressure off.

Okay, so that's my number three. Pressure usually makes feeding harder, not easier. And that's a big thing that I've had to learn over the years with my children. And I still think it's a really important thing to be mindful of because it will absolutely make or break mealtimes. And, you know, it steals a lot of connection at mealtimes as well. Because if we're focusing on pressuring and take one bite.

We're not talking about life and the day that the child had or the day you had and connecting, and that's so valuable for us as a family. So yeah, be mindful of pressure. Just check in about the pressure. Okay, number four, I wanna tie into my comments around number one a little bit because my number one comment was about your child does not need to eat perfectly to be healthy. And my number four really ties into that nicely because

It's about the fact that nutrition happens over time, not what happened at dinner tonight. And I think this is a really important thing to mention because often we want our children to eat better now. Okay. And it doesn't happen. I remember when I was working in a children's hospital for the first 12 years of my career, shout out to the women's children in Adelaide. And I used to sit there in my fussy eating.

Clinic. We literally had a clinic that was usually full of parents who had fussy eaters. And to be honest with you, I used to dread booking follow-ups for them at the end of the session. So usually in a consultation, you'd sit down, you'd go through their history, you would, based on all of the information and you know, the child and the family and how feeding was for them right now, you would then create a plan.

Lesson 4: Nutrition happens over time, not overnight - 16:15.054
You would educate them, you would give them that plan and send them on their merry way. And you'd book a review appointment for, you know, one month, two months, three months time. And I remember just having this kind of pit or uneasy feeling in my stomach when booking the review because I'd almost feel like nothing was gonna change in a month, right? And look, that sounds terrible. And it's not always the case. I've certainly

worked with families that have had significant change within weeks. But on the whole, it's a long game, right? And this is what I say to parents all of the time. It's a long game. We can't expect children to be eating all the colors of the rainbow within three months by that three month review consultation. It doesn't happen. It's not realistic. Nutrition is a journey. Life is a journey.

Kids aren't doing everything by the age of three. You know, their speech evolves, their writing evolves, their gross mode evolves, feeding evolves. Okay. So it's not about what's happening at dinner. It's about what's happening over the months and the years. And that's where our focus needs to be on those little micro wins that will lead to bigger gains over time and setting our children up for success in the long run.

But it's about understanding how to do that, how to set it up right, how to plant all the seeds that will grow. But you need the right environment for those seeds to grow. And that's how I help parents tremendously is setting up that right feeding ecosystem so that all of those seeds will grow. And when that happens, your child does start to try new fees. And when that happens, your child

does develop into a healthy eater and understand how these everyday foods and sometimes foods fit together and just have a love of good food. So remember we're not focusing on a particular lunch or dinner. We're really zooming out and looking at the bigger picture and understanding that nutrition is a journey, just like everything else in life is a journey. And try not to compare yourself to somebody else. Just take one step in front of the other.

Lesson 5: Gut health, fiber, and the microbiome - 18:29.248
And do the best you can. And that's all we can ask of ourselves. Okay, my number five is all about gut health. And you will find episodes sprinkled throughout the first ninety-nine episodes about gut health. Whether it's about microbiome or probiotics or constipation or toddler diarrhea or

Tummy pain in kids. You will find these sprinkled all the way through because I am a gut health geek. Like I was the pediatric gastroenterology dietician at the Women's and Children's in Adelaide for the first 10 years. And then I moved into research in gastroenterology and babies with allergies and gut issues. And so I absolutely love gut health and I value gut health. And I know that in the last 25 years as a pediatric dietitian,

The research around gut health has tremendously expanded. And there is more and more concrete evidence around the direct link between how our gut is functioning and our long-term health, our short-term health, the way we feel, anxiety, mood, everything to do with our body and our longevity comes back to our gut health. And so we need to again.

make these little micro changes that will support our children's gut health over their life. Now look, one of my episodes does talk about the first thousand days and our start to life because that directly impacts our gut health as well. The first thousand days does somewhat put a health stamp on our children for the rest of their life and how their gut colonizes and matures will impact their risk of allergy and all sorts of conditions. And so

It's really important that we're mindful of our children's gut health right from the get-go and then make these positive changes to their diet because diet will change gut health at any age. It's not just in the first thousand days. And so paying attention to gut health will put your child in good stead to be a healthier adult. It's not just about buying the right probiotics. Sometimes probiotics aren't even helpful.

Gut health connections to mood, immunity, and overall well-being - 20:42.434
Sometimes they're tremendously helpful. It just depends on the strain and the condition that you are trying to help. But fiber is a beautiful source of nutrition for our gut microbes. And I have talked a lot about fiber in one of my podcasts. My members have access to all of my fiber information. And there's plenty of things that we can do to support our children's gut health by feeding their gut microbes the right fiber. A healthy gut.

Isn't created by one fiber supplement. It's created by supporting your child's gut microbiome over their lifetime and making simple changes that will feed their gut microbes, which then means that their gut ecosystem, their microbiome is much healthier and reduces their risk of disease and it helps their brain. It helps their anxiety. So if you've got a super anxious child, how your child eats can impact.

Their anxiety and depression. We know that there's a direct link there. They've studied it. And so supporting our children's gut health will support concentration, focus, mood, energy, and how they're feeling and how their health is going to be long term. So, really, really important to be making little changes. I know it sounds big, but just little changes to their diet, to their fiber intake can dramatically impact their gut health.

Sometimes probiotics help. And again, that's what we talk about in my private chat group with my members. They say, you know, in this situation, Karina, would probiotics be beneficial? And I'll be like, yes or no. And if it's yes, it'll be like, this is the strain that's good for this. And so there's definitely things that we can do to support your child's gut health. children in daycare that are getting sick all the time. There's absolutely a probiotic that will support that. Children with eczema, absolutely. Children with allergies, yes.

Constipation, mm, sometimes. So it really depends on the situation, but there's definitely things that we can do to support your child's gut health that will support their overall health and well being. So gut health needed to get its own you know, little allocation here in this top ten because super, super important. And as I said, you'll find those topics sprinkled through the first ninety-nine episodes.

Lesson 6: Protein, iron, and zinc nuances - 23:01.94
Okay, number six goes to protein, because protein is something that I think is sometimes a little misunderstood. The protein world is just expanding and exploding and growing at an exponential rate. You know, I see patients every week and I always discover new protein powders every week that people are on because there's just so many out there, whether it's collagen, whether it's cow's milk.

you know, whey or casein or all sorts of different types of proteins, plant proteins. we are consuming protein powders, I feel like at a rate that we've never consumed them before. And somewhere along the way, there was this big push for more protein. And look, protein is definitely important across the lifespan, especially in older people, especially in middle-aged women that may not get enough protein to support.

muscle maintenance, but in kids, we generally, especially in first world countries, we see plenty of protein intake. Children typically do not need more protein. What they do need though is more of the nutrients that are in the quality protein. And by that I mean nutrients such as iron and zinc. Now iron

Absolutely. We know that almost two-thirds of three-year-old Australian children have an inadequate dietary iron intake. And this directly relates to the type of protein that they have. And again, filling children up with protein powders that are cow's milk-based or collagen-based, it's not giving them iron that they need unless those supplements also have iron in them.

But at the end of the day, it's important to try and eat those foods that naturally contain iron. And there's animal-based protein foods that contain iron, and then there's plenty of plant-based foods that contain iron. It's often easier with children to sprinkle all of these plant-based iron-rich foods throughout their day to boost their overall intake with vitamin C as well to maximize absorption, like at least triple the absorption. But it's often easier to

Plant-based iron absorption and navigating dairy displacement - 25:21.458
Really supercharge their day with a lot of these plant-based iron-rich foods, especially if kids aren't good meat eaters. And we see a lot of those. The other thing is they're having bucket loads of dairy and that displaces all of these other iron-rich foods. So think, you know, yogurt, cheese, custards, milk, all of those dairy foods will impact your child's iron levels because they're having yogurt.

instead of peanut butter or edamami or hummus or you know a black bean brownie or a piece of meat or eggs. So having cheese instead of hummus or cashews. So they're having dairy foods instead of the iron-rich foods and that dramatically impacts their overall iron intake over the days and the weeks and the months. Zinc is another important nutrient that sometimes is lower in fussy eaters. And that's again

Because they're just not getting that balance of those protein foods. Healthy fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids, is another one that we sometimes see lower in kids that don't have a balanced diet. And so it's important that, yes, fish, but there's plenty of other healthy fats, so avocados and olives and using lots of extra vegetable olive oil, tuna perhaps, fish, if we can get them to eat fish.

They're great ways to get more amigas into their life. Otherwise, we've got things like chia and hemp seeds that are also good sources of healthy fats, flaxseed. That's why in my recipe book I've got a lot of these additions of chia and flaxseed to try and boost the healthy fats in our children's day. You can grab my recipe ebook by heading to nourishwithkarina.com forward slash recipe book. Okay, number seven relates to the application of

How we feed kids because I think sometimes we feel like we've got to overhaul everything. We kind of get to almost crisis point and we're like, my God, their breakfast is like cornflakes and neutrogen. Their lunch is just all white. Their dinner is just all white or beige. And you just kind of think, my God, we'd have to like throw it all out and completely change the pantry.

Lesson 7: Start small and build momentum with micro-changes - 27:36.812
And then that seems too hard. And so then nothing changes and you're just too busy. And so nothing changes. And I think it's really important to focus on the small changes because when they're done consistently, they add up and you get momentum. It's just like when you're trying to train for, say, a half marathon or a marathon and you haven't been running basically at all. And it's like, wow, that's like a huge, huge goal to try to achieve.

But once you start breaking it down, you know, you go for like a one kilometer run and then that one kilometer turns into two kilometers and that two kilometer turns into five and then you're moving, you're gaining momentum, you're running, and then that five turns into ten and you build from there. So this is the same with feeding. It's the same with trying to change any habit or make changes. Starting small makes a huge difference to your ability to keep going. So just focus on

One small change to start with, and you will hear me say this throughout all of my 99 episodes. Small changes done consistently is what we're after here. So whether it's just sprinkling extra virgin olive oil or adding some cheer or adding some avocado, look, these are the types of suggestions we talk about all the time inside the Nourish Karina membership. But it's what you need to do to gain the momentum. And it's easy to do. Just one little sprinkle here or one little addition there.

It makes all the difference because it adds up and you gain momentum. And then all of a sudden your child's eating an extra mouthful of strawberry here and an extra sprinkle of cheer there. Makes a difference. The small steps count. So don't try and do a big change to your child's eating. Just focus on one tiny micro change, and that's where you start to gain the momentum. Okay, number eight really relates to how feeding kids feels these days compared to, you know.

I think when we were kids or when I was a child. Sometimes people will say, just give them the food. And if they don't eat it, they go to bed hungry. And certainly that's what I think the approach was when I was growing up, or we would be made to sit at the table until we finished. And I remember my brother was a pretty slow eater. We would just be sitting at a table forever. We had this table that was it wasn't round, but it wasn't square. Kind of a square but with round edges. And

Lesson 8: Why feeding kids is harder today than it used to be - 30:01.964
It was a wooden table and a it was great size. We had enough space, but it was quite intimate. And you weren't like yelling across the table at each other. But I just remember my brother just taking forever to eat and we would sit there and I remember my parents saying, Come on, just another mouthful and Yeah, I don't know why he took longer and I

Think he eventually ate it. I can't remember, to be honest. Maybe we got to an hour and then that was it. I don't know. I can't even remember how long we were sitting there for. But I just remember that the messaging, yeah, especially when I first started working as a pediatric dietitian twenty five years ago, it was very much along the lines if they don't want to eat it, don't give them anything else. They go to bed hungry. They'll eat when they're hungry. That was the message. They'll eat when they're hungry, they'll eat more for breakfast the next day. And look, some parents certainly still

apply those principles and will follow that way of feeding and way of communicating with kids. But it never really sat well with me. And it was kind of like the whole controlled crying approach with babies. And that I never did that. I could never sit there and listen to my child crying for like 30, 40 minutes at a time. So you've got to do what you feel comfortable with as a parent. But I feel and I know that feeding kids is different

these days to how it was 25 years ago for a number of reasons. Number one, we are working more and both parents are working more. There's more double income families just through sheer necessity than 25, 30 years ago. So mum's working as well as dad and they have far less time to cook. So relying on more convenience foods, children eating in daycare settings, children eating at grandparents,

So we're more time poor than we've ever been. And there's more convenience foods than there's ever been. Some fine. So we actually have seen a significant growth in the convenience foods in the supermarket as well. So all of the ready-made foods. Some of them are good, some of them are quite high in preservatives and salt and cream and bacon and things like that. So it's a huge variation there. But look at the end of the day, it's still food.

Modern time constraints and convenience food realities - 32:18.764
And I certainly don't want to shame anyone that needs to rely on those foods. I'm just explaining why feeding is harder these days because we are so time poor. We rely on these convenience foods. And so if you're doing that completely fine, there's still very good options to choose in the supermarket that is a ready-made food for sure. And there's a lot more ready-made foods that are healthier these days than there used to be. So that's all really positive. Just look out for the the creamy bacon y ones and try and avoid them.

But on the whole, we are lucky that we've got those because parents are busier than ever. I feel like the narrative has changed a lot though, well, around parenting in general. And I feel like as parents, well, I know I've suffered with this. I've suffered to create boundaries and have the confidence to hold my ground. And I think when we as parents have the confidence to have boundaries, hold our ground and not give in.

Then children eventually respect that and respond positively to that. But sometimes it's really hard to do that. And sometimes we find ourselves making two meals, three meals, four options at dinner just to get our children to eat. And it's frustrating for us as parents because A, we're wasting food. B, we're spending so much time in the kitchen. And C, we just want our kids to eat one meal with us. It drives us nuts. One of my episodes actually early on is simplifying dinner with Fussy Eaters. And it talks about how you can

Create one meal for the family and then modify and sub out various food groups for the fussy eaters. And so that's a really good podcast episode to listen to. I think it's one of my first 10. But what I know for sure is a lot different to 25, 30 years ago is the actual food we are consuming in terms of the packet food. So it's been really interesting to see things pop up online. You know, they'll compare.

A packet of Oreos now compared to 30 years ago, or a packet of Ritzcrackers now compared to 30 years ago. Food has changed so much in so many ways. Not only in terms of you know genetic modification, in terms of farming practices, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the use of glyphosate on our products, the additives, the preservatives. So it's not only the

Changes in food processing, pesticides, and modern grocery environments - 34:45.88
The stuff that's sprayed on our crops and perhaps the soil quality, which isn't what it used to be. So we're not getting the same nutrients from the soil. We're getting stuff sprayed on our food more and more. And then once those crops are harvested and we get the wheat or we get the corn or whatever it is, then those ingredients are mixed with more additives and preservatives than ever before. And so our food has changed so much right from that grain of wheat growing or that grain of corn growing.

To what ends up in a packet on the supermarket shelf. And that is fundamentally different. And it is a concern and it is a problem. As a pediatric dietitian, I have concerns around our children's long-term health because of all of these highly processed foods that our children are eating. That who knows what effect these are actually having on our children's gut health and on our children's.

Overall long-term health. Sweetness is the other thing that has dramatically increased over the past 25 years. The no-added sugar movement or the sugar-free movement gained a lot of momentum. And that's meant that we are now eating a lot more artificially sweetened food than we used to be. I remember even when I was studying as a dietitian, I was taught that an artificially sweetened yogurt was a better option.

Than a full fat yogurt for someone with diabetes or someone trying to lose weight. And now I'm like, that was so wrong. It was such incorrect advice given to me in a university as a dietitian, studying to be a dietitian. It's just incredible how things have changed in terms of the messaging. What also upsets me is that some of the research that came out, you know, over the past 30 years wasn't necessarily in our best.

interests as, and I'm kind of opening up Pandora's box here, but I just wanted to make this little comment. So a little comment was a big comment around that whole low fat, low sugar, high fat, high sugar, you know, what's better for us. And so I think, you know, we were taught that low fat was better for us, but that meant that we increased the sugar. And then to reduce the sugar, we added in synthetic artificial sweeteners that are not healthy for us.

Navigating artificial sweeteners, low-fat trends, and marketing - 37:09.056
And can still cause, you know, rise in insulin. So it is a minefield, and I'm certainly not going to go into that anymore now. I've kind of just dropped the little grenade and it's gone off. And now I'm like not going to talk about it anymore. But it's an issue that has created a real change in how we eat as well. We are processing food more. We have taken fat out of milk. We are putting protein powder back into yogurt. Yeah, we are changing our food so much these days.

That I don't think we even know the impact that it's having on us, on our appetite, on our levels of fullness, hunger, on our risk of cancer, on you know, on so many things. It's like, why are we tampering with food so much? Why didn't we just leave food the way it was, you know, 50 hundred years ago? I know the way that my nonna would have eaten, you know, 80 years ago when she was growing up. So

Things have changed a lot. Not only are we busier and more time poor and our kids seem to push back more and have a lot more power over us than these days, but food has fundamentally changed and the marketing of food is more powerful than ever and more misleading than ever. So I believe that feeding kids is genuinely harder than it used to be for all of those reasons. And then we layer on social media, which I talked a little bit about before. So parents haven't necessarily become

worse feeders than they used to be. I just think the environment for us parents and children and the food that they have access to, it's all changed. And it's really changed, I think, how our children eat and the snacking that occurs these days and the food addiction that occurs without us even realizing these foods, these companies

are making these foods highly addictive for our children and the marketing that occurs even subconsciously to our children through Bluey or through whatever, it's phenomenal. And so we are up against it from all of these different angles. And fundamentally that's I think made things a lot harder for us parents these days. So it's just important to be mindful of it. Does not mean it's always lost. It just means that if feeding kids feels hard, there's a reason for it. And it's not our fault, but

Lesson 9: Rejecting the one-size-fits-all approach - 39:28.288
Understanding what's going on helps us to make intentional changes to support our children's health. Okay, my number nine really relates to the one size fits all approach because often online you will see just do this for your fussy eater or just do this to improve your child's gut health or just do this to, you know, help your child lose weight or just do this for boosting protein.

And sure, those tips can be super helpful, but at the same time, especially with fussy eaters, the one size fits all approach does not work. And this is why parents try so hard to make funny bases out of food, to try yummy recipes, to cut carrots into little stars. You know, the number of lunchboxes and dinner plates that I see online that have got cute little, you know,

animals that the bread's been cut into or the carrots have been cut into. That's great, but it doesn't always work for children. And poor parents go to such extremes, like almost to the level of dancing on their heads at mealtimes to try and get kids to take one bite of something. But it doesn't always work. And then it makes us feel even more dejected and upset and frustrated because we're like, well, why is this not working? This is what I've seen online or this is what I've been told. Just put the veggies on the plate. So

It doesn't always work. And that's why one size fits all approach does not work. Like one feeding strategy that works for one child won't necessarily work for another child or family. So it's really important to focus on what your child isn't eating and formulate a plan for your child rather than worrying about what's working for another family because what works for one family won't necessarily work for another.

And sometimes it can bring us down when we see other families eating such beautiful dinners and all the kids are eating everything and then your family is not. So try to just have those small intentional changes and focus on strategies that are going to work for your child and for your family. And the way that you work that out is understanding why your child is eating a certain way. And as I said, I've got all of that support for you inside the nourishment membership. But it's really important to

Avoiding extreme measures and tailoring strategies to your child - 41:51.082
Remember that that strategy needs to fit for your child and your family and you, it needs to be doable for you. Otherwise, you don't get anywhere. And so small steps with a strategy that works for your family is the important thing there, just so that you can gain that momentum. Okay, my number ten really relates to developing a child who has a healthy relationship with food. And this is a really, really crucial point because

You only have to look at the generation that went before us of Jenny Craig's Weight Watchers, light and easy. Look, I still see light and easy advertising everywhere. For whatever reason, the weight loss, the messaging around food and health, it was very calorie focused and almost judgmental and, you know, weight driven.

Which hopefully will change moving forwards in the next generation. But, you know, there's still scales around, even though I wish all the scales in the world were burnt. But I think it's really important to understand that as parents, we are the biggest influences on our children's mindset and relationship with food. And how we are as mothers with our bodies and our relationship with food will influence our daughters.

Fathers as well with their sons, fathers with their daughters, yeah, it crosses over. But it's really, really important as parents that we are dialed into our words because our external words become their internal words very easily. And so we need to be really mindful and intentional of the words we use around.

Our bodies around being healthy, around good foods, bad foods. We don't want to label them as good foods and bad foods, ideally. How we talk about other children's bodies, how we talk about other people's bodies walking down the street. We need to be really intentional because at the end of the day, we want our children to have a very balanced, healthy understanding around what health is and what being healthy means.

Lesson 10: Fostering a healthy relationship with food - 44:11.372
And also have a healthier relationship with food and not grow up thinking that or that food is good, that food is bad, that food's going to make me fat. That food is okay to eat. You know, all the skinny people eat that food. That's a really unhealthy relationship to have. We really want our children just to view food as food, all food being neutral and

loving food for what it is and loving the experience of eating food with our family and eating food with loved ones because food is often put out of a time when we're coming together and sharing love and connection. And that's how we want children to experience food.

And when children are experiencing food in that really positive, loving way, they are much more likely to eat whatever everyone else is eating. Children will love and learn to love foods that are familiar to them, that are presented to them in an environment that is loving, that is fun, that is just calm. That's the way that they're going to develop a love for healthy, yummy, good food. No matter what it is, whether it's like a chocolate brownie or whether it's like a

bruschetta or whether it's spaghetti bolognese or whether it's an apple, whatever it is, just trying to stay food neutral and trying to feed your children the healthy food the majority of the time. And then, you know, those treats sometimes it's fine. Like it's absolutely fine for them to have ice creams and treats and whatnot. We just try not to label it as good food and bad food as much as possible, though I'll still catch myself out and be like, I shouldn't have called that good food or bad food.

We're all gonna say it, but at the end of the day, I think the role modeling as parents to our children is hugely powerful and we really need to be dialed in and mindful of how we are speaking and behaving because it's the nonverbal as well. It's the way that we talk about our bodies, our own bodies and our own food in relation to our own bodies. I shouldn't eat that, I'm trying to lose weight or whatever.

Role-modeling body positivity and keeping food neutral - 46:18.498
We have to be really mindful not to say those things in front of our kids because then they hear that and they're like, Mm, do I need to be mindful about what I eat for my body? And so yeah, just need to be really mindful. Again, I could talk about this one for another two days, but we need to be dialed in on how we are as parents around the messages that we are conveying to our children around food and our bodies and just having a healthy life and having a healthy relationship with food.

I know that parents are worried about creating eating disorders. I know that parents are worried about their kids that are a bit chubby. I see all of those in my my online consults and we talk about them too inside the membership because it's about knowing what to say when your child does come up with something like I am I fat or you know, those types of conversations are really important to manage delicately and correctly so that your child doesn't develop a negative

association between particular foods and their body. And we just want to do it right so that our children grow up in a really positive way with a really positive mindset to food and their bodies. So remember we're playing the long game here. All of the little things that we say and we do along our children's journey with food, it all adds up. And it might not seem like much at the time.

But it makes a big difference to your child's life and their relationship with food. So well done. Everything that you are doing, all the efforts that you're going to, it's not for nothing. And it doesn't matter if they're just having a bowl of plain pasta for dinner tonight because you know that eventually one of their snacks will be a bit healthier or one of their breakfast options will be a bit healthier, or they will eat that banana here, or they will eat those frozen peas eventually. It might not be for another two years, but

It will all pay off and you're doing the best you can. If you have to rely on convenience foods more at the moment, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, just start where you're at and where your child's at and build from there. Parents will say, I've got my child who's got alfred and they eat four foods. And I'm like, Well, that's okay. We can still value add to that. And if we need to use supplements in the meantime, that's okay too. There's no judgment. No matter what your child is eating, you are trying hard.

Final wrap-up and sign-off - 48:44.608
And you are going to get there in whatever way, shape, or form that looks like for your family. But remember, those small intentional changes make all the difference in the long run. And that's all you need to focus on. But please don't feel bad about the way that your child eats compared to any other child because it's okay. They will get there. So whether you've been with me for the whole way through or whether you've just started

In the last few episodes or whether this is your first episode with me. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you enjoy the easy feed. I really look forward to what the future holds. And don't be a stranger. Reach out and say hi. Have a beautiful week. Bye for now.