Child Won't Try New Foods? Here's Why Food Exposure Matters
If you’re at the dinner table and trying to negotiate with a child who won’t try new foods, it likely feels like a power struggle with little resolve for either party.
You’re desperate to get your child to eat something - anything - outside her handful of foods she regularly rotates through. A green vegetable would be nice, but that may feel so far-fetched and out of reach.
Even seemingly simple foods other kids enjoy may be challenging for your child. The offer of new foods at mealtimes is met with outright refusal. I know how frustrating this can be, meal after meal. As a mom of a selective eater myself, I get how discouraging it can be to see your child refuse certain foods, time after time. You just want your child to eat a wider variety of foods. You may worry about your child’s overall nutrition and health - “Are they getting enough of the foods they need to grow and stay healthy?”
If your child won’t try new foods, it can feel like a surefire recipe for disaster at mealtimes - maybe one that you’re tired of fighting against.
I have some encouragement for you and want to give you a roadmap to help you better navigate these situations and challenges. Because when you know where you’re going, it’s easier to navigate the obstacles popping up along the way.
First, let me tell you a little story.
Riding a Bike and Trying New Food
As a kid, I grew up outside the high-desert suburbs of Los Angeles. More like a rural frontier town in the middle of nowhere. You know all those old Western films and commercials filmed to the backdrop of Joshua trees and tumbleweeds?
Yeah, that was where we lived.
There was a tiny market where we’d drive thru to pick up milk, but any civilization was at least 30 minutes away.
But no matter we were in the middle of the desert. My parents had a fantastic piece of property they built to make the ultimate playground oasis for us kids. We had a fort, playhouse, and an actual running track in our backyard my dad constructed so we could ride bikes and go karts. Can you imagine? It was paradise.
With 5 kids, we had various toys and things to play with outside. Though I always envied my big brothers’ bikes. They were a lot older than me, already in their teens, so naturally, they had bikes suited for teenage boys, with big rims, tires, and all the bells and whistles my measly pink princess bike didn’t live up to.
I don’t know why, but somehow, I mustered the courage and determination to sneak one of their mountain bikes from the shed and give it a whirl around our track. WIth no one in sight, I hatched my plan and rolled out my brother’s big bike for my maiden voyage. I was about half their size, but what did that matter? I had the gumption and determination to be as cool as the big kids.
Needless to say, it didn’t go well.
In fact, it ended with me in scrapes and scratches, hobbling inside with a bleeding knee and bruised spirit. I wanted so badly to ride my brother’s bike, but as I found out, I could barely touch the petals when they rotated around. I didn’t know how on earth to use brakes attached to the handle bars, and I certainly wasn’t tall enough to get up on the seat.
It’s funny because I remember watching my brothers ride their bikes effortlessly and thought if it was easy for them, then surely I could do it too. Boy, was I wrong, and I needed to learn the hard way to figure this out on my own. Apparently, a multi-speed, multi-gear mountain bike was starkly different than my little 2-wheeler princess pusher.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: “What does this have to do with my kid who won’t try new foods?”
Let me explain.
Just like learning to ride a bike, so is eating a skill kids are learning and developing.
Sometimes, when we expect our kids to eat new foods they’re unfamiliar or uncomfortable with, it’s like putting them on an adult sized mountain bike and expecting them to be able to ride it effortlessly.
Like any new skill, it takes time and repetitions to be able to learn and build confidence.
Sometimes, our own expectations of what we think our children should be capable of doing (or eating) creates the biggest challenges for our children to learn at a pace right for them.
It’s easy to oversimplify a process that actually isn’t quite so simple: You see the food. You eat the food. Right? But generally, kids don’t function like this or in any way we may expect.
In reality, most kids are learning about new food in progressive steps. It’s usually a much longer process than Point A (see the food), and Point B (eat the food). There are actually multiple steps that need to happen between these points in order for a child to build confidence and comfortability with eating.
Just like riding a bike.
Generally, we wouldn’t expect to put a child on a two-wheeler bike and expect him to suddenly know how to start pedaling. At least none of my kids learned how to ride a bike in this way. Typically, it starts with baby steps.
For example, most kids start out developing their motor skills and learning about balance and different movements with their legs and feet. They might start out getting comfortable with a three-wheeled vehicle of some sort to get confidence with balance and movement.
As they begin to get more coordinated with movement and balance, they may be ready for a 2-wheeler with some kind of stabilizer, like training wheels. Eventually, with enough practice and confidence, those stabilizers come off, and kids learn how to ride a two-wheeler without any training wheel support. As your child gets older and more comfortable riding on different terrains and in different situations, you may graduate your child to a more sophisticated bicycle, like the mountain bikes of my childhood envy, with all the fancy bells and whistles.
My point is bike riding (and most skills for that matter) are learned through a gradual process, which builds on the success and mastery of the previous step.
If you prematurely rush through the steps or try to get a child to skip a step, it may actually hinder the learning process.
The same is exactly true for eating.
Eating is a Skill Children Are Developing
Yes, eating is innate to all of us as human beings.
Babies are born with the desire to eat. But eating is also a skill children are developing through progressive steps. For many children, particularly kids who may be more selective with food or who have sensory sensitivities, certain flavors and textures are going to be more challenging and take more time to learn how to eat.
What’s most important for children is that they have safe spaces to learn how to eat and explore food on their timeline, not according to our hidden agendas.
This is where I ask parents to take a look at any potential expectations they may be holding over their children and lay them down in order to create space for kids to do what they need to do to learn how to eat on their terms.
Because the reality is, it may take your child longer than you think (or may like) to learn how to eat new foods.
So how can you facilitate this process?
It starts by challenging your own mindset and shifting your perspective in order to help your child eat in a manner that supports the learning process.
I like to say feeding kids is a marathon, not a sprint.
It’s about looking at the long term goals and strategically approaching food with your children in a way that helps them reach those goals. This perspective is important to raise a child who has a healthy relationship with food and who respects her body.
THIS is more important than getting a child to eat vegetables at every meal or trying to raise a child who doesn’t eat sugar or processed foods
So instead of asking yourself, “How do I get my child to eat new foods?”, try reframing the question on how you can create positive mealtime experiences for your child.
In actuality, this is MORE important than the food itself. Because if your child doesn’t feel safe at mealtimes, they are more likely to clam up and build negative associations with food and eating.
This will make them less likely to want to try anything new.
If you are making mealtimes a positive and safe environment for your child, you’re more likely to support her journey of learning how to eat new foods, in a way that feels safe and comfortable for her.
How can you do this?
One practical way to help your child feel safe at mealtimes is to honor whatever stage of learning she may be in with new food.
What does this mean exactly?
Well, back to our bike analogy - remember, your child needs to take baby steps with food before she moves on to the next steps. Similarly to learning how to ride a bike, your child needs to master a few key steps before she can feel comfortable and confident moving on with trying new foods.
Your child needs to interact with food in various ways before she may actually feel comfortable eating a new food. The goal is to help your child feel comfortable with new food, not necessarily eat it.
Steps of Learning How to Eat New Food
So what might this look like, for all practical purposes?
Here are some of the steps of learning kids go through with new foods:
Step 1 - Child interacts with food outside mealtimes:
It’s easy to think kids only interact with food at mealtimes, but encouraging engagement before the food even hits the table can increase familiarity. This includes things like seeing food at a grocery store, helping wash or prep the food, and interacting with the food in the kitchen.
Any way you can encourage engagement with food without any pressure to eat the food is a first step toward helping your child learn about that food. This even includes things like gardening or playing with “pretend” food in a play kitchen.
Step 2 - Child tolerates a new food on the table:
This may be the first time your child engages with a new food at the dinner table. They may see it served in a bowl or other family members plating it and eating it.
Being able to tolerate a new food at family mealtimes is key for your child to build more familiarity with that food.
Step 3 - Child interacts with the food in a direct way
Now your child is increasing direct contact with the new food. This may take the form of picking up the bowl the new food may be in and passing it to a family member to eat or helping a family member scoop some of the food onto someone else’s plate.
For example, if you think your child may be ready, you might ask, “Can you please help me scoop some of this on my plate for me to eat?” Your child is engaging with the food in increasing steps that feel non-threatening, because they don’t feel pressured to eat it.
Step 4 - Child decides to plate a new food on her plate:
Your child may then move to a place where she feels comfortable putting new food on her plate. It’s important to let this happen naturally, at a pace your child feels comfortable with.
The tendency I often see is parents skipping straight to this step and automatically plate a new food on a child’s plate for them, when in actuality, a child may not be ready for this if they haven’t had the opportunity to engage with the food as in the previous steps.
Allowing your child to decide if and when she wants to put new food on her plate is an important step for her feeling confident and comfortable in moving forward.
Step 5 - Child touches/holds/smells a new food:
Once a child has put a new food on her plate, she may need to engage with it with her senses before considering eating it or even putting it in her mouth. This might include touching it, squishing it, holding it in her hand, smelling it, etc.
This can be a helpful step to encourage food play with your child. I know most of us were brought up hearing, “Don’t play with your food, just eat it!” But food play is actually an important step for helping kids engage with food in a manner that feels safe for them.
Kids actually learn about their environment through play, and play encourages interaction with food in a way that feels non-threatening. You can even ask your child neutral questions about the food to facilitate further exploration.
Consider questions like, “What colors do you see on your plate?”, “What shape does that food look like?”, “Your broccoli looks like a bumpy tree!”, “What happens if you squish your pea?”, or “What sound do you hear when mommy bites this carrot?” These can help your child get curious about exploring new food.
Step 6 - Child brings a new food to her mouth:
After repeated interactions, your child may then progress to bringing a new food to her mouth. Some kids go right to putting new food in their mouths, but others just bring it to their lips, lick it, or simply to smell it.
They may put it back down on their plate after engaging with it in this way, but don’t be discouraged. This is another important step to help your child increase familiarity with these new foods.
Step 7 - Child puts a new food in her mouth but spits it out:
As a next step of progression, your child may decide to put a new food in her mouth but may immediately spit it out. Or your child may put a new food in her mouth, chew it for a bit, but then decide against swallowing it.
This is okay, too! Sometimes, parents get so excited about seeing their kids put new foods in their mouths, they immediately encourage, “Just swallow it!”, or “Just eat it!”. But again, this may prematurely push your child into territory she’s not ready for yet.
If your child seems apprehensive but wants to try it, let her know she can always spit it out if she doesn’t like it. I even have a special bowl on our table for our kids, where they know they can spit out any foods they don’t want to actually eat after they’ve put it in their mouths.
This may seem disgusting, but giving your child permission to do this can actually help her feel safer about exploring food. If your child does this on her own, pay close attention to your reaction, too.
It’s easy to react versus respond; you want to reassure your child she is safe. Instead of, “Why did you do that?”, or, “Just eat it!”, try saying things like, “It’s okay if you don’t want to eat it. You can spit out anything you don’t want to eat.”
Step 8 - Child may eat a new food:
After working through these steps of learning about a new food, your child may feel comfortable eating it. Now, it’s important to understand that eating new food is not necessarily the goal here.
Instead, you want your child to feel comfortable and confident engaging with a variety of foods, and ultimately, to trust his or her body as the best expert of what they need to eat.
Creating positive associations at mealtimes through a safe environment to learn about food is an important foundation for helping your child become a competent eater.
So don’t get discouraged if your child doesn’t get to a place where they want to eat a specific food. Continue to offer plenty of opportunities to encourage your child to learn and engage with food in a manner that feels safe and comfortable.
What’s important to remember is that every child is different. Every child will progress through steps of learning differently and at their own pace.
Some kids may go through some of these steps multiple times before getting to a place where they feel comfortable enough to try it, and that’s okay!
What’s key is to honor wherever your child may be and support your child in the stage she’s in without trying to rush her or prematurely push her on to the next step.
Focus on creating a safe learning environment at mealtimes, and she will move along at a pace that is right for her.
Again, this is a key place where you need to be aware of your own hidden agenda and lay down your expectations to give your child space to do what she needs to do.
Remember, training wheels before two-wheelers.
Example of a Food Progression Through Exposure Steps
To help you see an example of what this may look like, I've included this pretend scenario before. Each exposure is a time your child may interact with the food.
Check out this example below and the number of non-eating interactions a child may need to engage with a new food:
Exposure 1: Child sees broccoli at the grocery store
Exposure 2: Child helps parent wash the broccoli in the kitchen
Exposure 3: Child tolerates a bowl of broccoli on the table near her
Exposure 4: Child passes the bowl of broccoli to a family member
Exposure 5: Child helps mom put a scoop of broccoli on mom’s plate with spoon
Exposure 6: Child passes the bowl of broccoli to a family member
Exposure 7: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 8: Child sees parent preparing broccoli in the kitchen
Exposure 9: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 10: Child picks up a piece of broccoli from her plate and rolls it in her hands
Exposure 11: Child picks up a piece of broccoli from her plate and rolls it in her hands
Exposure 12: Child wants to wash the broccoli in the kitchen for parent to prep
Exposure 13: Child smells the broccoli
Exposure 14: Child holds the broccoli in her hands
Exposure 15: Child brings a piece of broccoli to her lips
Exposure 16: Child brings a piece of broccoli to her lips
Exposure 17: Child decides to try a piece of broccoli. Spits it out
Exposure 18: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 19: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 20: Child tolerates a bowl of broccoli on the table near her
Exposure 21: Child passes the bowl of broccoli to a family member
Exposure 22: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 23: Child puts a piece of broccoli on her plate, doesn’t touch it
Exposure 24: Child picks up a piece of broccoli from her plate and dips it in hummus
Exposure 25: Child decides to try a piece of broccoli. Spits it out
Exposure 26: Child decides to try a piece of broccoli. Spits it out
Exposure 27: Child brings a piece of broccoli to her lips
Exposure 28: Child puts broccoli in her mouth, chews and swallows.
Exposure 29: Child decides to try a piece of broccoli. Spits it out
Exposure 30: Child puts broccoli in her mouth, chews and swallows
Repeated exposure without any pressure to eat are the key ingredients to helping your child progress with the steps of learning at a pace that feel comfortable with her.
So many parents get discouraged with food refusal, that they stop exposing and offering after the 3rd or 4th time. But you can see how this would prevent a child from the needed and multiple opportunities to interact and engage with food in progressive steps. Research has found when offering a new food, caregivers need to provide many more repeated exposures to enhance acceptance of that food than they currently do. The key is repeated opportunities without any pressure to eat the food, plus a safe mealtime environment for your child to explore and learn.
A Non-Pressure Environment is Key
What’s key to help your child successfully progress through these steps is to create a safe learning environment. This means to not pressure your child in any way to eat. In fact, pressure to eat feeding tactics can make your child feel unsafe around new food and potentially unwilling to eat or try new foods.
Research has found pressure to eat tactics, like coercing or bribing kids to eat, can actually cause children to develop an aversion to the foods they are pressured to eat. Studies have also found higher pressure to eat was associated with an overall intake of fewer total calories. This means any pressure to eat can actually make it harder for kids to eat what they need to grow at a rate right for them.
So ultimately, the best way you can help your child eat and learn about food is to remove any pressure as much as possible.
This means you don’t need to:
Convince your child to eat or take a bite of something
Ask your kids to eat certain amounts of food from their plate
Put food on their plate without asking your child
Bribing your child to eat, ie: “If you eat all your vegetables, you can have a cookie afterward.”
Using food as a reward or incentive
When you’re able to remove pressure from mealtimes, your child will feel safer and more comfortable to explore food and learn to eat at a pace comfortable for him.
In order to do this, it does require awareness of your own anxieties or stressors that may be present at mealtimes. Which brings me to my next point:
The Myth of Balanced Eating
Many parents unintentionally pressure their children to eat when triggered by fears around certain food behaviors or even the sizes of their children’s bodies.
For example, you might be worried about your child’s health if you notice your child doesn’t like eating vegetables, or you may be concerned if your child is in a smaller or larger body than you feel comfortable with.
One common misconception is this idea of “balanced” eating, as though a child should be eating a balanced diet at every meal or snack. In this belief, many parents unnecessarily micromanage their child’s plate at mealtimes to prematurely force balance. Because this is common, it’s necessary to take a step back and understand how your child actually eats.
In reality, the myth of eating “balanced” is elusive and doesn’t really exist. Meaning, your child is not going to achieve balance at meals. It’s just not realistic. In actuality, what we see is kids getting the nutrients they need to grow at a rate right for them over the course of time (think weeks and months, not in one day).
With this in mind, know any given mealtime is not a snapshot of your child’s overall health and nutrition intake. What’s more important is to look at patterns of how your child eats over time. Of course, if you are having any worries about your child’s health or growth, please be sure to connect with your doctor or a pediatric registered dietitian to help support you through this.
It’s just important to be aware of how any stressors you’re feeling can affect how your child is eating or feels about food.
These concerns can agitate unrealistic expectations, which can make your job with feeding a whole lot more complicated.
Things tend to go better for your child, in regards to eating and growing, when you focus on your jobs with feeding and TRUST the process. Trust requires letting go of your own expectations around how your child may eat or grow in order to create space for her to do what she needs to do to have a healthy relationship with food.
Sometimes, this means sifting through your own insecurities or past experiences around food or your body in order to find healing for yourself and your child.
This is why feeding kids can be difficult at times: it often brings unresolved issues right back to the surface. But look at this as an opportunity to help yourself and your child build healthy and positive relationships with food and your bodies.
This is foundational for thriving in life.
For more on this, be sure to check out this blog: “Eating Veggies Won’t Save Your Child’s Health, But Here’s What Can Help”
Setting Up Mealtimes to Help Your Child Feel Safe Exploring Food
With all this in mind, I’d love to give you a few tips for helping your child feel safe at mealtimes, in order to encourage the learning process.
Here are some things to help your child feel comfortable learning to eat:
Aim for respectful feeding: As I alluded to earlier, one of the best things you can focus on with your child is building a trusting feeding relationship. This means staying in your lane with respect to feeding and trusting your child to do her part with eating. As your child learns she can trust you to do your jobs with feeding and knows you can trust her to eat what she needs (from the food you’ve provided), this creates safety around food and positive associations with eating.
Encourage family style meals: Putting food on a child’s plate can feel like pressure to a child, especially if your child is not ready for a particular food to be on her plate. Remember our example above. Your child may need to tolerate the food being on the table near her for some time before she’s ready to put food on her plate. Plating food on a child’s plate can prematurely push a child toward something she’s not ready for yet. Instead, family style dining encourages a child to self-serve, allowing a child to decide if/when/how much she wants to try from a particular food item. If your child is not quite old enough to self-serve or needs more help with this, instead of directly plating food, consider asking your child first: “Would you like some of this food on your plate?”. If yes, ask your child where on her plate she would like you to put the food. This type of respectful feeding helps your child feel safe with eating and comfortable at the table.
Focus on family, not food: If you’re worried about micromanaging your child’s plate and food intake, you’re likely going to feel stressed at the table. And you know what? Your child is going to feel stressed too. This is a surefire way for increased anxiety at mealtimes. When emotions are running high at mealtimes, this can make it challenging for your child to feel safe with food. Instead of worrying about the food or what your child’s eating or not eating, aim to focus on connecting with your family. Keep the conversation pleasant whenever possible. This will make your child feel safe at the table and look forward to mealtimes, rather than dread and anxiety.
Include a safe food at the table for your child to eat: If your child doesn’t see anything at the table he feels comfortable eating, this can create stress for him. Be sure to include at least one safe food component at mealtimes your child feels comfortable with. This doesn’t mean catering a meal entirely to your child, because again, your child needs repeated exposures to different foods. Instead, include 1-2 food items your child recognizes and already feels safe with. This can serve as an anchor for your child, keeping them safe at the table, even when there are other foods around he’s still learning how to eat.
Remember - you’re in for the marathon, not the sprint. If you start to get discouraged, stay the course, knowing your commitment to the journey is helping your child build a healthy and positive relationship with food.
If you need more support, I’d love to invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop: “How to Confidently Feed Your Picky Eater and End the Mealtime Battles.”. Sign up for the waitlist below, and you’ll get all the details as they become available.
Now I’d love to hear from you: Where is your kiddo in the process of learning to like new food? Let me know in the comments below!