Have you got a child that’s a picky eater? They’ll will eat carrots and roast chicken but turn their nose up at broccoli and salmon? Or will eat salmon but refuse to touch potatoes? Or will only eat white bread….. Then your child may suffer from neophobia - along with 50-75% of children aged under 6 years old.

One of the issues that we as parents run up against, time and time again, in the struggle to feed our children a better diet, is neophobia. Neophobia is defined as the extreme or irrational fear of anything new or unfamiliar. In many cases, it refers to food and the fear of new food and is very common amongst children and some would say, a normal stage of development for young children. 

So when we talk about neophobia being a normal stage of development, it kicks in usually about 18 months - 2 years. Children start to refuse foods they may normally have eaten or turn their noses up when we introduce new foods. They start to become “picky eaters”. Prior to this, children are much more willing to try lots of new foods. We, as parents, find this very frustrating and can’t really understand why our toddlers start refusing foods.

So what’s going on here?

1. children of this age have very little control over anything in their lives - where they go, bed time, what clothes they wear - but putting something in their mouth or refusing to put something in their mouth is something they can control. So they begin to exert this control at about 18 months +

2. children have reduced energy needs as they grow. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but compare their rates of growth from birth to toddlerhood. In the first year of life, children can almost triple in weight from birth while in year 2 they only grow at half this rate. Thus, their energy needs are reduced so they don’t actually need as much food and this may be why they are less interested in eating

3. they start to notice their surroundings, they are becoming mobile, they can pick things up and put them down - they are easily distracted and again, less interested in food

4. sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to it … sorry!

So this is some of the reasons why children may start refusing to eat foods they previously accepted and it helps to know that this is what is going on to avoid the dinner table becoming a battleground of “just one more bite Johnny please…” or “no dessert for you until you eat all your broccoli”. Children generally grow out of this phase and become more accepting of foods but this can depend on the way we deal with it and if we allow it to perputaute.

What to do about it …

• exposure - we need to repeatedly expose our children to the food we want them to eat. It can take a child anything from 7 - 15 exposures to a new food to accept it. (and in one case I read - 1,000 tries before the child accepted it. According to research, we as parents, give up after 3 attempts on average.

• we need to present the food to the child in many different ways. Take carrots for example; they can be served raw, boiled, roasted, in a root vegetable mash, in a smoothie or in a cake. Make the food you serve as delicious as you can - after all, we all love delicious food!

• get the child involved in all aspects of food - from shopping to prepping and cooking - this is a great strategy to get children eating a better diet. The Kiddies food kutters and safety food peelers are a great way to get children involved in food from a young age. Check them out here

• let your child play with food away from the table where there is no pressure to eat it. Allow them to peel real carrots in their play kitchen, let them blow peas across the floor, let them do food art, have spitting competitions with food (outside!) and anything else you can think of!

• encourage them to use their 5 senses with food - touch it, smell it, listen to it, look at it before tasting it. You can ask them for example, does that tomato(cherry) look the same as this one (plum)? Let’s see if they smell the same? Feel the same? Taste the same..?

• don’t allow your child (this is more for older children) unlimited access to the fridge or pantry - if they are constantly snacking, then of course they are not going to be hungry for their meals. If they get 3 meals and 2 snacks, they shouldn’t need any more food.

• explain to your child that they need to learn to like new foods in the same way they are learning to ride a bike or walk or play football or read. If your child couldn’t walk after the first three attempts, would you give up? Obviously not ….So when we as parents think of it in this way, it is less frustrating for us and for them.

• read books that have positive stories about food, always reinforcing positive messages around fruit and veg. I have lots of great books here you can read.

• make food fun - do not threaten, cajole, or bribe children to eat - all the research shows that when you say “eat your broccoli and then you have have your ice-cream’ this just serves to make them like the ice cream more and the broccoli less!

So remember :

• it’s a very normal stage of development

• keep exposing children to food 

• get kids cooking! Check out my online cooking classes here!

Extreme fussy eating where the child is losing weight, underweight or not thriving is different to “normal” neophobia and may need medical intervention. Check out Caroline from Solid Start or your local health nurse here for more advice.