Ewwwwww!

My son, who will be 3 in October, will eat anything.  Maybe he was just born that way, and I don’t know that it will last forever, but I hope it will.

My husband and I are both picky eaters, and I struggle with my weight, so I really put a lot of thought and a fair amount of research into doing the best I could for my son, even before he was born, to help him not have to deal with these issues.

Here are some suggestions, not necessarily scientific, but they have worked for me.  Everyone may not agree with or be able to follow all of them, but some of them may be helpful.

1.  Eat a variety of healthy foods while you are pregnant.  Easier said than done, I know, especially if you have a constant craving for purple Kool-Aid or something equally bad, as I did for most of my pregnancy, or are unable to keep anything down.  But the healthier you are able to eat, the better off you and your baby will be, and the healthier tastes your child will develop.  After all, anything you eat goes to nourish him or her.

2.  Breastfeed for at least a year, if possible, and eat healthy during that time.  Again, everything that goes into your body is nourishing your child if you are nursing him.  I firmly believe this is the healthiest start to give an infant if you are able to do it, and while being nourished, he is developing a taste for the healthy foods you are eating.

3.  Don’t start your child out on junk food.  I have often wondered why parents give their young children cookies and candy when the child doesn’t even know enough to want them.  Yes, it IS fun to watch their eyes get big when they taste something so good, or watch them smear icing all over their face as they get their first taste of cake.  Cooper’s first birthday was his first real taste of sugar, but he has had it in very limited amounts since then.  And he doesn’t know the difference.  I was proud of myself when, at his two-year checkup, a nurse in his pediatrician’s office gave him a lollipop (without asking me) when he got a shot, and he didn’t know what to do with it.  He thought it was a toy.

4.  Demonstrate good attitudes about healthy food.  Never use the term “I don’t like ___________” (tomatoes, for example), in front of your child, and try to prevent others from doing it.  Don’t even let the child know that not liking a food is an option.   Be a good role model.   Eat healthy in front of your child.  If you’re going to eat junk food, don’t let your child see you doing it.  It seems sort of dishonest, but you are doing your child a favor (and you will be doing yourself a favor if you don’t eat it).

5.  Don’t make your child a separate meal from what you’re having.  Our standard is that Cooper gets one serving of everything we’re having.  He doesn’t have to eat it all if he doesn’t want to, but he can’t have seconds on anything if he doesn’t eat the first serving of everything.  If your child is hungry enough, he will eat.  Don’t substitute junk food for healthy food just to get him to eat something.  Trust me, he won’t die if he misses a meal.

6.  Allow your child to self-regulate.  We’re all born with a regulator that tells us how much we need to eat, and most of us are almost immediately taught not to use it.  Formula-fed babies are usually encouraged to drink their whole bottle, whether they want it or not.  Children are taught early on to eat everything on their plate.  What if they’re not hungry?  Is it a good lesson that they have to keep eating after they’re full, even if they don’t want to? 

Junk foods and sweets are another thing that confuse our self-regulators.  They may not cause the feelings of fullness that healthy foods cause, so we are able to eat more of them , or they may cause unnatural cravings.  If you are full, you would probably turn up your nose at a plate of green beans, but a big slice of chocolate cake, now that’s another story. 

7.  Don’t make desserts a regular part of meals.  They should be for special occasions.  They shouldn’t be used as an incentive for your child to eat everything on his plate.

8.  Have a garden.  When he is old enough, let your child help you plant, water and pick the fruits and vegetables you grow.   Vegetables never taste better than when they are freshly picked and are never more exciting to eat than when you have grown them yourself.

9.  Avoid processed foods as much as possible.  What are processed foods?  Mostly foods on the inner shelves of the grocery store.  Those on the outer perimeter are usually the “real” foods (fruits, veggies, dairy, meats, nuts, whole grains, etc.).  Another definition is any food that has things you can’t pronounce on the label, but that’s not foolproof, because you may be able to pronounce “high fructose corn syrup,” but it’s REALLY bad for you.  Don’t be fooled by words like “enriched” or “fortified” either.  That basically means they have removed the real nutrients and replaced them with fake ones.

Or use the common sense approach.  Are Oreos really good for you?  Do they really fuel your body?  I think we all know the answer to that, deep down inside.

God designed our bodies, and He designed food to fuel them.  In our fallen world, man has distorted food so much that our bodies hardly even recognize them as food.  A fruit roll-up hardly compares to an apple for nutritional value.  Potato chips or French fries don’t bear much resemblance to an actual potato.  However, these foods may taste good, and if you let your child develop a taste for them, he may not want to go back to the real thing.

Artificial sweeteners aren’t necessarily the answer.  True, they don’t directly contribute to weight gain, but they can still instill the same cravings and bad habits as sugar does, and they are chemicals that our bodies weren’t designed to digest.

I’m not saying my child can’t go to birthday parties and eat cake.  Or that I will never make a batch of homemade cookies or let him have a Coke when we go to the movies.  I will.  As he gets older, he will become more aware of these things and feel deprived if his friends are eating them and he can’t.  But for now, while he is young and doesn’t even know these things exist, why should I push them on him when I can be using this time to help him develop a taste for healthy food and get him started on a path of good health for life?