Let’s explore one of the biggest frustrations in feeding our children: picky eating. You are definitely not alone if you have one or more selective eater(s) in the house. And you are not alone feeling frustrated, guilty, or anxious about this. If there were a Golden Globe for Best Parent, the award would be shaped like broccoli. And there wouldn’t be cake at the afterparty.
Let me relieve you: you are not a failing parent because your child turns up their nose at broccoli.
Yet, picky eating – also known as selective or fussy eating – is labeled a problem we need to fix. When children choose pasta over broccoli or bread over carrots, they are picky. Except, they are not picky. They might be careful. They might be in what is called the ‘food neophobic’ stage.
Food neophobia is a normal developmental stage and typically starts around 18 months, but this can also be sooner or later – it usually goes together with toddlers gaining independence, but also with a lot of frustration from our side. After all, our babies were eating everything, and suddenly they refuse to eat new things, or refuse even things they ate before. Well, that’s because eating is experienced differently. For babies it’s all about oral motor skills, whereas in this food neophobic stage, it’s all about food safety.
One of the theories is that nature has given our young discoverers a protection mechanism: thanks to picky eating, caveman toddlers did not just eat any berry that crossed their path – a big difference from an earlier stage where babies put practically anything in their mouths. Food yes, but also toys and other choking hazards. For the independent caveman toddlers, eating with some caution and preferring high-caloric foods may have been smart survival traits, the theory goes.
Some children might be pickier during this food neophobic phase than others. Some kids are careful eaters, others more adventurous eaters. After all, learning how to eat is a never-ending learning adventure for your child, with many challenges. This learning process extends far beyond chewing, swallowing and digesting food. He/she will explore various flavours and textures, understand mealtime routines, know how to live in a food abundant world (ideally without strict food rules and still being connected to his/her needs), so that we can preserve a healthy relationship with food – including the innate skill to eat what’s needed in terms of quantity.
Healthy children know how much food they need. But how about ‘what’ they need? Understanding what our children need to grow – nutritionally, but also emotionally – can make it easier to deal with food neophobia. After all, this phase isn’t about ‘I won’t eat this’,’ but more like ‘I can’t eat this.’ It’s nature protecting them. All though we know that the food that we serve is safe, they don’t always know it’s safe. If your child is in this food neophobic stage and struggles with variation, here are some ideas to try:
- Plan meals with safe foods to help your child feel comfortable while gently exploring new things.
- Avoid staying in the safe zone of familiar foods only, always include more adventurous foods too.
- Understand that even small details, like how a carrot is cut, can make a familiar food feel new to a toddler.
- Create a predictable, pressure-free mealtime routine to give your child that feeling of safety and –
- Eat together to create that extra feeling of safety (without embodying pressure, of course).
Now, it might feel like creating a safe mealtime experience should stop most refusals and lead to meals where your child eats a little of everything – or at least enough. This is where parents often feel frustrated: ‘I did everything right, and he’s still refusing to eat!’ or ‘She ate it yesterday, so it was a success, and now she won’t touch it.’
In my opinion, it’s important to know that food refusals can happen for many reasons beyond food neophobic reasons (so it’s not always about ‘I can’t eat this’). Some of what we see as ‘food refusals’ are actually natural – like balancing their needs, listening to their hunger cues, or exploring preferences. In that case, we want to let them listen to their bodies, staying connected to their gut and what feels safe, while we support them in our feeding role. Other food refusals, like strong emotions at the table, struggling with lumpy foods, or experimenting with a veggie diet (at a later age), might need even more support.
Taking the time to investigate what’s really going on when your child refuses food, makes all the difference for your eating experience and mealtime peace. It’s the difference between following ‘one-size-fits-all’ guidelines (or advice) and understanding all this while also understanding your child and their inner world. When we dive under the food pyramid, under the food rules, we can support our growing kids from within.
By Family Dietitian Sofie De Niet, www.sofiedeniet.be
This article was first published in the 2025 summer edition of the BCT’s Small Talk magazine.
