Parenting Picky Eaters: Strategies to Get Preschool Children to Eat Previously Rejected Foods (PRF)

Abstract

Food neophobia affects a child's willingness to try new foods and can result in children consuming less diverse diets. Researchers conducted 17 focus groups (total participants = 103) to identify the strategies that parents use to get their preschool children to eat previously rejected foods (PRF). These focus groups targeted low‐income African American and Hispanic parents with young children (ages 3–5 years) in Texas, Colorado, and Washington. Using principles of grounded theory to analyze transcripts, researchers determined that parents most often intentionally decided not to purchase or serve PRF to their children. However, when parents did elect to serve PRF to their children, they employed strategies including serving the PRF in an alternative style (e.g. steaming instead of serving raw), adding an ingredient to the PRF (e.g. ranch dressing, cheese, sugar, or ketchup), involving children in the food preparation process, “tricking” the child to eat the PRF (e.g. telling the child that fish is chicken), and requiring the child to eat PRF. Results from this study will be used to create an intervention to help parents get their preschool children to eat PRF. Future investigations should focus on uncovering factors that motivate parents to repeatedly offer their children PRF, a key step in overcoming food neophobia.Grant Funding Source: USDA Grant No. 2011–68001‐30009; USDA/ARS Cooperative Agreement No. 58–6250‐0–008