Ashlee Williams, MD: Bribery, negotiations. Are these words you commonly use to describe mealtime with your children. You're not alone. For parents, getting kids to eat nutritious foods can feel like a daily battle. The good news, simple changes in how families approach mealtimes can transform picky eaters into food explorers.

Welcome to The Healthier You Podcast. I'm Dr. Ashlee Williams, and today I'm joined by Dr. Christina Brown, a Board Certified Pediatrician and Pediatric Lifestyle Medicine Physician within the Center for Healthy Weight and Lifestyle Medicine at Kaiser Permanente. Today we're exploring practical strategies that make nutritious eating for kids both fun and sustainable. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for joining us today.

Christina Brown, MD: Thanks so much for having me.

Host: This is such an exciting topic. Okay, so just tell us, what does healthy eating actually look like for children, and why is it important to establish these habits early?

Christina Brown, MD: It can look different in every household. We're all just doing our best. I'm a mom, myself. But we've all just come off of survival mode in the summer, getting back into school here. So let's start with breakfast, for example. So trying to figure out a good, healthy protein to have with breakfast and trying to figure out, adding fruits and into your meals, that would be great to do as well. For lunchtime, if you can, packing a lunch with your child. Help them figure out what some of their favorite foods are and you can pack the lunch together so you can be prepared for the next day. So in each family, you can try to figure out what some of their favorite foods are, make it exciting together, but you want to be including some fruits and vegetables, filling about half of the plate. A quarter of the plate having a carb and a quarter of the plate being a protein, following that MyPlate food model.

Host: So what role does family modeling play in how our kids eat?

Christina Brown, MD: So as a parent, you should be role modeling yourself that healthy eating. So trying to include fruits and vegetables on your plate as well, trying to get rid of the screens at mealtime. So turn off the TV, put that cell phone away. Otherwise, your child is going to want to do the same. And when you have that screen in front of you, you're not able to notice your own cues for yourself.

You're not able to notice your hunger cues or your fullness cues so you can end up over or undereating. So definitely as a parent, you've got to role model those healthy habits from including what to choose and then also how to eat it.

Host: Great tip. I also am a mom of two girls and one of our favorite activities is going to the grocery store. They absolutely love it. So how can parents get their children more involved in food choices and healthy eating and preparing meals?

Christina Brown, MD: Yeah, so first of all, when you're going to the grocery store, try to have a snack or something beforehand. So going to the grocery store hungry is never a good idea. You're going to just go for the junk food. And then when going to the grocery store, try to spend the bulk of your time around the edges of the grocery store.

That's the produce side. And then also like the meat aisles, and then also like the dairy and bread aisles. So the stuff in the middle is more of the processed food. So I try to talk to my patients about eating real foods rather than the food that comes from a bag or a box. That's the food that comes from a factory rather than the stuff that comes from the ground or the trees.

So, but make a list ahead of time if you can, so you can be prepared. The more prepared you are, the better. And you can even pick out a few recipes together that you want to make. So it's all age dependent as well. If you have a teen, you can help them build an incredible life skill. Say you can pick Tuesdays are your teen's day to cook, and they can research a recipe, figure out what they'll need for it. They can help you go to the grocery store and pick out what they'll need and how much of it. And then Tuesdays are their night, and then they can build their repertoire of some of their favorite recipes and that they can keep with them for the rest of their life. It's an amazing life skill.

Host: It's great. I think that's a great tip that you should never leave the house without a snack, for your kids. So just beyond fruits and vegetables, are there any other tips for healthy eating habits for kids?

Christina Brown, MD: Yeah. Yeah. Well one is always preparing ahead of time. So when you're hungry, or you're tired, you are not going to make your best food choices. Same like if you're stressed, right? So if you can plan ahead of time what you want your meals to look like. Of course things come up, of course things change.

But if you can plan ahead of time, that's always better. But also pick small wins. Okay. If you do need to go out to eat, it's always better to choose the grilled options compared to the fried options. Okay? If you need a drink, choose the water compared to the juice or the soda, if you can. They pack so many grams of sugar into those sugar sweetened beverages and say, you're working so hard.

You're going to the gym. You're working on your healthy habits. You can drink so many of your calories so quickly with those sugary drinks. They're not great for your teeth. They're not great for preventing diabetes, they're just not great for your health. So you can take a big step backwards, you know? So in two seconds downing a drink, especially on a hot summer day.

So just little things can all add up over time. So I tell parents, well, who does the grocery shopping? Who pays the bill? Like, why? Why is it even in the house, right? You're complaining your child is drinking four cans of soda a week. Well, let's not even have it in the house because if you're seeing it there, a lot of people pass by the pantry or pass by the fridge. If you see it there, you want it, or if it's an old habit, you go for it, but let's try changing that habit. Let's just not even have it in the house, so you're not even craving it.

You're not even going for it. You have to plan ahead for yourself. When you're in that motivated state, make the changes then so that when you are tired, when you are hungry, when you are stressed, you know you have a plan already in place for yourself.

Host: Got it. So I think picky eating is a concern for a lot of parents. For us, I have a two and a 5-year-old. It depends on the day of the week, the way the wind's blowing. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Do you have any tips for parents on how to encourage kids to pick healthy options like fruits or vegetables?

Christina Brown, MD: Yeah. Yeah. So one, starting from a really young age, I recommend to read with your children different books that talk about all the different kinds of foods. So that can be like the Dragons Love Tacos book or some of the scratch and sniff books that can smell the different foods or some of the texture books where you can feel what a lemon peel may feel like.

Right. So reading the different books and talking about the different smells and textures and flavors of foods. And then when they're really little, even just letting them experience the food is part of the process so they don't have to finish the whole thing. Even them playing with it on their plate is step one towards getting to them to actually taste the food. It's not what we want to see all the way, but it's a step towards getting to where we want to go. Okay. But try to set up the good habits all around. So minimizing distractions at the meal, trying to role model all of the things that we talked about. But even if they're kind of exploring the food, that's step one. But then take them to a farmer's market or take them to a farm, take them to a pumpkin patch or let them see how food grows, and that can get them more excited about it. My nephew, he would eat the zucchini that came from our garden, even though he wouldn't eat it from the grocery store, he liked to see where it came from.

 But you could even plant a small garden yourself. Or if you don't have the land for it, make a little herb garden that you could do, but next to your kitchen sink and let kids see what happens when a seed turns into a plant and get them excited about food, about real food. And that can create a gateway for you to talk about food, get them excited about it. And so that can be the start of the process to help with the picky eating. I also recommend to, if there's one food that they like, try something similar. Or if there's a food they like, add a condiment to it that can get them to closer to trying something else. So, do foods that are similar and that can help stepwise, getting them closer to something else, but never forcing, just following their cues, keeping mealtime fun. And that can help with the picky eating.

Host: Yeah. I love the tip about the involving hands-on with gardening and also involving reading such great, that's great information. Can you talk a little bit about how important having set family meal times are for getting our kids to eat healthy?

Christina Brown, MD: Yeah, and kids are creatures of habit. They, it helps them know what to expect. It helps reduce stress for them when they know what to expect. So it is helpful to have a set mealtime best you can. We know some days you may have sports or scouts or things like that. But if you have approximately a set mealtime and if everyone can sit down to the meal together and can role model those healthy habits, that can help.

So we know other things come up or parents may work late one night, but best you can trying to have a set mealtime can be helpful so they know what to expect.

Host: Then speaking about mealtime, there's been some research about how extending mealtimes, even for just 10 minutes can encourage kids to eat fruits and vegetables. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Christina Brown, MD: Yeah, so it can reduce some of the pressure, right? It may be a different way than how we grew up. But it allows children that exploration time and allows them to be more comfortable with it, and gives them that time to get more used to it. And also notice their hunger cues.

They maybe had to transition from whatever else they were doing and then see what everyone else was eating, get more used to the idea, and then, take the time to eat those fruits and vegetables. We're always in a hurry these days, aren't we?

Host: Yes, we're always in such a hurry. But yeah, I agree. Just sitting down and having moments with our kids, I do think it does help get some more food in them and it can improve getting healthy foods in them. So thank you so much for this insight, Dr. Brown. Here are key takeaways from today's episode.

One: Fruits and vegetables provide essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber that children need for proper growth and development. Two: Getting children involved in meal planning, grocery shopping, and food preparation increases their investment in eating healthy foods and builds valuable skills. Three: Sitting down to eat with a family without screens provides natural opportunities to teach portion control and healthy habits. Extending meal times by just 10 minutes can significantly increase how many fruits and vegetables children eat. Four: Establish regular meal times. Make water your child's default beverage. Teach mindful eating and avoid forcing children to clean their plates.

Five: Success with picky eaters requires patience and persistence, including them in meal preparations, continuing to offer rejected foods and give children, choices within healthy options can help. For more expert advice, visit kp.org/doctor and listen to more episodes of Healthier You wherever you get your podcast.

If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to subscribe and share it with others. Thank you and from all of us at Kaiser Permanente, be well.