Don't Force Your Child to Eat

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

As a parent, you know it's your job to feed your child. If you set a plate of food in front of your child and he doesn't eat, or only eats a few bites, it can make you frightened. Is he getting enough food? What if he starves? 

If you get scared enough, you may find yourself pressuring your child to eat with any of these techniques:

• Feeding him when he's old enough to feed himself
• Following him around with plates of food
• Demanding that he eat all the food on his plate
• Bribing him to eat
• Getting angry, or threatening him if he doesn't eat
• Pestering him by repeatedly telling him to eat
• Forcing food into his mouth

Children Naturally Don't Eat Much

Children can eat less than half the calories that an adult eats. This may seem alarming to a parent, who wonders how a human being, even a small one, can survive on so little food.

Unless your child is one of the very rare children who have a feeding disorder, he will eat enough to be healthy. Interestingly, researchers have found that eating less food, as long as it is healthy, can actually make animals live longer! This is, of course, not a reason to restrict your child's food supply. But you can rest assured that if your child naturally has a light appetite, this may help him live a longer and healthier life, as long as the food he is getting is healthy.

Pressuring Destroys Your Child's Natural Appetite

Children are more in touch with their natural appetite than adults are. Eating when they aren't hungry can feel disgusting or painful. Respect their natural sense of hunger. If your child can maintain this natural sense of eating when he's hungry and stopping when he's not, he will have a powerful weapon against the culture of recreational eating that he will encounter when he's an adult.

Pressuring Children Into Eating May Make Them Eat Less


Researchers conducted an experiment where they told one group of children to "finish their food" and let another group of children eat as much they wanted. The children who were told to finish their food actually ate less than the ones who were left alone! They also made more nasty comments about the food.

Pressuring Children Into Eating More May Make Them Hate Food

Adults with food aversions (hating a food) often say that their aversion started when an adult forced them to eat a food they didn't like. Researchers found that 72% of adults who were forced to eat a food when they were children said that they permanently refused to eat that food for the rest of their lives!

If you don't let your child get up from the table until he tries his green beans, you may inadvertently create a green bean-hater for life!

Some children may rebel against the pressure to eat by refusing to eat anything, or only eating certain foods. It gives them a measure of control against the scary prospect of being forced to eat a food that they are on unfriendly terms with, or of eating more food than their stomachs feel comfortable with.

For Some Children, Pressuring May Work Too Well!

Overweight adults often attribute their weight problem to their childhood, when their well-meaning parents made them clean their plate, or repeatedly asked them if they wanted more food. These experiences taught them to tolerate an overly full stomach.

Not all obese adults start out obese. Your skinny kid could become an obese adult if he learns to eat even when he's not hungry.

Short Children Won't Grow Taller If They're Pressured Into Eating More

Some parents of short children think that if their child eats more, they will catch up to their taller friends.

As long as your child is getting enough protein and vitamins/minerals, eating more won't make him grow taller. It will just make him fatter.

Make sure your child is eating some foods that are high in protein, and getting enough zinc, iron, and other minerals and vitamins. Then stop worrying. Your child's height is mostly determined by his genes.

Notice What Triggers You Into Pressuring Your Child to Eat

As a parent, you naturally feel anxious if your child is doing something that you think is unhealthy, like not eating "enough." Reassure yourself that in all but the rarest of cases, children will eat enough food to survive and be healthy.

Notice the times when you feel tempted to pressure your child to eat. Relax, take a deep breath, smile, and say to yourself "Oh well. His brain knows how much he needs to eat." Then go do something else to distract yourself.

The following behaviors are perfectly normal! Don't get scared into pressuring your child to eat when he does them.

• refusing to eat a meal
• eating a lot of food for a few weeks, then eating practically nothing for the next few weeks
• refusing to eat certain foods
• eating less than a sibling, neighbor kid, or cousin
• being so excited by toys and people that he doesn't finish his meal

 What To Do Instead of Pressuring

To get your child to eat at mealtimes, try these techniques:

• Sit down and eat the same food as your child.
• Children often need to try a food many times before they like it.  Feed your child healthy foods for each meal, and be patient in the knowledge that they will probably eventually like them.
• If your child is easily distracted, you can gently call his attention back to his food. Do this only occasionally, so that he does not feel pestered, and only do it when he's first starting his meal, so that he does not eat when he is no longer hungry.
• Don't worry or stress out!

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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How to Reward Kids for Eating Their Vegetables

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Human beings, small and large, have a paradoxical attitude towards rewards. If you reward your child every time she draws a picture, she will like drawing less than if she gets no reward.

It's as if your child is thinking "If I have to be rewarded for drawing, it must not be very fun."

If you're paid to work, you may work hard because you want the money. But you won't go to work on Saturdays, even if your work is actually very fun.

Because of this quirk of human nature, researchers have often concluded that if you reward your child for eating vegetables, it will make her like them less.

However, a recent study has found that rewards may actually work after all.

Using Small Prizes as Rewards May Work

Researchers divided a group of parents with preschoolers into 3 conditions:

• The first set of parents gave their children a small sticker whenever they ate a tiny bite of a disliked vegetable
• The second set of parents praised their children whenever they ate a tiny bite of a disliked vegetable
• The third set of parents simply offered their children the vegetable

The researchers found that rewarding children with a little sticker made them like the vegetable better. They rated the vegetable as tastier than the children in the other two conditions.

Praising children for eating their vegetables didn't do any good at all.

How to Reward Your Child for Eating Vegetables

If you want to reward your child for taking a bite of her vegetables (or any other food she doesn't like), use a small reward like a toy or sticker. Don't praise her.

Don't give your child junk food, like sweets or chips, as a reward for eating vegetables. The "eat your vegetables and then I'll give you some dessert" tactic only makes your child like desserts more. She will think "If I'm getting dessert as a reward, dessert must really be wonderful."

There Are More Effective Techniques Than Rewards For Getting Your Child to Like Vegetables

Rewards may help your child like vegetables, but there are much more powerful techniques.

Simply serving the vegetable to your child, over and over, is a much more effective technique than rewards. Before your resort to rewards, make sure you are giving your child healthy food like vegetables, fruits, and whole grains for every meal.

Eating the same food as your child is also an extremely powerful technique. Your child will model you. Eat meals with your child and make sure you are eating the same healthy food that you want your child to eat. She will copy you, and learn to like the food you are eating.

For more techniques to help your child like vegetables, see this post and this post.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Use High Antioxidant Grains for Cooking and Baking

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Antioxidants can reduce your child's risk of childhood diseases, including asthma, allergies, and cancer.

You can dramatically increase the antioxidant level of your child's diet by making one tiny change -- using high antioxidant grains!

Imagine Jason, a well-meaning parent who gives his daughter Ava a cheese sandwich made with white bread. Now imagine Greg, another parent who makes one small change: he gives his son Dylan the same cheese sandwich using whole wheat and buckwheat bread.

Believe it or not, Dylan ate a lunch that was seven times higher in antioxidants than Ava! Dylan is getting as many antioxidants in that one meal as Ava is getting in two days of refined, processed foods!

Whole Grains Are Higher in Antioxidants

Whole grains are always higher in antioxidants than their refined cousins. Whole wheat flour is three times as high as white flour. Brown rice is five times as high as white rice. Giving your child whole grains can make a huge difference in the antioxidant level of her diet.

Switching to Whole Grains is Easy

Making the switch to whole grains is very easy. Amazingly, researchers have found that children often don't even notice when whole grains are served instead of refined grains!  And they often rate the whole grain products as just as tasty as the refined grain products!

One of the easiest things you can do to increase the antioxidant level of your child's diet is to switch to whole grains.

Some Whole Grains Are Higher In Antioxidants Than Others

In addition to switching to whole grains, you can make a big difference in the antioxidant level of your child's diet by using high-antioxidant whole grains. Some grains are naturally much higher in antioxidants than others.

Here are some antioxidant levels in whole grains:

Buckwheat 1.99 
Barley:       1.09
Millet:         .82
Oats:           .59
Rye:            .47
Rice:           .36
Wheat:        .33

As you can see, buckwheat is a super source of antioxidants. Try to fit some buckwheat into your child's diet, in the form of pancakes, muffins, or noodles. You can buy buckwheat flour at a health food store and buckwheat noodles at an Asian grocery store. You can substitute a quarter or so of wheat flour with buckwheat flour in most recipes.

Quinoa and amaranth are also very high in antioxidants.

Some Strains of Grains Are Higher In Antioxidants Than Others


Grains can have different strains. A strain is a different type of grain, like breeds of dogs are different types of dogs.

There can be a huge difference in the antioxidant levels of different strains of grains.

In general, you can remember this rule: The darker the color, the higher the antioxidants.

Black rice is higher in antioxidants than brown rice.

Red wheat is higher in antioxidants than white wheat.

Some dark-colored grains, like black rice or black and red sorghum are as high in antioxidants as blueberries!

One Small Change for Mom, One Huge Difference For the Kids!

Switching to high-antioxidant whole grains is an easy change to make. You probably already make many dishes with grains -- muffins, pancakes, rice. Simply grab a box of black rice instead of white rice, or a bag of buckwheat flour instead of white flour.

If you give your child high-antioxidant whole grains early in her life, she will probably like them for the rest of her life. The food your child eats when she is young will be the food that she likes when she is an adult.

You are helping your child's health now by feeding her high-antioxidant grains. But you are also helping her health thirty years from now when she is an adult, on her own.

Recipe Tips


If you want to use buckwheat flour, you can add up to 1/3 of it as a substitute for whole wheat flour and still get good results in most dishes. Remember that buckwheat has no gluten, so it won't rise as high in yeasted breads. It works better in pancakes and muffins, which are made with baking powder.

Whole grain rice takes twice as long to cook as white rice. However, if you soak the whole grain rice for a few hours (or overnight), the cooking time will be the same as refined white rice.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Feeding Your Baby Salt Can Make Her Crave It For the Rest of Her Life

 By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

A recent study found something remarkable about babies' taste preferences. Six month old babies who ate salty food like crackers loved the taste of salt years later! These babies grew to be preschool children who would eat, not just salty food, but plain salt! They happily ate plain salt sprinkled on a plate!

The remarkable thing about this study was that the 6 month old babies weren't given especially salty food. They were given food that many parents think is healthy for their children - crackers, bread, and other starchy snacks. Imagine a well-meaning parent giving her baby whole wheat goldfish crackers and thinking that it is a healthy food, not knowing that she is setting her baby up for a lifetime of salt cravings! Even bread, which people don't think of as a high-salt food, is actually fairly high in salt compared to the natural foods that people ate for hundreds of thousands of years.

Starchy Food Is a Bad First Food

Starchy foods are bad first foods for several reasons.

1. Starchy foods have very little flavor, so they don't teach babies the flavors of real foods. 
2. Starchy foods in our culture are associated with processed foods. The first flavors your child learns will stick with him the longest. He will be more likely to love these flavors later. If his first foods are starchy, flavorless ones, he'll learn to like the refined flour processed foods that food manufacturers create in their factories.

Now there is another reason not to feed your baby starchy foods. The added salt creates a long term salt craving.

Best First Foods: Meat and Vegetables

Some researchers are recommending meat as a good first food.  Meat is high in iron and zinc. Breast milk is low in both of these nutrients, so meat fills the gaps.

Vegetables are also a good first food. Teaching your baby the taste of many different vegetables at this early age can make her like them for a lifetime. Vegetables are also extremely nutritious. Your baby will get a lot of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Fruit may also be a good first food, but there is still a controversy over whether feeding your baby fruit this early will program her to like sweet tastes. If you want to be safe, stick with vegetables for the first few months.

How to Make a Healthy Cracker

Parents like crackers because they're convenient. It's easy to grab a handful of crackers for baby to munch on a car trip to the grocery store.

There is nothing wrong with an occasional cracker or piece of bread. But try to make sure it is flavorful (like herb or tomato flavored) and unsalted.

If you want a healthy cracker, you can make it yourself. Follow these rules:

1. Don't add any salt.
2. Don't add any sweetener.
3. Add other flavors by adding herbs and spices (preferably fresh).
4. Don't taste it yourself! I'm kidding here, but if you do taste it, recognize that your adult palate, warped by years of salty, sugary food, may find the crackers boring. Don't worry - your baby will love them!

Recipe for Healthy Whole Wheat Herb Crackers

These crackers have no salt or sugar. They contain herbs, which teach your baby to like the taste of real food. Herbs are also extremely high in antioxidants.

1 cup whole wheat flour (or other whole grain flours)

1/2 cup oatmeal, blended until fine in a blender or food processor

3 tablespoons wheat germ (stored in freezer so it doesn't get rancid)

2 tablespoons sesame or poppy seeds

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, basil, dill, oregano, thyme, cilantro, etc.)

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup olive or other oil

1.  Mix together the flour, oatmeal, wheat germ, seeds, and herbs.
2. Add the water and the oil. Mix together or process in a food processor. The dough should come together in a ball. Add more oil and water if it seems too dry.
3. Roll out until as thin as possible on a floured surface. Cut into shapes using a knife or cookie cutter. 
4. Place on ungreased baking sheet.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Teaching Your Child to Love Healthy Food is NOT Intuitive!

When I see a surprising study like this one, which finds that a seemingly healthy food like whole wheat crackers can have huge impacts on children's eating preferences years later, I realize that using a parent's intuition is not enough. Many parents feed their children food that seems healthy, but years later their children are junk food junkies.

The only way to really teach your child to love healthy food is to follow the research on how children learn their food preferences.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Snacking is Good for Kids -- Grazing is Not

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Recent research has found that a big cause of overeating in adults is eating too often.

But what is behind adults eating too often?  It's a relaxed attitude towards regular mealtimes.  It's not necessarily bad to schedule a snack or two between meals.  What's dangerous is to eat when you feel like it. It's dangerous when adults learn to eat whenever they're bored, lonely, frustrated, happy, or when they see a plate of doughnuts at work.

There is a certain freedom in knowing that there is a time for food and a time to stop thinking about food.  When it's time for a meal or snack, you can focus on the food.  When it's time to do other activities, thoughts of food don't interfere with these activities.

What is Grazing?

Although people have defined grazing in many ways, I'm going to use the word "grazing" to mean eating whenever you feel like it.

Grazing Starts in Childhood

Grazing habits start in childhood.  The French, who have much lower levels of obesity, have strict times for eating, which they take very seriously.  They don't eat "when they feel like it."  They eat at mealtimes.  And they really enjoy their food, partly because they are hungry for it.  Children in France grow up knowing that food is served at certain times of the day.

How to Prevent Grazing

Here are some ways to help prevent your child from becoming an adult who has to continually struggle with the desire to eat.

1) Don't Give Your Child Food If He Complains That He's Hungry.  Every child (and adult) should be hungry at times during the day.  Let hunger build up before meals.  Hunger is natural, and teaching a child to be afraid of the hunger sensation by scrambling to give him food will teach him to be an overeater.  If you don't feed your child when he asks, he'll soon become distracted with toys or friends and forget his hunger until dinnertime. If a meal is delayed and you feel like your child needs a little food, give him some raw vegetables. They will fill him up without spoiling his appetite. But make snacks like this a rare occurrence.

2) Have Regular Meals and Snacks at Regular Times.  Decide what times work for your family and stick with them.  If your child expects breakfast around 7:00, a snack at 10:00, lunch at 12:30, a snack at 3:00, and dinner at 5:00, that's when his stomach will send him hunger signals. 


3) Don't Let Your Child Forage for Food in the Kitchen.  You should be the one to give your child food.  It is easy for a parents to simply let their children graze in the kitchen.  But this will lead to overeating, and to eating unnutritious food.  Forbidding your child to get food for himself isn't as strict as it seems.  After all, if your spouse grabbed a bowlful of ice cream a half hour before dinner, just because he or she happened to be hungry, you would be justifiably angry that he was ruining his appetite for the delicious spaghetti that you were cooking.  


4) Be a Good Role Model.  If you forbid your child from grazing, but then you graze yourself, you will only make him more determined to eat whenever he wants.  Be a good role model and avoid grazing yourself.  You may even find that you shed a few pounds.


5) Feed Your Child Snacks, But Not Snack Food.  Food manufacturers would have you believe that junky snack foods like granola bars, crackers, cookies, or candy are the only foods you can feed your child between meals.  Don't fall for it.  You can feed your child fruit, vegetables and dip, 100% whole wheat bread and cheese, or other healthy foods for snacks.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Super-Sizing Healthy Food Makes Kids Eat More of It

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

Children tend to eat more of a food if they see more of it on their plates.  This "super-sizing" has been seen as a bad thing.  Fast food restaurants have been blamed for providing huge portions, which cause people to eat more unhealthy food.

But what if we could turn "super-sizing" on its head?  What if we could help our children eat more of a healthy food by super-sizing it?

A recent study found that serving children double portions of fruits and vegetables made them eat 37% more vegetables and a whopping 70% more fruit!

Give Your Child Super-Sizes of Healthy Foods

If you are serving vegetables, fruit, or other healthy foods for dinner, try giving your child a big, adult-sized portion.  You may be surprised that she focuses on eating this big portion, rather than the other less healthy items on her plate.

This Technique Only Works If Your Child Already Likes the Food

If your child hates spinach, and sees a huge glob of it on her plate, she will not eat more.  If anything, she may be repelled by the large pile that takes up half her plate.

Start by teaching your child to like the food by using these techniques.  Once your child likes the food (or at least thinks it's ok), then give her larger portions of it.

Give Your Child Less of the Main Dish and More Fruits and Vegetables


Another study has found that giving children less of a main dish, like macaroni and cheese, made children eat more of the healthy fruits and vegetables that accompanied it.  Give your child a healthy main dish, but make sure it's a child-sized portion. You don't want your child filling up on the main dish and leaving the extra healthy fruits and vegetables untouched.

Doesn't Serving Big Portions of Fruits and Vegetables Waste Food?

Frugal or environmentally conscious parents might object that giving your child big portions may waste food.  Although your child will eat more of the food if the portions are big, she may also leave more on her plate than she would if she were served a child-sized portion.

You can finish off your child's extra food yourself.  Your child will see you eating it and will be even more convinced that the food is tasty because Dad or Mom is eating it with such enthusiasm. 

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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Just Say No to the Kid's Menu

By Julia Moravcsik, PhD, author of Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food

It happens every time.  You sit down with your family at a restaurant and the server gives your child a children's menu -- full of games, puzzles, and...yes...junk food!

As unhealthy as many restaurants are, the least healthy food is reserved for the children.  Hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, soda, and loads of sweets.  Our growing children, who need a greater percentage of vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients to thrive, are served a lower concentration of these valuable chemicals than we, the parents, are!

Food on Children's Menus is High in Fat

The food on children's menus averages almost 50% fat.  Ironically, fast food children's menus have a slightly lower percentage of fat than sit down restaurants.  But both are loaded with fat.

Some fats are fine, and even healthy for children.  Olive oil, nuts, and seeds are healthy fats.  The fat in children's menus, however, comes mostly from saturated fats (meats, butterfat) or oil from deep frying (which can cause cancer by producing dangerous acrylamides and other oxidation products).

Food on Children's Menus is Repetitive

No matter how exotic and exciting a restaurant is, the children's menu has the same tired set of options.  Hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, and macaroni & cheese.

If you wanted to teach your child her multiplication tables, you wouldn't have her study the "two times" equations after she had already learned them.  If you want to teach your child to like a wide variety of healthy foods, you shouldn't keep teaching her the "hamburger" lesson over and over again.  She isn't learning a thing about the taste of new foods.  And giving your child the same foods over and over again can make her into a picky eater.

Food on Children's Menus is Overly Sweet

Children's menus usually come with soda or dessert.  What calories aren't taken up by fat are taken up by sugar!

Food on Children's Menus Have Very Little Fruits, Vegetables, or Other Healthy Foods

Your child can easily eat half her daily calories in one kid's meal without eating a single fruit, vegetable, or other healthy food.   Restaurant owners know that most children haven't learned to like fruits and vegetables, so they omit them from the kid's menu.

Alternatives to the Children's Menu

1. Tell your child that kid's menus are for babies.  Every child wants to be a big kid.  When the server hands your child a kid's menu, tell her that these menus are for babies and toddlers who haven't learned how to eat grown-up food yet.  She can enjoy the puzzles and the crayons, but can happily choose her food from the adult menu.

2. Split a meal with your child.  If the meals are too big, you and your child can decide on a meal that you both like and then split it.  Ask the server for a plate for your child.

3. Eat family style.  Order a few dishes and then allow everyone to take what they want from the dishes.  Your server can bring plates for all of you. 

4. Take food home.  Let your child order a meal off the grown-up menu, and then take the remainder home.  She can enjoy another serving a few days later, which will help her become even more familiar with the dish.

Would you like a simple, easy-to-follow program that will teach your child to love healthy food? See my new book Teach Your Child to Love Healthy Food on amazon.com.

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