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The gap between intention & eating for fussy eaters

Adding foods, Creating Confident Eaters, Family support for picky eating, Picky eating support / By
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The gap between intention and eating

Most Monday mornings I go for a longish run. It’s not my favourite thing to do, and my knees hate it, 😊 but it’s the best time for me to think. No distractions and far, far better to be mulling something over than focused on my lungs burning and my legs aching!

It also sets me up well for the week as it’s my least favourite exercise but once it’s done, it’s all downhill from there. Playing psychological games works so may as well use that to my advantage.

While running this morning I was thinking about the gap between intention and action. This is something I see happening all around me, and even watch unfolding in my own life.
There are multiple studies showing just how big the difference can be between what people want to do and what actually ends up happening.

Think about when you have decided to exercise in the mornings, go on a diet, quit drinking so much wine, get to bed earlier or not waste so much time on FB, for example. We all have the best intentions, but then when it comes to action, it often doesn’t work out the way we expect.

I’ll use morning exercise as an example. We decide that going for a run 3 times a week will be good for our health. We know if we do it, we’ll feel better afterwards too.

So, we decide we’ll do it starting next Monday. It’s always easier to feel positive about doing something that doesn’t start now! How many times have I heard this too from children who have food discomfort. “Oh, I’ll eat that when I’m 5 or when I’m 7 I’ll be able to eat that”.

Back to our early morning running.

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We have every intention of running next Monday but then Sunday we have a big family drama and instead of getting to bed early like we intended, bedtime is much later than usual.

Then because we know we have to get up and run we’re furious about not being asleep early, so it takes us ages to drop off. Once we do, the alarm seems to go off 30 minutes later.

We start to question whether the run is a good idea this particular morning and wonder whether it’s best to leave it to Wednesday.

But no, we have decided to run Monday so let’s brave through. But then it’s raining. Okay, we can wear a spray jacket. We go to put on the sneakers and the lace snaps. So do we. It’s the final straw and maybe the universe giving us a message we can’t ignore…

But what has this got to do with children’s eating?

The gap between wanting to eat something and managing it

The answer is everything!

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Older children frequently want to eat new foods as they know that living on a restrictive diet is frustrating, difficult, and often makes them feel as though they are ‘weird’. They feel censure, but they can also be excluded.

Pizza is a good example of this – but I’ve also seen it happen with foods like ice cream or burgers, for example. Pizza is often served at parties, but it’s also often used as a ‘treat’ at school or community/sports events. Not being able to eat pizza can be socially isolating, particularly when everyone else is looking forward to it.

Children who are not able to eat pizza would often really like to eat it so they can join in the excitement, and they can enjoy the ‘treat’ with everyone else.

They may even decide that the next time the pizza is served they will have a bite.
But, the gap between wanting to do it and actually doing it is, like the running, fraught with all sorts of obstacles. They want to eat it but the ability to take the first step is paralysing.

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What can we do to help?

1. Appreciate the gap – understanding that the want to eat something may be quite strong. Whether it’s an older child who is fed up with not being able to eat food or a younger child wanting to please mum and dad, often the desire is there.

However, the gap between wanting and being able to do it is as wide as wanting to run but being exhausted and it’s raining and your sneaker lace snaps.

When it comes to the finish part – the doing – there may just be too many obstacles.

2. Offer support – being on the same ‘team’ as our child can be really helpful. Rather than it being “how can I get you to eat this new thing” with our child on the other side thinking “I don’t want to eat that” which is quite oppositional. It can be better to work together.

“I can see you are finding this challenging, how can I help?” may be a new approach to try.

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3. Take pressure off – the less pressure a child feels the better. If we are told we must run 5 kms on our first outing, that is far more difficult than being able to run for as far as we can comfortably manage.

Similarly, if a child feels they must eat something because we have paid for it, cooked it, organized it specially for them, it puts a lot of pressure on.

And remember the gap between intention and action. Our child may ask for the blueberries in the supermarket because they genuinely want to eat them, but then they get home and realize that it’s all too scary.

It’s why children frequently eat things from a parent’s plate that they wouldn’t eat from their own. Once it’s on ‘my’ plate then there is a certain obligation.

A family I have been working with had an inspired idea. When out at a restaurant where you were able to order lots of little dishes, dad told his children “order anything you want and if you don’t like it, I’ll eat it”. Their 9 year old ate something totally out of his comfort zone as all pressure was removed.

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4. Scaffold progress – often taking the first step is the hardest part. If we go back to the running analogy, then having a friend or the hot trainer 😉 knock on the door and talk you gently through the ‘getting out the door part’, would go a long way towards success.

Similarly, there may be many ways we can make eating a new food easier for our child. Let’s use pizza as an example. In its entirety pizza could be quite overwhelming, there is a LOT going on on a pizza!

So what can we do to make that pizza a little easier?

i) We could use a familiar base. Maybe that’s a wrap or a piece of toast. There are no rules!

ii) We can pare it back to the minimum. Perhaps it’s a toasted wrap with some grated cheese on top. Or its toast cut into a triangle with pineapple or salami on top.

iii) Don’t use the bothersome bits! If the tomato sauce or the cheese is the make or break, start without it.

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5. Break eating into steps – can we break a complex process like eating into more manageable steps?

I will though preface this by saying this is not usually what I recommend. It can, if not done carefully, put pressure on a child to ‘perform’ and that is never helpful. It can also mean a child is doing something to please us, rather than taking steps independently.

Therefore, if you do work through a process of steps, it’s important that you are very mindful of pressure and an inadvertent pushing to perform. Probably this is only a good strategy if you do have a child who really does want to eat differently but is struggling to do so.

i) Perhaps its putting a tiny piece on the plate over successive weeks until our child is happy having it there (this could take a long time for really food hesitant children – patience and persistence win the race).

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ii) Next it could be picking it up and holding it as though we are going to eat it.

iii) Then we may be able to get it up to the face and smell it.

iv) If a child is comfortable with the first steps perhaps, they can lick it.

v) Finally, they may be able to take a minute nibble.

I hope this had given you a little perspective on how, even for children who do want to eat more widely, it’s often not as simple as making that decision and then just going out and doing it!!

Any questions please feel free to get in touch.

Judith, MA Cantab (Cambridge University), Post Grad Dip Psychology (Massey University), is an AOTA accredited picky eating advisor and internationally certified nutritional therapist. She works with 100+ families every year resolving fussy eating and returning pleasure and joy to the meal table.

She is also mum to two boys and the author of Creating Confident Eaters and Winner Winner I Eat Dinner. Her dream is that every child is able to approach food from a place of safety and joy, not fear.
Learn more about Judith here: https://theconfidenteater.com/about/

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