Fussy Eater Solutions
Does it matter if they do not eat what is in their lunch box?
Is variety really that important?
Let’s face it, preparing school lunch for your fussy eater is not one of the joys of parenting. In fact, the most common lunch box emotion for parents is worry. “Is it enough?” “Is it nutritious?” “What if the teacher comments on the lunch box?” “Will they eat it?
When boxes come home, snacks gone but all the “good” barely touched, parents worry even more. Then of course, some food is wasted and has to be thrown away. Lunch boxes take time and inspiration, if they come back half full, then why bother!
If your child is a fussy eater, let me give you some practical advice that will de-stress the dreaded lunch box drama and help your child eat better. The truth is you can change outcomes without a lot of fuss turning frustrated frowns into satisfied smiles at both ends of the day.
Firstly, let’s talk about facts
There are a lot of expectations about school lunch and lunch boxes that are harmful for fussy eaters.
Lunch box shaming
Everyone is having a say on lunch boxes these days. Schools are aiming to provide allergen free zones and encourage “healthy eating”. Teachers are tasked with implementing healthy eating policies. This has, for a number of years, resulted in arguments between schools and parents. It has become a controversial topic through social media. Parents among themselves disagree about the role the school should play. Assessing lunch boxes passes a substantial amount of judgment. Teachers might be well prepared and well intentioned, but they are not nutritionists. They do, however, like other human beings, have their own beliefs and personal story about food. Even the idea that it’s appropriate to police lunch boxes reflects our society’s anxiety about health and obesity. Unfortunately, it’s based on values around nutrition, rather than solid evidence about the what, why, when of eating. The truth is teachers are not best positioned to mark lunch boxes.
Every time we assess someone else’s lunch box we do harm
When someone compliments a child on the content of their lunch box, they make them more cognizant of binary food judgements: good versus bad, healthy versus junk, right versus wrong. If another child’s lunch box is ignored or criticized, they receive a clear message that their lunch box is bad or unhealthy. It teaches both children that some food can be bad for you and creates links that associate food with guilty feelings—bad food, bad choices, bad person.
These judgements and feelings are harmful and can be extreme. As a nutritionist, I now hear stories about children who lie or hide food from their teachers.
When children eat with only nutritional goals in mind, they learn to analyse and compare the content of their lunch boxes in a narrow and inflexible way. It has ramifications at home because feeling shame about family food choices causes friction with parents and undermines their parenting role. And it makes those who are anxious about eating even more so.
When 9% of the population is affected by an eating disorder in Australia[1], one has to question how lunch box criticism in school will affect the current generation of children and their relationship with food.
Failing to see what eating is about
Looking at food purely as fuel for the body narrows down what eating is about. It disregards families’ food culture and financial situation. It fails to acknowledge the significance of the parent-child feeding relationships. It ignores parents’own beliefs and emotions about foods.
Eating is about managing hunger which is more about intuition than nutrition. It is better achieved when the conditions are right: stress and value-based judgments interfere with children’s eating and their learning about themselves and food.
Instagram perfection creates unrealistic expectations
There are thousands of Instagram accounts showing beautiful lunch boxes, some inspire, others add pressure on parents to aim for perfection for fear of being judged.
Lunchtime environment and conditions
Being well seated and comfortable is conducive to good eating. However, schools are not well placed to provide a good lunch time experience. Children are given very little time to eat. There is often a lack of adult supervision during meals, and a lack of proper eating space, so children take their lunch and snacks outdoors, picnic style. It is harder to eat in these conditions. No wonder children with the freedom to self-manage their lunch break would much rather play. By focusing so much attention on what is in their lunch boxes, we miss the point, misinterpret their eating behaviour and mislead ourselves. Better eating conditions would deliver far better outcomes.
Children enjoy conviviality in eating
Judging by how many teenagers share a moment eating together after school tells us that conviviality in eating is essential to growing children and human beings in general. Conviviality helps to relax and children who relax eat better. Social participation and inclusion are most important to one’s eating experience.
Let’s reframe the expectations
As parents we have to deal as best we can with unavoidable constraints so let’s start by reframing our expectations based on solid evidence for what is best for your fussy eater.
Do not box your child in
Children can self-regulate their food intake. When a lunchbox comes home half-full, children are likely to be hungry at snack time as well as dinner. Can you trust your children to eat sufficient amounts throughout the day? In other words, it is likely children will be ravenous after school. Snack time and dinner are opportunities to present variety, hearty and wholesome foods to help meet nutritional needs.
Do not box yourself in
Since your children have the capacity to self-regulate their food intake, you do not have to go put yourself under pressure and go for fanciful lunchboxes, nor do you have to be stuck providing the same food to your child day after day, you do not have to go into a lunch box compensation technique and make choices too complicated for your child.
It is necessary to go beyond nutritional and quantity goals for children to have a positive lunch box experience. Parents who are confident to review their expectation of lunchboxes can set new expectations and achieve better outcomes.
The Key benefits of resolving your child’s fussy eating include:
Life-long good relationship with food
Improved parent-child relationship
Normal growth and development
End of mealtime battles
The best Formula for Fussy eaters
Focus on Exposure, Skills (conviviality, acceptance and know how) and Simplicity.
Exposure: Accept that something may not be eaten, but continue to offer regularly. Provide liked foods with less liked/known foods in the same lunchbox.
Conviviality: Encourage your child to enjoy a moment sitting down with friends at lunch.
Acceptance: Teach your child not to judge others’ lunch boxes and explain that you are in charge of food choices.
Know how: Engage children in preparing lunch boxes. Children may learn to use a thermos (for a reheated left-over meal), they may go from bite-size food items to sandwiches to eating with a spoon or a fork. In using spoons, forks, thermos we encourage age-appropriate skill development. We learn to trust children to sort themselves out with the food we provide. Children may remove packaging and place items in containers and learn that food remains the same.
Simplicity: The key for a simple lunch box is to provide basic foods and leftovers. Find out more about mighty sandwiches and 2 minute-salads here.
At the moment I am working with several children (on the spectrum) who will attend school next year and we are looking at options that will add variety to their lunch boxes, knowing full well that we want simplicity, some exposure, some skills being learned, as the kinder year ends.
Here are some examples of what we have done so far with those extreme fussy eaters:
Day 1
Simplicity: Using a successful food cooked the night before: e.g sausage to be reinvented in a sandwich.
Exposure: Despite Fruit not being eaten, by this child, we have him cut a few strawberries and grapes. He then places them in a container.
Skills: L. is taught to remove packaging and place snacks into a container. We add leaves of salad to the sandwich, so he can remove them later, if needed. In doing so, we are looking at improving his flexibility.
Day 2:
Simplicity: We are reheating butter chicken cooked the night before with rice.
Exposure: despite vegetables not being eaten, we have L. cut some carrots and cucumber and place a small quantity with dips, in his lunch box.
Skills: L. is taught to use a thermos, so he can enjoy a hot left over meal on a cold day.
Stop fussing, start planning for smiles at both ends of the day
Click here to get your free lunch box planner https://mailchi.mp/7d4a1d3b8e4b/lunchbox
If you want to make your family fussy eater free, contact Marie-France, the CEO of Fussy Eater Solutions which offers a range of online and in-home programs to support fussy eaters and their families.
[1] National Eating Disorders Collaboration, Eating Disorders in Schools: Prevention, Early Identification and response. https://www.nedc.com.au/assets/NEDC-Resources/NEDC-Resource-Schools.pdf
