Easy Bites - the modern way to feed children
This is kind of shocking, but do you know what? The messages we get about feeding our kids in modern society are frequently way off base. This is not just our opinion; there is a mountain of research demonstrating this. Intrigued? Read on…
This means that the way you were probably raised as a child - and the way people around you are feeding kids - is not necessarily in line with the science. Fundamentally, this comes down to what we consider feeding children to be about. What is our main goal? To get children to eat the ‘right’ amount of the ‘right’ things, meal by meal, or to help them have a psychologically healthy relationship with food? You could see the first goal as being short-term, while the second is long-term.
Here at Easy Bites, we are all about working towards that long-term goal of raising a child who has a positive relationship with food, because we know that this is the path to health, happiness, and (paradoxically) a more varied diet. And do you know what? Excessive focus on that first, short-term goal can get in the way of this.
Time for a paradigm shift?
A ‘paradigm’ is a worldview, which includes a set of related theories. We could say the child-feeding paradigm of the 1950s was that children should eat all the food on their plate, be very grateful for it, and keep quiet. So this includes theories about the place of children in society (seen and not heard!) as well as ideas relating to economics and even religion.
The current feeding paradigm is tied up with ideas about health and children’s bodies, with parents being told that, to do right by their child, they need to get their kid eating a varied, healthy diet, persuading them to try new foods, to eat more of what’s good for them and less of what… isn’t. This leads to what can be described as the ‘get food down child’ mindset. A paradigm where adults know what (and how much) children should be eating and see their job as getting them to eat it.
“Um… adults DO know what and how much children should be eating?!” We hear you say. Well, sort of. Yes, we are equipped with knowledge about nutrition and balance that children can’t be expected to have, but once we’ve made appropriate decisions about which foods to offer, we can trust children to know how much they need to eat IF we approach feeding in a certain way (of which, more later).
We want children to enjoy as broad a diet as possible, and to be well nourished, but the ‘get food down child’ mindset can actually be a barrier to this.
Responsive feeding: the alternative to the ‘get food down child’ mindset
Many of those working in the area of child-feeding (including researchers and clinicians like dietitians, psychologists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists) are seeing an exciting paradigm shift towards what is known as responsive feeding.
Although the research behind responsive feeding started as long ago as the eighties and nineties, it was only just recognized as being best practice in the last decade. Now, responsive feeding is recommended by many organizations, including the American Head Start program, the American Heart Association, and the American Dietetic Association.
The Easy Bites mission
What gets us out of bed in the morning (along with a strong cup of coffee) is our drive to help parents feel great about feeding their child in a way that fits with the realities of daily life.
We know that a relaxed and confident parent is a happy parent. We also know that when you have worries about feeding your child, this can be super stressful and will likely really affect you; we feed our children several times a day, every day, and anxiety about how this is going can be a big deal. Whether you just want to learn more about best practice, or have a problem to solve (like ‘picky’ or ‘fussy’ eating) feeling confident and empowered is EVERYTHING.
We are feeding specialists, but we’re also parents, so you can trust that our advice is grounded in scientific research but is also, how shall we put it…? Real. We know that parenting a young child involves moments of magic interspersed with crisis management, sleep-deprivation, and a generous sprinkling of chaos.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE research evidence ❤️
There are many ways we use feeding research evidence to support you, but it can all be boiled down to the four pillars. Here they are:
How to Raise a Confident Eater with Easy Bites: The Four Pillars
Understanding your child’s eating
Sharing meals with your child
Using responsive feeding
Feeling good about your food parenting
Let’s check these out, one by one.
Pillar 1: Understanding your child’s eating
This pillar has two parts to it:
understanding typical development
understanding your child’s food personality
Understanding typical development
Forewarned is forewarned, right? Did you know that many of the things parents fret about in relation to young children’s eating are actually typical? But if you don’t know what to expect, when things change or problems present themselves, it can really throw you.
What the research says
In relation to knowing what’s typical, research has found that many parents don’t know about how children’ eating changes as they reach the beginning of their second year of life. This is when many children hit a ‘food-neophobic’ patch (this means wariness of unfamiliar foods) and may gravitate towards a narrow selection of familiar foods, possibly dropping things they used to like, in the process. Other researchers suggested that parents may have unrealistic expectations about how children eat, leading them to stop serving new or disliked foods far too quickly. Another study highlighted how shifts in eating due to changes in appetite as a child grows (along with how their increasing need to be independent) were poorly understood by the parents in their study.
A big part of what the Easy Bites app will give you is a great understanding of what to expect and when, as well as strategies for navigating changes as your child develops and grows.
Understanding your child’s food personality
You know that friend who you can 100% rely on to jump in and try the weirdest and wonderfulest novel food item at a restaurant? And the other friend who always likes to play it safe when you eat out together? Well, kids have their own food personalities too.
What the research says
As scientists have learned more about how children eat, they have highlighted different innate (inborn) characteristics that are relevant. Understanding that your child may eat in certain ways just because… they were born that way… can be very liberating. There is still lots you can do to support their eating, but some of it is simply outside your control and it really helps to recognize that. Here are just a few examples of these characteristics:
Your child’s sensory profile
(how we process smell, sound, etc., makes a big difference to how we eat)
Your child’s temperament, particularly how emotional they are
(how quickly and intensely they get upset compared to their peers is related to their eating)
Your child’s sense of taste
(especially how they react to bitterness, which is largely down to genes)
Our picky eating questionnaire (coming soon) will give you a great insight into your little one’s food personality. This will help you understand more about how who they are as a person affects how they eat. Our personalized courses then use this information to tailor the strategies we teach precisely to your family.
Pillar 2: Sharing meals with your child
There are lots of reasons why it might be tricky to share meals with your child. Perhaps you want to eat very different foods? Maybe you find it too stressful, and prefer to have a ‘grown up meal’ later? We get it! Perhaps your schedule doesn’t allow it. Or it could be that you just got into the habit of getting other things done while your child has their snack or meal, and it kind of stuck?
What the research says
Eating together as a family helps children eat more fruit and vegetables (please note: a family meal can just be a single parent eating with their child - it’s about connection and presence, not recreating a scene from ‘The Waltons’). Other research found that families who eat together more frequently experience less difficult mealtime behavior; eating together isn’t just beneficial because of what children eat, it helps with how they eat too!
The Easy Bites app will help you find ways to make eating together as a family work for you, even when you have different food preferences or your child is a picky eater.
Pillar 3: Using responsive feeding
We explained earlier that responsive feeding is widely recommended and can be seen as the ‘gold standard’ of feeding children. But what is it? Well, it’s often defined in terms of what it isn’t rather than what it is, so let’s start there. Non-responsive feeding involves parents either leaving children to it completely, sometimes termed permissive feeding, or going to the other extreme and trying to control what and how much they eat.
This control could be about getting them to try foods; it could be about persuading (or forcing) them to eat more than they want to, or to eat foods they don’t want to eat; or it could be about telling them when to stop eating. Unlike permissive feeding, responsive feeding doesn't mean it’s a free-for-all and kids just get to raid the refrigerator as and when they fancy it. Responsive feeding is centered on attunement to (and respect for) children’s sense of their own appetite.
And there is more to it than just the control element: Responsive feeding is also characterised by parents creating a clear structure around meals in terms of when and where they happen, as well as a focus on making meals about connection and togetherness.
What the research says
Wow - where to even start with this! There are just so many benefits of responsive feeding. It’s associated with lower levels of picky eating and greater enjoyment of food and it supports weight regulation in young children. Similarly, non-responsive feeding has been linked to young children’s emotional eating. Where picky eating is an issue, research suggests that battles may ensue, parents may become upset and feed non-responsively (trying to control what the child eats), which potentially makes the child’s diet worse. For us, there is no question about it; responsive feeding is the route to giving children a positive relationship with food that will last a lifetime.
Confused about how to introduce responsive feeding in your home? Don’t be. It sounds like there is a lot to it, but actually, when you understand what responsive feeding involves (and why) it will really begin to fall into place. We take you through the practicalities, step-by-step, in our Happy Eater course.
Pillar 4: Feeling good about your food parenting
It really is essential that, as a parent, you can be confident and positive about your parenting; you need to feel that you have all the tools in your toolbox that you need. That isn’t to say you won’t have days where it all gets a bit much - all parents are ultimately just doing their best and feeling their way through - but if you have a strong sense of being out of your depth, that can be extremely distressing.
What the research says
Parenting researchers talk about ‘self-efficacy’ - this is a concept that came from education research back in the 1970s and it refers to a sense of being able to ‘succeed’ in the parenting role. There is evidence that parents who feel that their feeding strategies are effective are more likely to experience positive emotions, whereas parents with children who are seen as difficult to feed are more likely to experience negative emotions. We also know that parents’ emotional reactions to how their children eat may impact their wider sense of self-efficacy, so this stuff really matters! Still more research has shown that parental self-efficacy has been linked to children eating more vegetables and less maternal distress in relation to feeding; if you feel confident about feeding your child this will benefit them AND you.
Our courses and how-tos will help you feel confident about your food-parenting. It’s vital that you can access information you can trust; information that is grounded in research and shared by experts with plenty of experience of helping families with feeding. And - because we’ve been there - our advice is served with a big side of practicality! You won’t find us telling you to get up at 6am to make a sandwich in the shape of a teddy…
Last but not least: parents are not to blame!
One thing we will fight to the death for, is our belief that parents shouldn’t be blamed for any problems they may have with feeding their child. Yes, we have lots of advice on what parents can do to make things better and how you can help your child by introducing responsive feeding to your home. Does this mean if things have gone off-track, you have done something wrong? No! Parents are doing the best they can with the information they have. Sadly, that information isn’t always great quality and there is a huge issue with parents not being able to get hold of good quality advice. Which is where we come in.
Feeding children is so many things. Joyful (occasionally) messy (mostly) frustrating (sometimes). Whatever mealtimes feel like in your house, we have your back - with our four pillars, the EasyBites App is along for the ride, from the moment you introduce solids through first grade.
References:
https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/nutrition/article/child-feeding-practices
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