Get Him To Eat His Greens

Fussy eater syndrome #269: won’t eat his greens. Aarti Pathak tells how to fix that one

- Aarti Pathak

As our little ones graduate to solid meals, we mums start thinking about how to feed our children vegetables. Some toddlers take to solid meals and vegetables effortlessly but must give their mums a decent amount of grief over their dietary preferences.

Pregnancy, lactation, and child nutrition counselor Sonali Shivlani explains, “Vegetables are important for toddlers due to their natural antioxidants and vitamins which help develop a child’s immunity.” She adds, “A toddler needs food portions which are ¼th the size of an adult portion. For a two-year-old, two to three tablespoons to ¼ Katori vegetable is more than enough for one sitting. With time, portions can be increased.”

Coming to the challenging part of how to make toddlers eat vegetables, the following suggestions from experienced mums may be of help:

Kids imitate everything that we do. When they hear us say, “I hate teenda and lauki,” they say it too. Similarly, when they see us eating healthy food with gusto, they follow suit. Grabbing a delicious bowl of peas and carrot pulao ourselves gets them excited about their bowl too. In fact, often children find the normal ghar ka khana which we are eating, more interesting than the kiddie veggie plates that the mums labouriously prepared for them.

Build their appetite. Hungry children eat better.

Stay consistent with your efforts to introduce children to and develop a liking for a vegetable. Kids like to eat within their comfort zone, so give them at least a month of initiation before they finally begin to accept a new vegetable. Sonali informs that it is scientifically proven that it takes 21 trials for a new taste to develop.