Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #444 Kids Dig Food - A Conversation with Deb Blakley

Transcript

#444 Kids Dig Food - A Conversation with Deb Blakley · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, it's okay for kids to have a fairly limited
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  Speaker 2: food range and be learning to like a wide variety
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  Speaker 2: of foods across their whole childhood and sometimes even into
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  Speaker 2: their teenagers and into adulthood.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't always happen before they're five.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
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  Speaker 1: and Dad.
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  Speaker 4: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson. I'm the parenting expert
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  Speaker 4: on chenil on Mind's Parental Guidance, the author of six
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  Speaker 4: books about raising happy families, and the host of the
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  Speaker 4: Happy Families podcast. Today, a conversation that parents of anyone
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  Speaker 4: who has you know, when the kids they only eat
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  Speaker 4: the one food, or they won't eat anything, or they
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  Speaker 4: decide that they're going to do this new thing with
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  Speaker 4: their food and that doesn't involve eating it, it's just
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  Speaker 4: playing with it because they don't like what you've cooked.
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  Speaker 4: The I don't like that conversation. Today we're talking about
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  Speaker 4: fussy eaters, picky eaters, same same. And I've got somebody
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  Speaker 4: to chat with me about this that I think is
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  Speaker 4: just going to be so helpful. Deb Blakely is an
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  Speaker 4: Accredited Practicing Dietitian. That's the official title and APD. It
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  Speaker 4: matters because it means that Deb's done all the right
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  Speaker 4: work to get all the right qualifications to give us
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  Speaker 4: answers to this. And Deb runs Kids Dig Food. What
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  Speaker 4: a great name for a business. Hey, Deb, thanks for
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  Speaker 4: joining us on the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks Justin, I'm really pleased to be here. This is
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  Speaker 3: a topic that's very close to my heart, as you probably.
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  Speaker 4: Know I do. So let me start with what I
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  Speaker 4: think is the number one important question to ask around
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  Speaker 4: picky eating. And we're talking about kids from one to twelve, right,
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  Speaker 4: We're not talking about adolescents, because things get a little
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  Speaker 4: bit murkier there. We're just talking about once the child
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  Speaker 4: is off the breast, or at least not fully breastfed,
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  Speaker 4: through to their adolescent years, being a picky eater. I
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  Speaker 4: was doing some research on this a few weeks ago.
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  Speaker 4: It actually wasn't really a thing until the nineteen seventies.
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  Speaker 4: Like history shows, parents didn't think much about what their
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  Speaker 4: kids ate at all. In fact, they got mad at
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  Speaker 4: the kids for trying to eat all the food that
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  Speaker 4: was on the table. Everything the kids were always hungry toy.
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  Speaker 4: It's all about master chef for kids, right, and and
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  Speaker 4: we care a lot. So what would you say are
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  Speaker 4: the main reasons that kids become a bit picky about
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  Speaker 4: their food?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think the first thing to remember, if
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  Speaker 2: we're thinking about what happened, you know, say, I'm a
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  Speaker 2: child of the seventies, so you know, the difference is
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  Speaker 2: that parents are navigating a very different feeding environment, a
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  Speaker 2: food landscape today.
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  Speaker 3: It's totally different.
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  Speaker 2: You're right, you know, we had you know, if you
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  Speaker 2: think about what might have been in your lunch box
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  Speaker 2: when you were a kid, it.
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  Speaker 4: Was pet of sandwiches, peanut, but of sandwiches that's all
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  Speaker 4: I had.
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  Speaker 2: In apple and you know, so there's a lot of difference.
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  Speaker 2: There's different perceptions about what kids need to eat. You know,
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  Speaker 2: we've got parents really feeling like they're they're being judged about.
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  Speaker 3: What's in what their child's eating or what's in the
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  Speaker 3: lunch box. You know. Social media has got a lot
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  Speaker 3: to say for.
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  Speaker 2: That, and I think we you know, kids essentially are
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  Speaker 2: the same as they were in the set eventies in
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  Speaker 2: terms of how they navigate food. I think what's changed
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  Speaker 2: is our expectation has changed of what children should be doing,
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  Speaker 2: and I put should very much in averted commas there.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love the way you say that, because I'm
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  Speaker 4: thinking back to like, my mum was always a good cook,
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  Speaker 4: I thought, but it was standard meat and free vegs
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  Speaker 4: for dinner, and the steak when we had steak was
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  Speaker 4: cooked well done. I mean there was no such thing
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  Speaker 4: as a rare steak or a medium rare steak back then,
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  Speaker 4: and we expected it was just bangers and mash. It
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  Speaker 4: was sausages and some veggies or something like that. And
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  Speaker 4: I think you're right that expectation. I hadn't considered that
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  Speaker 4: until you said it, and I love that little insight,
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  Speaker 4: just such a little quirky acknowledgment. Is there an age
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  Speaker 4: where we should expect pickiness? Like? Is there an age
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  Speaker 4: were kids start to get really picky? And then conversely,
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  Speaker 4: is there an age where they start to expand their palates?
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  Speaker 4: Should we expect at a certain age they'll get over
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  Speaker 4: them get over themselves in their pickiness.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I give this.
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  Speaker 2: Answer with a caveat that every child is different, and typically, however,
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  Speaker 2: though we do see children around that sort of one
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  Speaker 2: to two maybe three age group they've transitioned to solids.
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  Speaker 2: The parents might have experienced like a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: honeymoon period where they ate everything for the first few
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  Speaker 2: months of eating solids and they think, oh wow, my
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  Speaker 2: kids are really wonderful eater, and then all of a
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  Speaker 2: sudden they start dropping foods or they start getting a
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  Speaker 2: bit pickier. Interestingly, it's usually around the time a week
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  Speaker 2: if we look at a child's growth chat where growth
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  Speaker 2: trajectory starts to slow a little bit, so they're coming
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  Speaker 2: out of that really rapid growth phase of the first
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  Speaker 2: year of life. And also, you know, I guess you've
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  Speaker 2: probably got other experts that can explain it better than me.
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  Speaker 2: There's also this time of differentiation of you know, I'm
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  Speaker 2: my own person. I'm learning that I'm different to my parents,
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  Speaker 2: and I can crawl over there and Mum can't do
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  Speaker 2: much about it, and you know, and so there's this
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  Speaker 2: independence factor I think that plays in as well. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, but typically children will become more picky into
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  Speaker 2: the second and third year of life, and then you know,
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  Speaker 2: typically over the you know, the many years to come,
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  Speaker 2: they will slowly start to expand back out.
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  Speaker 3: Some kids never really display much picky eating at all.
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  Speaker 2: Some kids stay quite diverse in their food range, and
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  Speaker 2: they'll eat anything that the parents give it give them,
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  Speaker 2: and then you know, there's it's a spectrum, so you know, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: you know there's kids who are super picky, kids who
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  Speaker 2: are super relaxed, and everything in between. And I guess
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  Speaker 2: the difference is how parents navigate that time in relation
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  Speaker 2: to how their child is navigating it too.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, deb. It's probably important to pause here
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  Speaker 4: as well and just acknowledge and highlight that some kids
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  Speaker 4: do actually have some specific sensitivities, they have additional needs,
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  Speaker 4: or there may be medical reasons for that fussiness around
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  Speaker 4: food as well, right, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And certainly as a APD are working the area
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  Speaker 2: of pediatrics and family nutrition, that is part of our assessment.
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  Speaker 3: So we would delve into what are.
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  Speaker 2: The reasons or are there reasons why a child is displaying,
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  Speaker 2: you know, tippicky eating behaviors, And sometimes there is a
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  Speaker 2: medical cause or another kind of cause. It could be
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  Speaker 2: anything to do with the head or neck area, teething, reflux,
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  Speaker 2: cleft and lip.
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  Speaker 3: Palette, tongue and lip ties, all.
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  Speaker 2: Of those, anything that kind of interrupted that child's ability
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  Speaker 2: to eat or maybe it was painful at one time
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  Speaker 2: and then we've got I guess the area that our
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  Speaker 2: team works a lot with nowadays is parents who are
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  Speaker 2: struggling with kids who are more extreme picky eaters. And
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  Speaker 2: we often see this in neurodiverse kids, so kids who
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  Speaker 2: are whose brain works differently to the majority of the population.
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  Speaker 3: And I guess the most common types.
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  Speaker 2: Of neurodiversity where we see more extreme picky eating is
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  Speaker 2: kids with autism and ADHD for example, not exclusively, but
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  Speaker 2: you know a lot of those kids.
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  Speaker 3: Do have challenges with eating.
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  Speaker 4: With picky eating, Yeah, things like sensory processing disorder and
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  Speaker 4: that kind of thing as well.
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  Speaker 3: And absolutely and.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, you know, I said with picky eating, but
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  Speaker 2: we actually don't like to call it picky eating because
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  Speaker 2: it is quite a lot more complex than just that.
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  Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of things at play for
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  Speaker 2: those kids, and you know, we really need to look
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  Speaker 2: at the big picture for them to support them to
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  Speaker 2: do the best that they can do, and also the
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  Speaker 2: families to navigate what is often a very very stressful
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  Speaker 2: experience of feeding a child who will only eat white
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  Speaker 2: and brown and foods.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, well, after the break, we're going to talk exactly
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  Speaker 4: about that. I want to know how we can help
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  Speaker 4: our kids when they only eat the yellow stuff or
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  Speaker 4: the white stuff, the white breads, the past of the spaghetti,
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  Speaker 4: that kind of thing. We're also going to find out
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  Speaker 4: the biggest mistakes the parents make when the kids are
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  Speaker 4: being fussy. It's coming up on the Happy Families podcasts.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 5: US Screens Creating Tension at Home Betweens, Teens and Screens
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  Speaker 5: is a webinar to guide families to healthy, safe superscreen solutions.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: Bye today at Happy families dot com, dot au slash shop.
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  Speaker 4: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time
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  Speaker 4: poor parent who just wants answers Now today. My special
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  Speaker 4: guest on the podcast is Deb Blakely, an accredited practicing
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  Speaker 4: dietitian and the owner the CEO of Kids Dig Food.
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  Speaker 4: You can find everything about Deb and her work online
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  Speaker 4: Kids Dig Food, and we'll link to Deb's resources in
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  Speaker 4: our show notes. Let me move towards a conclusion. Let's
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  Speaker 4: get to the practical side of things here. So I
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  Speaker 4: want to make a guess the majority of people who
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  Speaker 4: are listening to this podcast. While we certainly have a
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  Speaker 4: lot of families who are raising kids who are not neurotypical,
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  Speaker 4: majority still fall into a neurotypical category. So let's menagine
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  Speaker 4: that we've got a fairly standard family and one of
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  Speaker 4: the kids is just being a little bit picky, a
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  Speaker 4: bit annoying about food. Can you talk about the biggest
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  Speaker 4: mistakes that typical parents in a typical family with a
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  Speaker 4: quote unquote typical child make when their kids are being fussy?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Sure.
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  Speaker 2: Look, the first thing that we see is usually pressure.
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  Speaker 2: So when we do our assessment of a family, what
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  Speaker 2: we're looking at is to find out, I answer that question,
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  Speaker 2: why is this child struggling with food? And to do
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  Speaker 2: that we ask lots and lots of questions, and typically
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  Speaker 2: what we find is there is a disconnect between in
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  Speaker 2: that family feeding relationship that involves pressure, some kind of pressure.
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  Speaker 2: So either the parents trying to do the child's jobs
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  Speaker 2: of eating, the child being given maybe too much leeway
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  Speaker 2: to do a lot of the deciding around food and eating.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe there's it's just a bit of a free for all.
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  Speaker 2: And typically that's because parents have kind of just gotten
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  Speaker 2: to a stage where they just go, oh my gosh,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know what to do anymore, and so they're
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  Speaker 2: bouncing around between lots of different parenting styles around feeding
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  Speaker 2: which are maybe not suited to, you know, to a
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  Speaker 2: child developing a healthy relationship with food. So the pressure
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  Speaker 2: is one comparison comparing one child with another.
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  Speaker 3: All of our kids are different, you know.
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  Speaker 2: I guess one of the worst things you can possibly
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  Speaker 2: say is, oh, come on, you know your brother's eating it.
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  Speaker 2: Why can't you well, that child is having a completely
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  Speaker 2: different experience with that food than their sibling is. So,
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  Speaker 2: you know, avoiding comparison and just the worry. You know,
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  Speaker 2: we see so many parents fueled by worry in this.
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  Speaker 2: They kind of get into a spiral, a spiral of
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  Speaker 2: worry which then increases their likelihood that they're going to
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  Speaker 2: place pressure on their child.
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  Speaker 3: And that pressure could be subtle, or it could be
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  Speaker 3: more overt, you know, be more overt.
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  Speaker 2: Kinds of pressure is you know, you'll stay at the
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  Speaker 2: table till you've finished every bite.
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  Speaker 3: It could be you know, you're going to have that
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  Speaker 3: for breakfast.
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  Speaker 2: If you don't finish it, it could be oh, just
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  Speaker 2: in negotiating just one more bite, or you know, if
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  Speaker 2: you have this then you can have ice cream. All
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  Speaker 2: of that stuff does not help the child develop a
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  Speaker 2: healthy relationship with food. And you know, one of my
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  Speaker 2: key I guess models role models as a dietitian and
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  Speaker 2: as somebody working in the air of family nutrition as
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  Speaker 2: Ellen Sada, a dietitian and family therapist in the States,
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  Speaker 2: and her one of her key quotes is when the
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  Speaker 2: joy goes out of eating, nutrition suffers. So if the
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  Speaker 2: joy is going out of eating in your family, then
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  Speaker 2: that's an indication that things aren't going so well, and
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  Speaker 2: that would be one of the reasons that I would say, Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Well, if you're feeling really really down in.
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  Speaker 2: The dumps about this, if you're approaching meal times being
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  Speaker 2: feeling anxious and worried about what you're going to do,
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  Speaker 2: then that's a sign that you actually might need a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of help, and hopefully a help from from
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  Speaker 2: an expert rather than the next door neighbor or grandma
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  Speaker 2: who's fed in a totally different way.
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  Speaker 4: Deb What are your top three solutions for pickie eaters?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so, first of all, we need to trust our children.
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  Speaker 2: We need to trust that they're going to be able
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  Speaker 2: to learn to like new foods.
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  Speaker 3: As they get older.
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  Speaker 4: That's hard, that's really hard when they're only eating pasta.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, and it's likely not always going to happen
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  Speaker 2: as quickly as we want it to or as you know,
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  Speaker 2: Facebook or Instagram or whatever thinks that you know, other
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  Speaker 2: we kind of you know, look at other kids and go, oh,
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  Speaker 2: my kid isn't eating that.
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  Speaker 3: So trust is really important. Never bat kids into a corner.
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  Speaker 2: So we always want to be able to be serving
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  Speaker 2: them some foods each meal or snack that are.
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  Speaker 3: Familiar to them that we know that they're going to like.
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  Speaker 2: Because if we back foods into a corner, particularly are
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  Speaker 2: really cautious, kids are really independent, you know, must do
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  Speaker 2: it my way or myself kids, it's not going to
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  Speaker 2: end well.
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  Speaker 3: And the third thing would.
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  Speaker 2: Be to provide opportunities for kids to explore food that
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  Speaker 2: the parents eat, and because over time they will learn
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  Speaker 2: to like a wider variety of foods and typically they
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  Speaker 2: learn to like the foods that their parents like to eat.
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  Speaker 2: It's likely going to happen more slowly than we hope.
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  Speaker 2: And that we come back to that regional comment when
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  Speaker 2: we're talking about you know, with you know, we don't
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  Speaker 2: have to be foodies, and in historically we haven't had
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  Speaker 2: as wide a variety of foods available to children as
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  Speaker 2: we do nowadays compared to say, thirty years ago. And
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  Speaker 2: you know, kids, it's okay for kids to have a
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  Speaker 2: fairly limited food range.
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  Speaker 3: And be learning to like a wide variety of.
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  Speaker 2: Foods across their whole childhood and sometimes even into their
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  Speaker 2: teenagers and into adulthood.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't always happen before they're five.
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  Speaker 4: I'm so glad you said that. I didn't like avocados
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  Speaker 4: until I was in my thirties. I didn't like oysters
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  Speaker 4: still i was in my thirties. I didn't like olive
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  Speaker 4: sills in my forties. Like your tastes change as you
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  Speaker 4: mature and you expand your palette throughout your life. So
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  Speaker 4: I'm so glad you said that. We could have talked
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  Speaker 4: for hours. This is such a fun conversation for people
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  Speaker 4: who want more, because there's so much more we could
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  Speaker 4: have talked about. Where can they go to find your resources?
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  Speaker 4: How can you help them with their fussy eating issues.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, at the.
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  Speaker 2: End of last year, Justin I launched an online course.
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  Speaker 2: It's a video based course contents about two hours. It's
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  Speaker 2: called feeds Your Picky Eater Without Going Crazy, And that
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  Speaker 2: little course is really for any parent who is just
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: struggling with picky eating, not really knowing what to do next.
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  Speaker 2: It is typically for parents of kids age.
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  Speaker 3: One to twelve. How much is that is that it's
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  Speaker 3: twenty seven dollars.
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  Speaker 4: That's cheap, So I'm going to say cheap as chips.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know if she wanted to make it. We
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  Speaker 3: did want to.
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  Speaker 2: I purposely made it as economical as I could. I
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  Speaker 2: want it to be available to as many parents as possible.
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  Speaker 3: Our team.
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  Speaker 2: If you feel like you need a little bit more help,
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  Speaker 2: our team does see families all across Australia.
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  Speaker 3: Tellyhealth.
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  Speaker 2: We were doing Tellyhealth before COVID, but we're certainly doing
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  Speaker 2: a lot.
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  Speaker 3: More of it now.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, so they would probably be the first places
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  Speaker 2: that I'd.
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  Speaker 3: Recommend that you go.
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  Speaker 4: Well, a twenty seven dollar course sounds great, so Sally
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  Speaker 4: Health for families who are dealing with significant challenges will
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  Speaker 4: be even better. Deb Blakely, a credited practicing dietitian and
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  Speaker 4: the founder and CEO of Kids Dig Food, will link
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  Speaker 4: to all of those resources in the show notes. Thanks
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  Speaker 4: so much for joining us for this conversation. Thanks justin
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: the Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roulotte from
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
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  Speaker 4: like more information about making your family happier, you can
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  Speaker 4: get well a whole swathe of resources at Deb's website,
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  Speaker 4: Kids Dig Food. We'll link to that like I said,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: or visit Happy families dot com, dot a you tomorrow
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: teaching children to apologize on the podcast. We're also going
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: to have a conversation next week about whether or not
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: kids should play with guns, and a whole lot more
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: on the Happy Families podcasts. Visit happyfamilies dot com dot
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: a you for more