Picky eater? Here’s how to get your kids to eat more veggies
To get our kids to eat their vegetables, we parents have been known to resort to all manner of creative strategies: the choo-choo and airplane method for babies, the Pinterest-approved broccoli castles for toddlers, and the ever-popular hiding-veggies-in-sweeter-stuff technique for picky eating older kids.
It’s no surprise that sometimes all of those methods can fail when it comes to picky eating. Yet, you still want your little one to get the vitamins and minerals they need for healthy development.
To help overcome picky eating, and to establish a good relationship with nutrition and healthy eating, here are some tips that might encourage your children to get their servings of veggies—no complicated strategies needed!
Understand what to aim for
According to Robin Glance, a registered dietitian in Montreal who works with families, the proportions of food on the plate should be different for kids and adults. The Canada Food Guide uses the simplified “plate method” and recommends that adults fill their plates with 1/2 veg, 1/4 carb, 1/4 protein. Yet, for children, Glance recommends 1/3, 1/3, 1/3, since kids need more energy than us.
She also generally recommends abiding by the “rule of threes”: have three meals per day, consisting of at least three different food types (protein, starch, and fruit/vegetable), plus two or three snacks per day. This keeps things simplified, so you can focus on offering a variety of foods.
Involve them in choosing
If you give your child a choice between carrots or green beans, peas or broccoli, or even a choice between cooked or raw vegetables during your family meals, your kids will likely feel like they have some control over the decision. This goes a long way in them being open to trying new things.
For more ideas on getting the kids involved, and other great tips, check out these nutrition hacks for busy families.
Pair them with some dips
Vegetables can seem a bit dull on their own, but if you give your child something to dunk their veggies in, it can make it more fun, and more flavourful. For example, hummus or tzatziki can be a tasty pairing for carrots or cucumber sticks. Or spreading peanut butter on celery can make it much more appealing.
Try it family style—again and again
It takes many times of offering the same thing before children tend to try it. By offering up vegetables family-style, in dishes on the table where kids can serve themselves, children will feel like they have some control over what they choose. The trick is serving it often.
Change up when they eat and when they play
According to a study published in Preventive Medicine, playtime scheduling could be a very effective solution. Specifically, when researchers followed seven schools, three of which moved recess from after lunch to before, and four that kept recess after lunch, they discovered the time of play made a big difference.
Moving recess before lunch increased consumption of fruits and vegetables by 0.16 servings per child (a 54% increase) and increased the fraction of children eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables by 10 percentage points (a 45% increase).
Why does this work, and how can we apply it to non-school related vegetable eating? Firstly, we know that when kids had only class to look forward to, they weren’t in as much of a rush to finish eating, so they’d eat what was in front of them.
Conversely, if your kids do their homework when they get home, and you want them snacking on vegetables, you have a greater chance of getting them to eat more, knowing they’re unlikely to be eager to begin their work. Dinner timing, too, can be manipulated, so that their eating is scheduled after they’ve already been out to play. Playtime is a great motivator for our kids, so keeping them active as an incentive to get them to eat better is, well, the icing on the nutritious cake.
Editor’s note: A version of this article was originally published on October 12, 2015.
