Raising Adventurous Eaters

Book excerpt: Help kids develop a positive relationship with food, so they can become healthy and adventurous eaters for life! Is your child a picky eater? Do they insist on having the same foods served over and over again? Be it chicken nuggets, pizza, pancakes, or French fries—if your child is only eating a few foods regularly, their diet may be seriously lacking in the nutrition and vitamins they need to grow and be healthy. And you may feel stressed out and frustrated at mealtime. For many kids, picky eating is a sensory issue—whether it’s the smell, taste, texture, or appearance of food. So, how can you help your child overcome these sensory sensitivities and ensure that they get the nourishment they need? Written by a pediatric occupational therapist with a specialty certification in feeding, eating, and swallowing, Raising Adventurous Eaters offers eight evidence-based sensory strategies to help kids foster a healthy relationship with food. You’ll learn all about how picky eating can be caused by sensory processing differences, and find step-by-step strategies for dealing with each sense. By learning to lean into their senses, children will better understand what’s going on in their bodies. This fosters an intuitive eating approach, teaching kids to listen to their body’s hunger and fullness cues and respect and respond to those cues appropriately. Whether or not your child has a diagnosis of sensory processing disorder (SPD), or simply has sensory sensitivities when it comes to food, this book will help you set your child up for successful mealtimes, turning the most stressful time of the day into a time that your family can spend relaxing and bonding together around the table.