I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a parent say something along the lines of, “my child used to love vegetables, but now they won’t touch them”. What causes this phenomenon and what does it mean for our child’s eating?

Food neophobia is the rejection of new or unknown foods. This occurrence peaks between 2 and 6 years. Some have theorized that this is a mechanism to help mobile toddlers avoid trying new, toxic foods when they are able to walk away from their watchful parent’s eye. Useful in prehistoric days, but in modern times, this is largely unnecessary.  Studies have shown that higher food neophobia is associated with lower consumption of fruits and vegetables and a higher consumption of “non-core foods”. 

Ways to help childhood food neophobia.

Repeated exposure is one of the easiest ways to combat food neophobia. If you know that this is just one of many exposures they will have over the course of the month, year, their lifetime, then there is no pressure of whether or not they eat it. In the grand scheme of the food your child will eat over the course of their lifetime, one instance of eaten or uneaten broccoli seems much less impactful. The important thing is that they see it and are not pressured to eat it. 

Model a wide variety of food preferences. It may not seem obvious at first, especially if you were ever told “do as I say and not as I do”, but modeling good eating habits is a great way to raise a child with good eating habits. It makes sense in other areas. If we don’t want them to wear their shoes in the house, we also don’t wear shoes in the house. If we want them to brush their teeth every night, we also must brush our teeth every night. It should be the same with food. They are constantly learning and reevaluating how an adult interacts with their world based on what they see us do every day. I like to think that when they see us eat salad, even when they don’t eat it, they store the information that “adults eat salad” in the back of their mind to use at a time when salad feels less scary. I’ve heard countless times that this has helped parents try new foods, simply because they want their toddler to try them too. 

Trying foods in many different ways can help food neophobia. If you feel like your child is already in a rut and won’t try other, more adventurous foods, try making their current food choices more adventurous without “ruining” it. Cut foods into different shapes. Serve the same foods deconstructed. For instance, if they will only eat peanut butter sandwiches, try having the bread on the plate, with a little bowl of peanut butter and a little bowl of jelly. The next day you can flatten the bread and make a peanut butter jelly sushi roll up. The next day maybe cut the sandwich into fourths and put them on a skewer. Simply changing up how the food is offered will allow them to find small moments of flexibility that may help lead to more flexibility in the future, while remaining safe and comforting. If they are used to having chips with lunch, try different flavors of chips than what they are used to, while assuring them that their favorite chips will be served for lunch tomorrow. 

Remembering that differently flavored foods feel like completely different foods to a toddler. If they only want to eat chicken, having rosemary chicken one night, garlic chicken the next, and lemon pepper chicken the next can start to expand their palate and make new foods less scary. Another option is serving the chicken they are used to with different sauces to dip it in. 

Have a safe food at every meal. If your child is in the middle of childhood food neophobia, try offering the same variety of foods you want, with a food they will definitely want to eat at every meal. That can be bread and butter, or apple slices, whatever. Just make it something that they like and can fill up on if they do not want the meal. Remember to make it something you are okay with them having a large portion of and only eating that for dinner. It doesn’t count if you start restricting how much of their safe food they can have. That won’t feel very safe. 

Sometimes they may not eat, and that is okay. A toddler is not going to experience any lasting damage from missing a meal. If they choose to not eat, that is their choice. As long as you are offering something that is relatively close to their wheelhouse, you have done your job. It also might mean they are not actually hungry. Allow them to honor those hunger and fullness signals. 

Get them involved in cooking. Seeing how something is prepared counts as exposure. It also helps the food feel safer. I think of it like the difference in cooking something yourself and trying a mystery dish covered in cheese at a potluck. There could be anything under there! I am much more likely to eat and enjoy something if I know what’s in it and how it was prepared. Same for kiddos. Even when they protest you putting in mushrooms, that is still getting them used to mushrooms being in things.

It is normal for them to prefer beige food. Crackers, rice, pasta, cereal bars. All of these are totally normal for your child to prefer and you have not failed them if they do. They are delicious. We are programmed to like carbohydrates and children need quite a bit.

The main thing to remember is that childhood food neophobia is a phase, and it will pass. The less pressure you have at meal times, the less intense and scary new meals will seem.