Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #832 Kids Dig Food With Deb Blakley

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#832 Kids Dig Food With Deb Blakley · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
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.
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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. It doesn't always happen before
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Speaker 2: 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 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Colson. I'm the parenting expert
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Speaker 3: on Channel Mind's Parental Guidance, the author of six books
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Speaker 3: about raising happy families, and the host of the Happy
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Speaker 3: Families podcast. Today, a conversation that parents of anyone who
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Speaker 3: has you know, when the kids they only eat the
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Speaker 3: one food, or they won't eat anything, or they decide
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Speaker 3: that they're going to do this new thing with their
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Speaker 3: food and that doesn't involve eating it, it's just playing
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Speaker 3: 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.
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Speaker 3: About fussy eaters, picky eaters, same same. And I've got
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Speaker 3: somebody to chat with me about this that I think
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Speaker 3: is just going to.
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Speaker 4: Be so helpful.
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Speaker 3: Deb Blakely is an Accredited Practicing Dietitian.
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Speaker 4: That's the official title and APD.
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Speaker 3: It matters because it means that Deb's done all the
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Speaker 3: right work to get all the right qualifications to give
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Speaker 3: us answers to this. And Deb runs Kids Dig Food.
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Speaker 3: What a great name for a business. Hey, Deb, thanks
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Speaker 3: for joining us on the Happy Family Podcast.
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Speaker 2: Thanks Justin, I'm really pleased to be here. This is
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Speaker 2: a topic that's very close to my heart.
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Speaker 4: As you probably know I do.
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Speaker 3: So let me start with what I think is the
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Speaker 3: number one important question to ask around picky eating. And
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Speaker 3: we're talking about kids from one to twelve, right, We're
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Speaker 3: not talking about adolescents, because things get a little bit
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Speaker 3: murkier there. We're just talking about once the child is
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Speaker 3: off the breast, or at least not fully breastfed, through
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Speaker 3: to their adolescent years, being a picky eater. I was
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Speaker 3: doing some research on this a few weeks ago. It
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Speaker 3: actually wasn't really a thing until the nineteen seventies. Like
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Speaker 3: history shows, parents didn't think much about what the kids
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Speaker 3: ate at all. In fact, they got mad at the
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Speaker 3: kids for trying to eat all the food that was
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Speaker 3: on the table. Everything the kids were always hungry.
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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.
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Speaker 3: So what would you say are the main reasons that
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Speaker 3: kids become a bit picky about 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, would say, I'm
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Speaker 2: a child of the seventies. So you know, the difference
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Speaker 2: is that parents are navigating a very different feeding environment,
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Speaker 2: a food landscape today. It's totally different. You're right, you know,
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Speaker 2: we had you know, if you think about what might
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Speaker 2: have been in your lunch box when you were a kid.
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Speaker 4: It was sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches.
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Speaker 2: That's all I had in apple and you know, so
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Speaker 2: there's a lot of difference. There's different perceptions about what
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Speaker 2: kids need to eat. You know, we've got parents really
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Speaker 2: feeling like they're they're being judged about what's in what
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Speaker 2: their child's eating or what's in the lunch box. You know,
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Speaker 2: social media has got a lot to say for that,
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Speaker 2: and I think we you know, kids essentially are the
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Speaker 2: same as they were in the seven evanties in terms
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Speaker 2: of how they navigate food. I think what's changed is
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Speaker 2: our expectation has changed of what children should be doing,
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Speaker 2: and I put should very much in a burted commas there.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the way you say that, because I'm
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Speaker 3: thinking back to like, my mum was always a good cook,
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Speaker 3: I thought, but it was standard meating, three vege for dinner,
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Speaker 3: and the steak when we had steak was cooked well done.
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Speaker 3: I mean there was no such thing as a rare
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Speaker 3: steak or a medium rare steak back then, and we
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Speaker 3: expected it was just bangers and mash.
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Speaker 4: It was sausages and some veggies or something like that.
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Speaker 3: And I think you're right that expectation. I hadn't considered
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Speaker 3: that until you said it, And I love that little insight,
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Speaker 3: just such a little quirky acknowledgment. Is there an age
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Speaker 3: where we should expect pickiness?
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Speaker 2: Like?
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Speaker 3: Is there an age we kids start to get really picky?
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Speaker 3: And then conversely, is there an age where they start
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Speaker 3: to expand their palate? Should we expect at a certain
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Speaker 3: age they'll get over them get over themselves in their pickiness.
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Speaker 2: Well, I give this answer with the caveat that every
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Speaker 2: child is different. And typically, however, though we do see
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Speaker 2: children around that sort of one to two maybe three
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Speaker 2: age group, they've transitioned to solids, the parents might have
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Speaker 2: experienced like a bit of a honeymoon period where they
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Speaker 2: ate everything for the first few months of eating solids
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Speaker 2: and they think, oh wow, my kids are really wonderful eater,
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Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden they start dropping foods
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Speaker 2: or they start getting a bit pickier. Interestingly, it's usually
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Speaker 2: around the time a week if we look at a
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Speaker 2: child's growth chat where growth trajectory starts to slow a
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Speaker 2: little bit, so they're coming out of that really rapid
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Speaker 2: growth phase of the first year of life. And also,
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Speaker 2: you know, I guess you've probably got other experts that
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Speaker 2: can explain it better than me. There's also this time
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Speaker 2: of differentiation of you know, I'm my own person. I'm
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Speaker 2: learning that I'm different to my parents, and I can
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Speaker 2: crawl over there and Mum can't do much about it,
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Speaker 2: and you know, and so there's this independence factor think
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Speaker 2: that plays in as well. So, you know, but typically
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Speaker 2: children will become more picky into the second and third
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Speaker 2: year of life, and then you know, typically over the
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Speaker 2: you know, the many years to come, they will slowly
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Speaker 2: start to expand back out. Some kids never really display
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Speaker 2: much picky eating at all. Some kids stay quite diverse
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Speaker 2: in their food range, and they'll eat anything that the
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Speaker 2: parents give it give them. And then you know, there's
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Speaker 2: it's a spectrum, so you know, obviously, you know there's
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Speaker 2: kids who are super picky, kids who are super relaxed,
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Speaker 2: and everything in between. And I guess the difference is
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Speaker 2: how parents navigate that time in relation to how their
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Speaker 2: child is navigating it too.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, deb It's probably important to pause here
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Speaker 3: as well and just acknowledge and highlight that some kids
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Speaker 3: do actually have some specific sensitivities, they have additional needs,
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Speaker 3: or there may be medical reasons for that fussiness around
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Speaker 3: food as well.
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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, And certainly as a APD are working
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Speaker 2: the area of pediatrics and family nutrition, that is part
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Speaker 2: of our assessment. 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 palette, tongue and lip ties, all of those,
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Speaker 2: anything that kind of interrupted that child's ability to eat,
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Speaker 2: or maybe it was painful at one time, and then
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Speaker 2: we've got I guess the area that our team works
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Speaker 2: a lot with nowadays is parents who are struggling with
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Speaker 2: kids who are more extreme picky eaters. And we often
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Speaker 2: see this in neurodiverse kids, so kids who are whose
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Speaker 2: brain works differently to the majority of the population. And
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Speaker 2: I guess the most common types of neurodiversity where we
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Speaker 2: see more extreme picky eating is kids with autism and
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Speaker 2: ADHD for example, not exclusively, but you know a lot
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Speaker 2: of those kids do have challenges with eating.
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Speaker 3: With picky eating, yeah, things like sensory processing disorder and
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Speaker 3: that kind of thing as well.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and in fact, you know, I said with picky eating,
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Speaker 2: but we actually don't like to call it picky eating
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Speaker 2: because it is quite a lot more complex than just that.
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Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of things that 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 3: Yeah, well, after the break, we're going to talk exactly
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Speaker 3: about that. I want to know how we can help
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Speaker 3: our kids when they only eat the yellow stuff or
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Speaker 3: the white stuff, the white breads, the past of the spaghetti,
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Speaker 3: like that kind of thing. We're also going to find
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Speaker 3: out the biggest mistakes the parents make when the kids
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Speaker 3: are being fussy. It's coming up on the Happy Families podcasts.
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Speaker 3: It's the Happy Families podcast, the podcast for the time poor.
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Speaker 4: Parent who just wants answers now Today.
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Speaker 3: My special guest on the podcast is Deb Blakely, an
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Speaker 3: accredited practicing dietitian and the owner the CEO of Kids
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Speaker 3: Dig Food. You can find everything about Deb and her
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Speaker 3: work online Kids Dig Food, and we'll link to Deb's
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Speaker 3: resources in our show notes. Let me move towards a conclusion.
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Speaker 3: Let's get to the practical side of things here. So
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Speaker 3: I want to make a guess the majority of people
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Speaker 3: who are listening to this podcast. While we certainly have
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Speaker 3: a lot of families who are raising kids who are
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Speaker 3: not neurotypical, the majority still fall into a neurotypical category.
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Speaker 3: So let's menagine that we've got a fairly standard family
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Speaker 3: and one of the kids is just being a little
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Speaker 3: bit picky, a bit annoying about food. Can you talk
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Speaker 3: about the biggest mistakes that typical parents in a typical
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Speaker 3: family with a quote unquote typical child mate when their
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Speaker 3: kids are being fussy.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, Look, the first thing that we see is
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Speaker 2: usually pressure. So when we do our assessment of a family,
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Speaker 2: what we're looking at is to find out, I answer
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Speaker 2: that question, why is this child struggling with food? And
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Speaker 2: to do that we ask lots and lots of questions,
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Speaker 2: and typically what we find is there is a disconnect
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Speaker 2: between in that family feeding relationship that involves pressure, some
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Speaker 2: kind of pressure. So either the parents trying to do
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Speaker 2: the child's jobs of eating, the child being given maybe
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Speaker 2: too much leeway to do a lot of the deciding
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Speaker 2: around food and eating. Maybe there's it's just a bit
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Speaker 2: of a free for all. And typically that's because parents
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Speaker 2: have kind of just gotten to a stage where they
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Speaker 2: just go, oh my gosh, I don't know what to
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Speaker 2: do anymore, and so they're bouncing around between lots of
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Speaker 2: different parenting styles around feeding which are maybe not suited to,
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Speaker 2: you know, to a child developing a healthy relationship with food.
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Speaker 2: So the pressure is one comparison comparing one child with another.
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Speaker 2: All of our kids are different. You know, I guess
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Speaker 2: one of the worst things you can possibly say is, oh,
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Speaker 2: come on, you know your brother's eating it. Why can't
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Speaker 2: you Well, that child is having a completely different experience
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Speaker 2: with that food than their sibling is, so you know,
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Speaker 2: avoiding comparison and just the worry. You know, we see
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Speaker 2: so many parents fueled by worry in this. They kind
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Speaker 2: of get into a spiral, a spiral of worry, which
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Speaker 2: then increases their likelihood that they're going to place pressure
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Speaker 2: on their child. And that pressure could be subtle, or
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Speaker 2: it could be more overt, you know, be more overt
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Speaker 2: kinds of pressure, as you know, you'll stay at the
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Speaker 2: table till you've finished every bite. It could be you know,
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Speaker 2: you're going to have that for breakfast if you don't, shit,
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Speaker 2: it could be oh, just in negotiating just one more bite,
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Speaker 2: or you know, if you have this then you can
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Speaker 2: have ice cream. All of that stuff does not help
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Speaker 2: the child develop a healthy relationship with food. And you know,
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Speaker 2: one of my key I guess models role models as
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Speaker 2: a dietitian and as somebody working in the air of
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Speaker 2: family nutrition as Ellen Sada, a dietitian and family therapist
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Speaker 2: in the States and one of her key quotes is
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Speaker 2: when the joy goes out of eating, nutrition suffers. So
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Speaker 2: if the joy is going out of eating in your family,
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Speaker 2: then that's an indication that things aren't going so well,
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Speaker 2: and that would be one of the reasons that I
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Speaker 2: would say, Okay, well, if you're feeling really, really down
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Speaker 2: in the dumps about this, if you're approaching meal times
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Speaker 2: being 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 your 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 3: 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 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. So trust is really important.
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Speaker 2: Never back kids into a corner. So we always want
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Speaker 2: to be able to be serving them some foods each
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Speaker 2: meal or snack that are familiar to them that we
12:52
Speaker 2: know that they're going to like, because if we back
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Speaker 2: foods into a corner, particularly are really cautious, kids are
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Speaker 2: really independent, you know, do it my way or myself, kids,
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Speaker 2: it's not going to end well. And the third thing
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Speaker 2: would be to provide opportunities for kids to explore food
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Speaker 2: that the parents eat, and because over time they will
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Speaker 2: learn to like a wider variety of foods, and typically
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Speaker 2: they learn to like the foods that their parents like
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Speaker 2: to eat. It's likely going to happen more slowly than
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Speaker 2: we hope. And that we come back to that regional
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Speaker 2: comment when we're talking about you know, with you know,
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Speaker 2: we don't have to be foodies, and in historically we
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Speaker 2: haven't had as wide a variety of foods available to
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Speaker 2: children as we do nowadays compared to say, thirty years ago.
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Speaker 2: And you know, kids, it's okay for kids to have
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Speaker 2: a fairly limited food range and be learning to like
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Speaker 2: a wide variety of foods across their whole childhood and
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Speaker 2: sometimes even into their teenagers and into adulthood. It doesn't
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Speaker 2: always happen before they're five.
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Speaker 3: I'm so glad you said that. I didn't like avocados
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Speaker 3: until I was in my thirties. I didn't like oysters
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Speaker 3: still I was in my thirties. I didn't like olive
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Speaker 3: sills in my forties. Like, your tastes change as you
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Speaker 3: mature and you expand your palette throughout your life.
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Speaker 4: So I'm so glad you said that. We could have
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Speaker 4: talked for hours.
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Speaker 3: This is such a fun conversation for people who want
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Speaker 3: more because there's so much more we could have talked about.
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Speaker 3: Where can they go to find your resources? How can
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Speaker 3: you help them with their fussy eating issues.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So at the end of last year, Justin I
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Speaker 2: launched an online course. It's a video based course contents
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Speaker 2: about two hours. It's called Feed Your Picky Eater Without
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Speaker 2: Going Crazy. And that little course is really for any
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Speaker 2: parent who is, you know, just struggling with picky eating,
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Speaker 2: not really knowing what to do next. It is typically
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Speaker 2: for parents of kids share age one to twelve.
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Speaker 4: How much is that is that?
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Speaker 2: It's twenty seven dollars Such cheap, So.
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Speaker 4: I'm going to say cheap as chips. I don't know
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Speaker 4: if she wanted to make it.
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Speaker 2: We did want to. I purposely made it as economic
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Speaker 2: well as I could. I want it to be available
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Speaker 2: to as many parents as possible. Our team. If you
15:05
Speaker 2: feel like you need a little bit more help, our
15:07
Speaker 2: team does see families all across Australia. Tellyhealth. We were
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Speaker 2: doing Tellyhealth before COVID, but we're certainly doing a lot
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Speaker 2: more of it now. And yeah, so they would probably
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Speaker 2: be the first places that I'd recommend that you go.
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Speaker 3: Well, a twenty seven dollar course sounds great, so Sally
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Speaker 3: Health for families who are dealing with significant challenges will
15:26
Speaker 3: be even better. Deb Blakely, accredited practicing dietitian and the
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Speaker 3: founder and CEO of Kids Dig Food, will link to
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Speaker 3: all of those resources in the show notes. Thanks so
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Speaker 3: much for joining us for this conversation.
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Speaker 2: Thanks Justin.
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Speaker 3: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roulant from
15:43
Speaker 3: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. If you'd
15:46
Speaker 3: like more information about making your family happier, you can
15:49
Speaker 3: get well a whole sway of resources at Deb's website.
15:53
Speaker 4: Kids Dig Food will link to that.
15:55
Speaker 3: Like I said obviously happy families dot com dot AUP
15:57
Speaker 3: more
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Speaker 2: Plans,