Episode 94: You know what your children should eat, so why won't they eat it?

Episode 94: You know what your children should eat, so why won't they eat it?

Have you ever thought, "I know what my child should be eating... so why won't they actually eat it?"

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. In this episode, I'm talking about one of the biggest frustrations parents face. Knowing what healthy eating looks like is one thing, but helping your child become someone who actually wants to eat nutritious foods is something completely different.

We'll explore why feeding children isn't simply about nutrition knowledge. It's about understanding the science and psychology behind how children learn to eat. From appetite and sensory preferences to family routines, mealtime pressure and confidence, there are so many factors that influence whether a child becomes a happy, confident eater.

Whether you're supporting a picky eater, a fussy eater, or simply feeling overwhelmed by mealtimes, this episode will help you shift your focus from what your child should eat to how you can help them get there.

In This Episode

TWhy Nutrition Knowledge Isn't Enough
Understanding why knowing about healthy food doesn't always translate into healthier eating habits.

The Missing Piece Behind Fussy Eating
Discover why feeding skills and everyday habits have a bigger impact than simply offering nutritious foods.

The Factors That Shape Children's Eating
Learn how appetite, sensory sensitivities, emotions, routine and family dynamics all influence childrens nutrition.

Reducing Pressure at Mealtimes
Find out why less pressure often leads to more curiosity, confidence and willingness to try new foods.

Raising Healthy Eaters for Life
Simple mindset shifts that help children build a positive relationship with food and develop lifelong eating habits.

Links:
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Highlights:

Why It's So Hard to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Foods - 00:00
Knowing Nutrition vs. Changing Eating Behaviors - 00:31
Why Feeding Is More Than Just Knowing What’s Healthy - 02:52
The Many Factors That Influence a Child’s Eating - 05:11
Modern Challenges: Screens, Snacks, and Sensory Issues - 07:26
Parent Guilt and the Pressure to Get Food Right - 09:43
Teaching Children to Want Healthy Foods - 12:03
Building a Feeding System That Works - 14:25

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

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

Free Kids Nutrition Library: https://nourishwithkarina.com/freeinfo

Nutrition Consultation: https://nourishwithkarina.com/nutrition-consultation

Join the Membership Waitlist: https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Email Karina: hello@nourishwithkarina.com

Why It's So Hard to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Foods - 00:00
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 94. You know what your children should eat, so why won't they eat it? 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.

Knowing Nutrition vs. Changing Eating Behaviors - 00:31
You're really well. Today's episode is all about understanding why it's so hard to actually get kids to eat well. I've had a couple of parents lately who have talked to me about the fact that they know about healthy eating. They understand what healthy eating is, but they just can't get their child to eat healthy foods. So it's one thing to know about nutrition and to know what healthy foods are.

And I'm not saying that you should know everything about foods because that's why I went to uni and studied nutrition. So I'm not expecting parents to be across everything to do with food. That's my job is to educate people. But having said that, there is those healthy eating messages, you know, used to be the food pyramid. And parents pick up information online in all sorts of forms, whether it's on social media, whether it's Googling, AI now.

So parents are informed. Parents do like to learn information, but knowing the information is one thing. And actually getting your child to change their eating and improve their nutrition is a very different story. And I think that's where parents get really frustrated because they're given the information. They know what their child should eat. They know what's healthy, but actually making it happen is a different story. And it's a very different proposition.

So I just wanted to talk about this because I think this can create a lot of stress and frustration for parents, especially when they are quite educated in the food and nutrition space. I see this time and time again. Parents come to me. They may even be running their own courses on adult nutrition and health, but when they're trying to feed their own children, it's a completely different story and they get really stuck and they just don't know where to go. They don't know how to get their child to move towards a more varied healthy diet. And so

That's my role as a dietitian, as a kids dietitian who specializes in this space. It's to teach them the how. Teach them how to actually set up a feeding plan that is going to expand their child's intake. Because look, at the end of the day, everyone knows vegetables are healthy. Most people know that you don't want kids just to eat beige white foods all the time. We know that sugar is an ideal in huge quantities. And we know that it's

Why Feeding Is More Than Just Knowing What’s Healthy - 02:52
useful if you eat from all of the five food groups to cover most of your nutrients. So look, they're basic nutritional principles that I would say the majority of the population know. So we don't necessarily have a knowledge problem in that respect, but I think it's actually translating that knowledge into behavior and behavior change. That's the challenge and that's the issue. Because children don't eat nutrients. They

change their eating habits based on behavioral changes that the family make, changes to the child's feeding ecosystem, as I talk about in my program and my membership. And it's one thing for parents to know that they should serve up broccoli with me and some carbs, but actually getting those little people to eat it, that's a completely different story. Because eating requires appetite first, you got to be hungry to eat.

Curiosity, sensory, I would say tolerance or acceptance. They need to be emotionally regulated. So kids that have lost the plot are not going to be in an emotionally regulated state to bring in new foods into their repertoire. Kids thrive on routine. Kids need exposure. They need that repeated exposure for building familiarity and trust.

They need confidence and motor skills to be able to eat successfully on their own and have autonomy around their feeding. And family dynamics play a huge role as well. So there's so many factors that need to be working well. And this is really why I've created my whole feeding ecosystem because it looks at all of those factors that contribute to a child's willingness to eat. But it's something that we often don't think about.

We just want them to eat the damn broccoli. We don't think about all of these other underlying little factors or big factors that will influence whether your child will eat those healthy foods and therefore get the nutrition. I don't think today's environment makes healthy eating any easier because there's so many snacks around the constant snacking that kids have these days. They graze, they go to the cup and get another processed packet of food.

The Many Factors That Influence a Child’s Eating - 05:11
Some families have snack boxes. Look, it's a good thing in some respects because you just put all the healthier snack foods in that box and that's all they can choose from. Having said that, if they've got unlimited access to the snack box, they could be snacking all afternoon and that can play a role in appetite for dinner.

We are busier than ever and that plays into challenges around healthy meal preparation and I guess our bandwidth at dinner time and our tolerance for pushback and fussy eating and basically saying that's disgusting and food refusal and when we're really tired and we've had a big week or a big day, our tolerance for that is probably very low and our response will be quite different.

Which won't necessarily be conducive to happy mealtimes. So we're time for, we have screens. We have kids who just want screens, they demand screens, and all hell breaks loose if we heaven forbid want to turn their screen off. So that poses its own challenge. We have grandparents that can play a role. We have different parenting styles as well, different levels of worry from the parents, which then impacts.

How they manage mealtimes and perhaps fussy eating at meal time. So there's all these different factors that play into a child's eating. And at the moment, I believe that we are in a situation where it is really hard. I think today's environment makes healthy eating or getting kids to eat healthier even harder. And children are changing too. We have kids that have growing diagnosis of ADHD and ASD.

Sensory sensitivities is huge. I recently surveyed almost a thousand parents and huge number of them mention sensory sensitivities with their child, whether they're neurodivergent or not. It's very, very common. So many kids these days are anxious and that's playing into eating. Constipation is another one. Huge number of kids have gut issues these days. And constipation absolutely will impact your appetite and impact your food selection.

Modern Challenges: Screens, Snacks, and Sensory Issues - 07:26
And look, I'm sure there's always been kids who are constipated and kids who are neurodivergent or on the spectrum and kids who have sensory sensitivities, but either it's more identified, recognized, diagnosed now, or for whatever reason it is increasing. But at the end of the day, we have children who are facing these challenges. So it's not only the parents and the environment that's playing a role.

It's the child themselves as well and their struggles with particular foods. I think as parents these days too, we feel a lot of pressure and a lot of guilt. The more information that we do get thrown at us, the more responsible we feel. We feel responsible for our child's nutrition, their behavior, their emotions, their sleep development, their performance at school, their immunity, their gut health.

I mean, perhaps parents have always felt this responsibility and I can understand why, because we are their carers and you know, we are their role models in life and we're there to protect them and support them and nurture them. But there's a lot of pressure I think the parents put on themselves around food and nutrition. And I you know, every week I have parents say to me, I've stuffed them up, I've failed my child, I've done the wrong thing, and now they're not eating well.

If only I'd done it differently, but I didn't know. And there's a lot of guilt that goes with feeding. And also, and I've certainly had first hand experience of this, when our children aren't eating well, we without realizing it's almost a subconscious thing for a lot of us, we draw a direct correlation between how our children eat and our ability as a parent, especially to feed our children.

And it makes us question ourselves and it can affect our confidence. And we think, you know, well, how come I've got this so wrong? Like, why am I stuffing my child? What am I doing so wrong? What do I do to make this better? And that's when the Googling and Chat GPTing at a at two in the morning starts. I think the most important thing to take out of all of this today is that it's not that you don't know about nutrition and what your child should eat. Most of us

Parent Guilt and the Pressure to Get Food Right - 09:43
Do know the basics of a healthy, balanced diet, eat more vegetables, eat a balanced diet. Hate that word diet, eat a balanced intake, I should say. But what parents really struggle with understanding is knowing how to help children become kids who actually want to eat those foods. And that's the difference. It's not knowing about what they should eat, it's knowing how to help them become kids who actually want to eat.

those healthy foods. And that's a real art. And that's where you want to get to. That's where you want to land. And all of the work and the behind the scenes, the role modeling, the way you talk about food, the way you present food, all of those behind the scenes attempts are really at the end of the day, planting seeds so that one day your child really gets it and they become children who actually want to eat those healthy foods.

Because once you've done that, you've empowered them, you've taught them and you've set them up for life. And that's really the ultimate goal. It's not just to shove nutrition information down their throat about how healthy broccoli is for them or how it's gonna help them run faster. And sure that might work. You know, like a four-year-old boy, I'm sure we've tried that with my son too. I actually have vivid memories of him sprinting down the corridor because he had a bite of broccoli because now he's faster.

So look, that's all fine, fun and games, but at the end of the day, it's about teaching children how to love food. And of course, like we always gonna want chocolate and chips, I'm sure, but understanding where they fit. And that's another thing I spent a lot of time with parents talking about is treats and how to manage and navigate treats, the conversations around treats, the tolerance for what's appropriate for treats. So it's the feeding skills.

It's the parental feeding skills that's the missing piece. And when the parents are confident, grounded, and have the right approach, children respond positively. Children learn to like foods. Children start to expand their repertoire of foods and meal times become happier. But it all comes back to the feeding skills that underpin everything.

Teaching Children to Want Healthy Foods - 12:03
And as parents, we need to understand what those important feeding skills are. How do I respond when my child refuses food? How do I reduce the pressure at mealtimes? How do I build curiosity in my child around food? How do I protect their appetite? How do I stop grazing? How do I stay calm when I'm absolutely furious on the inside? How do I build up my child's repertoire of foods from 10 to

50. These are feeding skills. And that's the missing piece. So if you're listening to this and you're really struggling to get your child to eat better, it's not that you don't know what to feed them. I mean, maybe sure, you might need some tips around snacks and lunchboxes and whatnot. Absolutely. And I've got all of those. So at the end of the day, it's not necessarily knowing more about protein or carbohydrates or vitamins.

It's at the end of the day knowing about how to actually implement this for your child in your family that's gonna work. It's gonna work for the finances, it's gonna work for your time, it's gonna work with their taste preferences. It's the practical application in your home. That's where the focus needs to be. How you talk to your child about food, so important. Your external words can become their internal words. Remember that.

And this is exactly why people like me exist. Not because parents don't know, you know, that vegetables are healthy, of course you do. But trying to actually change behavior and get children to eat well based on changes to your parenting practices, that's where the gold is. Once you can set up a system, a feeding system that's going to be effective, that's where the gold is.

And that way we can help our children become kids who actually want to eat those foods. And they will. It's absolutely possible. Often we are, I think, harder on our kids, you know, on the inside. We almost write off the meal or tell ourselves that they're not going to eat it. And sometimes they really surprise us. I know I need to be more open-minded when my kids were little. Because I would serve up the same foods because I knew that they would eat it.

Building a Feeding System That Works - 14:25
But I needed to be more adventurous, but I needed the confidence to be more adventurous with what I served up. And having a better feeding plan would have supported me, which would have supported them, which would have meant that they expanded their repertoire much quicker. So the good news is that there is absolutely hope that children will expand their repertoire. 100%. Children learn, they develop, they're naturally inquisitive, they watch.

They listen, they are sponges. They hear and absorb everything we say. So if we're role modeling healthy eating behaviors, then there's every chance that they will become healthy eaters too. And that is the reason why I'm so hot on parents eating with their kids. At least one parent, anyway. Many feeding challenges are far more changeable than parents realize. And once you understand what's going on in your family home,

can make simple changes that make all the difference. It's understanding how children learn to eat, not just what they should eat. And that's the difference. Everything becomes easier then. So just to recap, I'll finish with this one sentence that really summarizes what I've been saying today. Parents don't fail because they don't know enough about nutrition. They struggle because nobody ever teaches the science and the psychology of feeding.

Once you understand how children learn to eat, healthy eating becomes far less stressful and much more achievable. It's the how, it's the feeding system. It's not complex, but it's crucial. And that's how I help families. So if you want to know more about how I could help your family, head to my website, nourishwithkarina.com. Reach out to me.

And check out some of my other podcast episodes. This podcast episode is number 94 now. Got 93 other super informative podcast episodes on all different topics, feeding kids. Always evidence-based, always full of information that will make feeding kids easier. So thanks so much for being here with me today. And I can't wait to chat with you again soon. Bye for now.