What influences a child’s eating habits?
There are few things as stressful to parents as a child who refuses to eat or is just extremely fussy in what he or she will eat. I remember my anguish when my daughter refused to eat anything but noodles (don’t judge… desperate times call for desperate measures), broccoli and peeled grapes for the first few years of her life. It didn’t last forever and she is a now a young woman with a very discerning palate!
Upon the examination of eating habits it is clear that a combination of environmental factors and certain personal characteristics determine behaviour. I am just going to highlight a few factors that might help you in understanding your little ones habits.
⁃ Children mimic themselves on their parents’ behaviour around food. If you are fussy, they will be fussy. If you don’t eat vegetables, your little one will see this and act accordingly. A UK study on 2-5 year olds found that eating the same food as their parents was the number 1 predictor of pre-schooler vegetable intake.
⁃ Dietary habits are shaped at a young age and maintained throughout later life. Be sure to introduce variety of tastes and textures at a young age.
⁃ Parents provide food environments and eating experiences for their children. Be sure to create positive food associations and experiences for your children. Eating as a family and being careful not to comment on your satisfaction/ dissatisfaction about your, or their bodies, will go a long way to create healthy habits and a healthy body image. The benefit of family meals track well into the teenage and young adult years. With eating disorders in the rise, this is an important factor to keep in mind.
⁃ Family meals are an excellent opportunity to increase on interactive times with the children and to share the family’s values about food and eating. The same lessons may not be learnt when eating in front of the TV. Children are more likely to overeat and at times may get unhealthy exposure to programmes and advertisements about fast foods and body image.
⁃ Mothers are emotionally invested in a child’s eating habits, instinctively determine portion size, and are particularly driven by nutrient content and limiting waste.
⁃ Fathers are far more likely to pressure children to “ finish” food, but are also more lenient and indulgent to food requests, especially snack type foods. I have to mention that we discourage pressuring as this often create a negative eating environment and can stop children from developing self regulation of hunger and satiety.
⁃ It has been shown that babies recognise taste and odours already in the womb. The amniotic fluid they swallow may be flavoured by the mothers diet, and especially so with stronger flavours like garlic, anise and onion. Interesting to note is that breast fed babies are exposed to lots of different flavours through the maternal diet and will therefore accept more variety when solid foods are introduced, whilst formula fed babies might be slightly more reluctant to accept new tastes and textures.
⁃ Younger children prefer sweet and salty flavours and therefore prefer sweeter vegetables and fruit. Luckily, with repeated exposure and modelling a child could later accept initial disliked flavours, e en the bitter veggie ones. It could take up to 10 times to trust and taste a food, and in some cases up to 15 more exposures to start to like a new food.
Whatever the habits of your little one, know that with patience, perseverance and good modelling you can change it and encourage healthy nutritious eating that will help them grow and develop.
Xoxo, Dr Christa